Hyunwoo Ha’s lecture at
Chosun University (Lecture date: 28 April 2015)
Translated by Guckkasten-English
Credits
to
1. 포도가지
http://blog.naver.com/sonkhj1116
2. alsdudk from
Naver (also a member in Cyworld’s Guckkasten Club)
3.
http://gall.dcinside.com/mgallery/board/view/?id=ppl0523&no=15049
Hello, everyone. My name is Hyun-woo Ha
and I am the vocalist of Guckkasten.
I often get lost when I speak, but because today is a special day, I have prepared myself like this. Look. (shows notes) Speaking is not something I find difficult, but meeting the audience without my music and just with my life’s story is quite unfamiliar. I’m rather nervous and I’m actually a little scared, but I’ll muster my courage.
The reason why I decided to come here is
because I came to read the critical essay, ‘Fall of Ethica’, and found this
book more captivating than any other novels. Although I still have a long way
to go to introduce myself as an artist, this book has given me some guidance in
what I need to pursue as an artist. In Guckkasten’s 2nd album, there
is a song called ‘Feather’, and this song was written with an inspiration I got
from a passage in this book that said ‘I always give unstinted praise to those
that have fallen. Is it not the most beautiful part of human that they gain
what they have pursued and then fall nobly?’ I felt I must not turn down the
call from someone that inspired me so. (Note:
The author of ‘Fall of Ethica’, Hyung-Chul Shin, invited Hyun-Woo to give
lecture to his students) It would be an honour and a good experience for me
personally.
I am in charge of guitar, vocal, song writing, and interviews in Guckkasten. I cannot make other members do the interview. I’ve had a lot of ups and downs before I formed the band Guckkasten. I’d like to tell you how I came about here with music.
I was born in Jangsoo of Jeollabukdo (North Jeolla Province), and moved to Ansan when I was 7. I spent all my school years in Ansan, and I was just a quiet student. I was full of dreams when I was in the 1st grade. I wanted to do so many things, and I still have many dreams. But I’m quick to decide whether I would work on something or not, so if I feel I cannot continue, then I would stop. Amongst all these, music was something that I could continue doing until the end without losing much energy.
I admit my music is quite difficult and there are some elements that people find uncomfortable. It’s probably because the music is based on one’s deficiencies. Some say that I look a little handsome now because of my fair skin and looking younger than my age, and because of my appearance people think I may not know much about suffering. But I didn’t look like this in my teenage years. You can say that I’ve groomed up with age. I lacked in many ways when I was young and I spent my teenage years in turmoil. I felt I was a reject, full of incompetence, helplessness, and a loser. I was physically weak, I wasn’t exceptionally smart, nor was I tall or strong. I felt I was a nobody and this reached its peak in my middle school years (7th to 9th grade). I had no friends and all I can remember about myself at that time was just drawing cartoons at the corner of a classroom. I was frightfully shy and because I did not speak much with my family, I was literally trapped inside myself.
I had a girlfriend when I was in 11th grade but she cheated on me and dated another guy from Incheon. (Note: Incheon is a city situated northwest of Ansan, approx. 29km away) I thought to myself then, ‘how pathetic could I be to lose my girl to another guy’. I think that was probably the first time that I really looked into myself. I tried to think of something that I was better than others, but I could think of nothing. The only charming point I had were my ankles. Can you imagine how sad this is? Small ears, very few eyebrows, short in height, thin wrists, I was pathetic. I hated myself for being born this way. I thought, ‘am I just going to face reality and give up, or am I going to improve my life by tuning myself?’
At that time, my mother sent me to art
institute without letting my father know. One day, the instructor there said
‘Do you know when a man looks most attractive? It is when he is completely
absorbed in something; like me right now’ and just like he said, he looked
really cool. So I thought I will find something to concentrate, but I cannot
show off drawing to girls, because you draw and paint on your own. Something
that I could show off to others was music and singing.
I actually hated going to singing rooms. I remember in year 10, I wanted to get into the student council and I sat for an interview. They asked me what I was good at, and I told them I don’t have a talent, but I have a hobby of humming songs on my own. They asked me to sing a song in front of them, and I murmured the 1st phrase of a slow ballad and just walked out. So I didn’t get in. That is how much I hated singing in front of other people. But I went to singing rooms four times a week and sometimes more, and sang until I coughed up blood when I decided to renew myself from the wounded heart. Shouting and singing also changed my personality and I’ve become quite outgoing. Guys, girls, everybody saw me as a really cool guy and I completely nailed it during the school festival in my year 12. I was a bit up myself at that time and I went on the stage in baggy outfits; no tie, shirt out and sleeves rolled up, dragging my shoes, and sang ‘She’s gone’ under a spotlight. I received deafening cheers for the first time in my life, and I realized that one can be loved when he/she really focus and work on something.
But as all parents do, my parents wanted
me to go to a university and they were severely against music. My mother once
wished to become an artist but she gave up on her dreams because she couldn’t
study art in the countryside and she had to support the family. So she was
supportive about me going to an art college. My father was against the idea
because he thought learning technical skills would be more practical for
living. But I eventually ended up going to an art school. I did not sing for
quite some time.
Then the funny thing happened. In my
freshmen year, I was walking down the street near the college and a homeless
looking guy comes up to me. He says ‘Excuse me’ and I was like, ‘..yes?’ I had
a weird fashion sense at that time with my hair dyed in green, and I was in
Nirvana t-shirt, green pants, and green shoes. He asks, ‘Do you like music?’
and I said ‘Yes, I do’. Then he asks ‘Can you sing?’ and I said ‘Yes, I like
singing’. Then he tells me that he’s in a school band and he is in the same
college, studying tourism management. I tell him that I’m majoring art and we
find we’re both 20. He said the band is doing punk and that the singer doesn’t
need good skills, but just need to express one’s anger. So I auditioned for the
band and I think I sang some songs by Skid Row, like “I remember you”. They
found me better than they had expected. They thought I would just scream but after
hearing me sing, they wanted me in. I performed like crazy since then.
But soon after, the seniors in the band
hazed newcomers and we had to drink a lot of alcohol. Obviously this wasn’t
what I had planned as I wanted to do real music. I hate this kind of
junior-senior relationship because I had similar experience of getting beaten
up by the seniors in the art club at high school. I seriously thought about
leaving the band and doing the music for real, and I discussed my plans with the
drummer over some instant noodles and soju at a playground. I think I looked trustworthy
in the drummer’s eyes. The drummer is really a weirdo. He got himself in a band
not because he liked playing drums, but because he just likes doing something
on stage. When he gets hyped from playing drums, he pulls out cymbals and does
that funny dance. He needed someone that took music seriously, because he can’t
be doing that funny dance all alone, right? He told me that if I leave to go to
Seoul for some serious music, he is determined to follow me and quit school as
well.
When you’re only 20, you’re almost
ignorant of the world. Of course, the 20 year olds here would probably have
your own life’s philosophy, but when you look back after a decade, you will realize
that you were kind of cute now. For me, I’m talking about my life 15 years ago
from now. The world that I knew when I was only 20, its boundaries, seeing the
world through the things that I have experienced… I knew nothing of society. I
had so many thoughts passing through my mind; the despairs, the helplessness,
and fear I experienced in my teenage years, and without knowing much about the
real world out there, I decided to quit my studies. Of course I could have just
applied for leave and come back, but I did not want to leave any room for
returning. When I look back now, I think I had the guts to be decisive because
I was ignorant. Ignorance is really scary because it makes you become a
daredevil. When I told my mom about quitting my studies for good, she was
completely shocked and disappointed. If I were a parent and my child left
school like that, I would be, too. My parents were totally heartbroken and I
heard things like “I never want to see you again”, “you’re no longer my son”
and all that. I couldn’t go back home, so the drummer and I sought lodgings at our
friends’ place.
Our friends started avoiding us and
closed doors as this prolonged. Then my life got really rough and I lived in
all kinds of ways that I possibly could. I faced reality that was difficult
for a 20 year old to bear. The drummer, he’s very dirty and unhygienic. When we
first met, he had ice cream on his face, and his t-shirt that I thought to be
of a straw colour was actually white gone sallow. I huddled up with this guy to
pass the blistering cold winter. There was a time when I couldn’t take a bath
for a month, so I earned money from part-time jobs like home delivery services
and worked at construction sites, so I could at least have money to take a
shower and eat to survive. I think I spent most of my 20s at construction
sites. I literally built the YMCA building in Ansan!
All these felt like I was imposing
punishment on myself. I had to take responsibility for the decision that I
made. The exhaustion from physical labour, the cold, but even in anxiety, it
felt euphoric even. I felt I was lashing myself. I am actually very lazy and
passive, and I guess I needed something to push me to the edge. Looking back
now, I think I made the right choice in my younger years. I imagined doing
music without having to carry and move heavy things and I am grateful that
things turned out this way. How I came to be who I am right now is because
there was the reckless and ignorant 20 year old Hyunwoo back then. What seemed
reckless and worthless then, may turn out to be the critical turning point.
After such wandering period, we finally
got to come to Seoul. We left only a note in the school band. ‘We leave for
real music. Sorry.’ and we ran away. We looked out for a guitarist for the band
as there were only vocal and drums. We posted recruiting offers on the internet
with a message that went something like ‘though we may have not achieved a lot
now, we have unlimited potentials to become great, so whoever that wants to
make fabulous songs, join this band.’ With this, we met our current guitarist,
Gyuho Jun. He came to Seoul with a guitar he bought with the money he earned
from digging a tunnel, but we couldn’t play together because we couldn’t play
the instruments properly. I didn’t even know what C chord was. Gyuho was utterly
shocked and was about to leave, but we held him back. We were desperate for him
to join us because when he played, we couldn’t see his fingers move because he
played so fast. We wanted him at all costs, and we started living together.
We copied well known songs at first.
Hard-core, rap, ballads, SeoTaiji (Note:
famous Korean pop-group from early 90’s) and many others, and we went
around clubs at Hongdae area (Short or
“Hong-Ik University”. Around Hongdae, there are many clubs and stages for
underground bands to perform, and many indie-bands start their music careers
here) and asked them to give us chance to play. The name of our band was
“New Unbalance”. I liked New Balance shoes, but I played around with the name
and called it New Unbalance, and hence the name was made out of fun. At that
time we just enjoyed being on stage to sing and perform.
After about a year or two, the weight of
reality became a heavy burden and we could not maintain the band just for fun.
We were amateurs in music, and we were exhausted from the band life as we could
not perform for amusement. We worked too much. It is important to experience as
many things as possible in your 20s, but the reality that a 20-21 year old
Hyunwoo had to bear was too much, and I was mentally burnt out. The band
dismembered and we made another band, The C.O.M. It stood for ‘the compass of
music’ and I felt the name was just awesome. I wanted the band to be more
organized and systematic, and rather than doing the music just for fun, we
wanted to develop musically and started making our own music.
I came to a deadlock when I had to write
lyrics for the songs because all I experienced were the years of wandering and
amusement. It was the first time that I came to treat music seriously. The
things I thought in my teenage years were ‘why am I like this, why am I in this
world’, and I started questioning about my true self when I started writing
lyrics. I couldn’t write about the world because I knew nothing about it. Hence
I thought ‘myself’ would be the best source to work on because there is nothing
I knew better than myself. But when I actually came to write about me, I
realized I knew absolutely nothing. Then I started to really contemplate about
who Hyunwoo is. But the more I thought, the more complicated I got. I had always
thought I knew myself well, but I knew nothing about me, which was far less
than I knew about my friends. I needed to find someone that could help me out
when I was confused but the people around me were only Gyuho who knew nothing
except for guitar, and Jung-gil who had no brains at all. Hence that led me to
books.
Before then, I considered books to be
just a bunch of papers with difficult words, tied in a bundle. But then again,
writings, whether it be an essay, an article, or whatever, they are the composition
of the authors’ thoughts that is portrayed on paper. The authors arranged their
thoughts and stories that they wanted to share with the others, and they
carefully selected words through much consideration. I started reading in hopes
that I would be able to communicate with the author whilst I was reading. To be
honest, I could not understand a lot of the parts when I read a book. The words
were difficult. Introspection was, like, intro what? Ego… what’s its definition? All these were
unknown universe. Myself was an undiscovered world and books, they, too, were
new. I spent my early 20s like that and I went to do my service in military. (Note: all Korean men between the ages of
18~38 must serve in military for approximately 22 months.)
Before I went to do military service, my
20s were just nothing. My life was nothing but sufferings, and although I felt
I was working hard and searching hard, the sense of helplessness and emptiness
never left me. When I think back, I feel the most terrifying thing in this
world is feeling helpless. If I threw myself into the world more boldly and
failed marvellously, I would at least have the scars of failure. But I didn’t
face the challenge resolutely enough and spent my time carelessly like a ghost.
I wasted my youth like that.
When I served in military, I served as a
driver because I had a working experience of driving a van at a music institute
when I was 22. I was frequently reprimanded for being directionally challenged.
I was also ordered to be a cheerleader during a football match because I
excelled in shouting. I got caught from playing a guitar, so I was banned from
singing and playing the instrument, so I had to turn my desires for guitar to
something else. Hence I began to write and read. I think I read more booked in
those two years than all throughout my life. I think I read every book I could
find there, even reading “Donguibogam” (Note:
Donguibogam is a medical encyclopaedia of Korean medicine, also known as
Principles and Practice of Eastern Medicine.) My writings were raw and
rough, but I just kept on writing nevertheless.
Then in one autumn, I think I was a
corporal then, I was writing things on my notepad at military training ground.
I had a dream of becoming a poet and I liked writing poems. It was a windy day,
and I heard the wind’s voice as it swept by me. Please don’t think this is
weird. You may think I’m talking of complete nonsense, but it is my true
experience. I rarely talk about this because I get weird looks, but... oh well.
The wind tells me ‘everything will pass’. I was totally stunned because I was
the only one there. Then I realized for the first time, that all the things
surrounding me had been trying to talk to me in their own language.
The title of Guckkasten’s 2nd
album is ‘Frame’. I saw this frame as one’s view and their attention. I gave
such name because I wanted to convey the message that “the things I miss out
on, the things that are always with me, and the things that I always see but
the ones that I do not pay attention to, these lifeless things will become
alive and will come to me the moment I look with attention”. I first
experienced this from the wind at the military training ground.
Before this experience, I tried to find
something inside myself when I write but from the moment I experienced the
possibility of communicating with objects, I placed myself in many different
positions. I substituted and compared myself with the object, and became the
object itself. Through this process, I learned many things and felt my range of
thoughts and identity were expanding. This was such a thrilling and exciting
experience for me and I wrote on madly.
I have never formally learnt all the
things that I do. I never learnt how to write a song, so it takes many hours
for me to make a song. Basically it takes me 3 days plus. And because I don’t
have the fundamental knowledge, even if it is just writing short lyrics, I
select and assort words from my writings that are 4-5 pages long in A4 sheets.
It is discouraging when people’s reactions are ‘What is this? Your writings are
pretentious and weird’ when I poured my heart and soul into it. But they could
be right. I’m not a complete man and my music was made from an incomplete
environment. I think I am at a stage of developing
by showing my music to people and maturing from them. Seeing these processes
and sharing these changes and experience together is a part of art and I
believe it is one of the beauties of it.
I learned pottery after being discharged
from the military service, then Gyuho called me to do music one last time and I
went to Gangwondo. I wrote songs madly for a year and half, and went on stage
from time to time.
Since I never learned how to express and
organize a structure of a song, the music was rather poor in quality and I was
just lost. We made a solemn promise amongst ourselves when we first wrote our
songs, which was that we will not make our music to reflect society. That our
songs will be about exploring our egos, developing our identity, authenticity,
and building a firm musical realm. The reason why we chose to make our songs
away from society is because we felt that we had to step out from the social
and moral boundaries to create our own robust art. I looked up for the definition of ‘morality’
through Naver (the most used search
engine in Korea) and it said ‘conformity to the rules of right, public
opinion, or virtuous conduct that constituents of a society must carry out’. Following
common practices within a society may be the right thing to do, but I thought
art had to be something different and must not follow social practices. Of
course, this is only limited to Guckkasten’s music and its theme and how the
band should be put forward.
Therefore it was difficult. It would have been so much easier to find sources for music and commune with listeners if we chose to sing about love or things that surround us. I regarded Guckkasten as the last band of my life. If the band did not work out, I would have become a potter by now. Pottery was charming and I learnt a fair bit. Anyways, we worked at a bar in the evening and made songs during the day at the guest house (Note: the guest house was run by Gyuho’s parents), and eventually we came out with a demo.
The music we created then is different
from the music we showed in ‘I am Singer’. (Note:
I am Singer is a Korean music program that brought much attention to
Guckkasten.) If ‘I am Singer’ is a decorated version with lot of make-ups,
Guckkasten’s music is a naked face with no make-ups, so the songs are odd and
peculiar, and this goes the same for our lyrics. These are the things that I
found in myself from self-exploration.
When we released the demo, I was taken
aback. Even I found my music to be strikingly odd and strange. Then I came to
realize ‘This is how I look. These are the things that I have. I am the person
that is like my songs.’ It was hard to find myself when I tried so much, but I
came to know myself when I saw the outcome that was created in the searching
process. I learnt this from the music that I made. The anxiety, the queerness, the
strangeness of something that is comprehensive when it is seen roughly but
actually incomprehensive, the ominous sources... I think these are the beauty
of Guckkasten’s music. This is why we are difficult to appeal to the public,
because not many people can easily respond to our music. But as you know, my
voice is rather refreshing, clear, and charming, and I can be a little
attractive when I am singing, right? So I wasn’t so much worried that
Guckkasten’s music would be too far off from the public. At the same time, I
knew that due to precariousness in our music, the listeners may find our songs
a bit difficult. But to me, these uncertainties are extremely charming.
Have you ever heard of an art
genre called cubism? Pablo Picasso’s works are called cubism. It is an
investigation on epistemology (theory of knowledge), which means looking into
our general knowledge to see how we came to know them, and falling through the
expectations of audiences and perplexing them. This is similar to our music.
Investigating the things that we think we know and contemplating on how we came
to know them, and we fall through the expectations of listeners, but it’s not
discouraging them, but only puzzling them and giving them an unfamiliar shock.
For example, let’s say that I am a blind
person, who has never seen anything throughout the entire life, but had a
successful surgery and just saw things for the first time. Do you think I can
immediately say that a rose is beautiful and a blue sky is wonderful? I think
the shock and awe of unfamiliarity starts right there. There are many things that we see all the time
through the same frame; objects, people, ideas and ideologies, our identities,
and et cetera. But I am trying to look at these with some unfamiliarity and
from a different angle, so that it would give a new perspective and could be
viewed differently, and I’d like to pursue these in my music.
We’ve reached our thirties while we were
pursuing for these new perspectives and we thought we had built our firm musical
realm. Even though it was a little awkward with some faults here and there, and
it was imperfect like an unripe fruit, but we thought we had our own world of
music. We had that pride and confidence. Hence we did not succeed financially
with our music then. I’m not saying that things are different now because it’s
the same, but even in that situation, I was happy and confident. It is because
I had my own way of expressing myself and my world in my own language.
Then we got a chance to go on ‘I am a
Singer’, the TV show. This TV program motivated us to tear down our world and
re-build it. It was also a good chance to promote the band Guckkasten, and
personally, I got to reflect on my identity as a vocalist by contemplating how
I would sing a song, how I would analyse it, and how I would treat that piece.
This is because it is different from singing Guckkasten’s songs. I know
Guckkasten’s songs because I made them and I’m the one who knows that song the best.
Singing other people’s songs and analysing the music in my own ways, made me carefully
consider about my identity as a vocalist. It was also a good experience to
carry the responsibility to put on a good show to the public. We really worked
hard so that we wouldn’t embarrass ourselves in front of the whole country. I
think we performed 15 songs altogether, and we worked extremely hard with
rearranging and playing the piece so we wouldn’t make a fool of ourselves.
Luckily, many people received us well and going on the show was a wonderful experience
for us. That program’s stage gives different tension from the stages that we
usually go on, so the program had helped us immensely.
But then your days cannot always be
sunny, and we got into a legal dispute with our former agency. Our working studios
and practicing studios were gone and we came back to Ansan and got a small room
at a rooftop. We did not perform as we did not want to force ourselves to work
during the litigation period. We felt we needed some time to look back at
ourselves and our music after being together for more than a decade. Hence we
spent a year and half without performing, and I created my own world at the
small rooftop space. I spent an average 11 hours per day for a year and half
writing music. I wrote madly and made countless songs. I tore down my method of
expressing music, my own mechanism, and everything. Then I developed and
created new ways of expression and methods and wrote songs for the 2nd
album and some more.
Looking back now, I come to think the
litigation period had turned out to be a rather valuable time for me. I think I
tend to achieve something through some kind of an incident... like I have to
drop out of school when I was a student, I have to go to Gangwondo and do some
strange music, I have to read books in the army... like these cases, I think I
always tend to be in some kind of a situation to get something. Like the
characters from novels, the story develops with an incident and conflicts arise
but then come to a solution and a change is made. I tried not to look at these
incidents negatively, and I tried to make these incidents beneficial, and these
times turned out to be very helpful.
I think my attitude towards my life
changed, too. Until then, I only focused on myself, thinking ‘I am just going
to do the things I like’ and worked hard on my own. But I learnt a big lesson
as I got a lot of support from my fans that sent me letters with words of
support and presents like heath supplements. I quote from one of my favourite
books, ‘The Zahir’ by Paulo Coelho. ‘When I had nothing more to lose, I was
given everything. When I ceased to be who I am, I found myself. When I
experienced humiliation and yet kept on walking, I understood that I was free
to choose my destiny.’ I very much empathize with this part and this led me to
write ‘Oedipus’. You all know Oedipus, right? From the Greek myths? I am not
talking about Oedipus complex, but the character itself. I used the character
Oedipus in the song to express the life I felt throughout my 35 years of living
and the will to develop the destiny.
After going through this difficult period,
we got to release our 2nd album. It is receiving good remarks. In
our 1st album, we expressed the things as it was, saying it hurts
when it hurt. For instance, if there is a monster in the maze, I wrote there is
a monster in the maze, and there is only entrance and no exit. Guckkasten’s 1st
album was about appealing a kind of symptom to others. It is a lot like looking
back at my teenage years. I cannot exactly explain why but I think I’ve been
sensing those all along. My first goal was to describe those uneasy things,
just as they were, and in order to do so I did a lot of image trainings.
I just think of an image when I am
making music because I do not know the chords or the flow, having not learnt
them. For example, Oedipus is walking. He is walking to overcome his destiny.
Tum-ta-da, tum-ta-da, tum-ta-da, tum-ta-da. The song was written at this tempo,
with this beat. Another example, in Faust, which is a song that I wrote after
reading the book ‘Faust’, there is a part with a lyric that says ‘about to pull
the trigger’. I thought of an image of firing a gun, pulling a trigger, going ‘bang-bang-bang’,
and we’ve put this in our song and there is a part where the song goes tum-tum-tum,
doom-doom-doom. Something like this. So
when I am writing a song, I think of an image rather than working on the melody
or chords, and this gave uniqueness in our music, making our songs interesting
to listen to. I think this kind of expression is the most important source in
Guckkasten’s music.
So, we are continuing with music after
all these ups and down, and I think lot about why I am doing music and for
what. I tend to think about ‘why am I doing this in this way’ when I am working
on something, and I think about why am I singing for living, when I could have
done something else like pottery, painting, or office works. As I have mentioned earlier, I thought of
myself to be a reject in my youth. Like a failure and someone that was not
supposed to be born. I’ve been living with such belief, but with music, I found
the possibility to fill the emptiness with acquired sources and build up my
life in my own way. Of course this can be found in many other areas such as in
writing, drawing, and athletes can find this through the sports that they do. Whatever
it may be that people put their minds to, some may find the things that they
want.
Therefore, music is like a weapon that I
got for myself. Like a rusty sword, my weapon may not function fully, but
nevertheless it is a sword to stand up against something, thereby giving me the
boldness and courage. I can say 불유여력(不遺餘力, reads like bool-yoo-yuh-ryuck) for the makings of our 2nd
album. It means ‘to exhaust all energy and leave none behind’. I once read in a
book that there is ‘a law on gross volume of lunacy’, which means that if you
exhaust all your craziness in youth, then there is no lunacy left to use later.
I’m not making this up, but it is really something that I read in a book. If I
could live my life by breathing, interpreting, and communicating with music,
and if I put in all I have into music and see myself become lighter, I think I
would have nothing to regret when I look back at my life. For me, music is a
great tool to focus the remainder of my energy and to pour in all my stories.
Lastly, I am doing music because I realized that I can wake up through it. I
can find my possibilities and be aware that I can become something that I
pursue.
You’ve all heard of an English word
‘nothing’ right? I think there are too many nothings around us and in this
society nowadays. People’s reactions are slow and they are numb at incidents
and accidents, and I think we need to wake up from this phenomenon. Be it
through music or art, we have to open our eyes. Even our emotions are
schematized these days. As Mr Hyung-Chul Shin said before, so many music and
art contents that are pouring out, but the impacts that these contents can give
are all schematized and we are so used to them. Beauty in art that can
influence nothing seem to be everywhere, but I am hoping that people would wake
up and interpret the contents and find their own views and enjoy beauty with
their own perspective.
There were many things that I wanted to
say and I’ve prepared a lot, but I think my time is up now. By sharing the
story of my life, I would like to say that the most important thing in life is
to stay awake. Being just alive and living your life is different, and I hope
you do not delude yourself by thinking that you are living your life just
because you have your eyes open and are breathing. You need to develop your
life in your own way. Especially, if you are in your 20s, a tiny will,
attention, and your own views on yourself can change your life. Your life is
not a one way road and you cannot un-change your life, but you can renew it again
and again. If you accept your life, believing you can change it to be the way
you want it to be, we could maybe leave this world with leaving no regrets
behind. This was Hyunwoo Ha, the vocal of Guckkasten. Thank you.
