Me and my musician friends are always saying that
when music stops it becomes architecture
and when architecture flows
it becomes music.
Hoehyeon Citizen Apartment is in the outskirts of Seoul
and it is one of the last council blocks
that was built in the 1970s.
I was commissioned to do a track for 'Musicity'
which explores the connection between a place
and how that would then go on to inspire someone who was making music.
I thought this building really symbolised
a lot of the tensions and conflicts in Seoul.
There are still people living here
but the plan is to turn it into artist studios.
That really rang a big bell for me with the notion of gentrification.
The conflict is intergenerational as well,
you have the generation that really worked incredibly hard
and created the kind of impetus for that growth
and then you’ve got a generation who are questioning
why that’s still happening - ‘do we really need to be doing this?’
and ‘who is it for?’.
‘Is it for the big corporations?’,
‘who is getting what and why?’.
Seoul is my hometown and I really like it
but it’s too busy and competitive.
The locals use the expression ‘Seoul tension’
which pretty much sums it up.
It’s harsh to live in Seoul.
Sometimes we need a break.
Seoul doesn’t let people relax.
Sometimes
I just want to leave.
I spent my childhood around here
and I have memories of
getting a scolding from my mum when I came to play out here.
And now it has become this interesting area
where past, present and future coexist.
As a city changes rapidly,
it’s architecture,
people and their lifestyles
change as well.
With these changes in mind
we thought that
arts and technology could help connect people
and some of the unknown places in the city.
The arts can play a big role in this effort.
After I’d done the commission, I’d put forward an idea to come back
and turn it into a performance
and was very open to the idea of collaborating.
Joowon Song was put forward
as a Korean choreographer.
I met Steve in March
when he visited Seoul for the first time.
After that we kept in touch over email,
talking about the idea of conflict.
There are many types of conflict
- it can be religious, social or family-based.
We started to talk about it in more personal terms,
talking about the conflicts we each had in our minds.
After this talk,
we found the movements to express all of these ideas.
Sound and dance use different languages.
This space has its own language.
My ambition was that all of these different themes
would meet and create a theme of conflict.
Public art is so good and beautiful to me.
As long as it moves people I will keep doing public art.
Seoul is changing too fast.
My hope is that our people don’t invest all their energies
just pursuing economic growth.
I wanted to create a song that reflected
Seoul, the way it is today
because Seoul will change a lot
and I just wanted to record the present.