“The transmission of wave energy requires the quasi-elastic collision of some elementary particles of matter, which determines the direction and speed of the transmission, and this substance, which plays a decisive role in the propagation of waves, is the medium.”

Meuko!Meuko! reverses this cause-effect relationship of the physical level, in her approach it is the «wave» that determines the «medium».

Meuko!Meuko! (Pon) is a Taipei-based music producer and live performer, who started her solo career in 2017. Her practice combines the use of experimental electronic improvisation, synthesizers and sampling machines; starting with ambient contextual sampling to collect chaotic noise, she explores the relationship between sound emotions and the world of the contemporary cyber city. Ultimately, she depicts an experimental musical landscape.

As a performer, she continously tries to make conjunctions of different forms of performances. With the immersive virtual video and ritual theater of 2018’s project <⻤島 Ghost Island>, she was aiming to find the sort of experience in between of a museum space, a theater, and pop culture that belongs to the online generation.

<⻤島 Ghost Island> live A/V

<⻤島 Ghost Island> VR installation

<⻤島 Ghost Island>

In 2020, she collaborated with the Taiwanese media art team NAXS Corp. to create <網路來⽣Afterlife>, a web-based multi-person project that explores the possibilities of enhancing physicality and theatrical narratives in virtual spaces.

<網路來⽣Afterlife>, 2020, in collaboration with NAXS Corp.

In 2021, Meuko!Meuko! presented her new multimedia project <0 Selves> at Rewire Music and Arts Festival in the Netherlands. The project combines panpsychic mythology and the use of virtual characters with motion capture technology. In the meantime, the experimental online performance platform <0xCORE> was reconstructed by her with NAXS Corp., which was intended to imagine and reproduce a fluid core and a new form of identity.

<0xCORE>, 2021, in collaboration with NAXS Corp.

If the way to define a category within art is based on a specific medium, Meuko!Meuko! has been the one to break the medium and recombine it, making her work impossible to be defined.

We had the pleasure of talking to her about the process thanks to which this approach takes form.

**<0 Selves>** : multimedia project presented at Rewire Music and Arts Festival, Netherlands, 2021.

Can you tell us about the common imagery in your work, such as folkloric elements, religious symbols and “murmurs from the abyss”? Where do they come from and what's the message behind them?

I grew up in a traditional Hakka cultural family in Taiwan. I lived next to the Temple since I was a child, and I gradually learned about the concept of “Taoism” and the diverse ethnicity of Taiwan in the environment. The family gathered together in the Chinese Lunar New Year to worship ancestors sang Hakka folk songs casually, which has been a very deep foundation for me.

Meanwhile, during the Internet age, I have been exposed to a diversity of music genres, that I combine with the concept of "Animism" - each type of music is a language, each aesthetic is a religion and a world view, that people create and evolves over time.

I then started to combine electronic music with traditional cultures, such as “folkloric elements, religious symbols, and murmurs from the abyss”. I think everyone can create their own new mythology, hope in this multiverse, everyone is a messenger of their own messages.

From <⻤島 Ghost Island> to <網路來⽣Afterlife>, the space in which your work takes place has shifted from an immersive physical environment to an immaterial cyber dimension, what does this shift mean to you? Has, perhaps, the ‘presence’ of the audience become less necessary?

In past productions, the evolution of digital games has been a good demonstration of how human beings can forget about the real space and put their mind, body and attention completely into the virtuality. The spatial sense of virtual games and the multi-person connection attribute also make the relationship between audiences and performers enter a mode of mutual cooperation.

In addition, online performances produced with game engines return the viewpoint and the abilities of movement to the audience. Compared with the alienation of the framed stage, it implies the possibility of the audience creating their own personal experience.

The physicality of physical experience is not going to be replaced by virtual experiences in the foreseeable future, but it would be an interesting state if the two complemented each other.

What do you want your audience to experience during your performances? What would the ideal environment be?

Advances in technology, the establishment of online identities, and new forms of community interaction have all changed people's thinking and activity patterns, which have also changed the definition of “intimacy”. In the virtual performance, the spatial structure of the scene cannot be seen, and the physical contact is quite estranged, but it can use a more abstracted angle and new identity to construct different communication modes.

My ideal performance environment is to have a deeper interaction with the audience. Whether in the physical or virtual world, the cooperation of music and vision creates a different sense of time and changes the state of the space.

In the context of your performance experience, what do you think is the difference between the feedback you get from performing in Taiwan and elsewhere on a cultural level? Is there one performance that stands out to you?

Based on my own performance experience, audiences in Taiwan and Chinese culture circles can better understand the stories behind my creations. I once performed in temples in the deep mountains of Taiwan. It’s like talking with the portraits and traditional buildings in temples.

Among my touring experiences, I was often impressed by the contrasts and dialogues between my work and local spaces, history, and culture. Such as in stone-built factories, old warehouses of Europe, in churches in Florence, Italy. The underground wine cellar of the Casino Luxembourg Museum, and a cinema-scale venue in Sonar +D, Hong Kong, Philippine’s WSK Festival located in the ancient Rajah Sulayman Theater. The visuals combined in each different space create different atmospheres. Of course, I also like other music festivals in various countries to experience different vibes from various cultures. Special favorites are Creepy Teepee Festival, Norberg Festival, Sonic Acts Festival, Hyperreality, Transmediale, and more.

Is there an event or piece of work in your musical career that has been a major turning point for you?

Since 2017, I have been showing on the UK radio station NTS Radio Monthly, and I am very excited to invite the music producers I admire to co-produce mixes with me.

When I released “Ghost Island” in 2018, the first European music festival that invited me was “HyperReality” by the Vienna Art Festival(The Wiener Festwochen) to do AudioVisual Live Performance. It was a very important turning point, that I launched my first European tour in my life, and it was only then that I really started to reach western audiences. From music, the work began to extend to VR, and Online Experience. I have learned so much from the communication with European audiences.

Would you recommend some Taiwanese or Asian musicians to the European audience?

Lawrence Lek / FOODMAN / Gabber Modus Operandi / Zoo / Senyawa / NONEYE / Doggo Taxi / Hyph11e / 33Emybw / Corin / ASJ / Kelvin T / Net Gala / bela / Ludu / Dutch E Germ / W.Y. Huang / Alex Wang / Dirty K / B E N N / Sabiwa / R000000M / Cheng Dao Yuan / Sandy’s Trace / Ao Wu / Sam-Seng-Hiàn-Gē / Prairie WWWW / Mong Tong / Tzusing / Object Blue / Indus Bonze / T5UMUT5UMU / uglysituation / Teya Logos

If you could choose, who would you like to collaborate with the most?

Slikback / bod [包家巷] / Kamixlo / 011668 / Acre / Exploited Body / Hiro Kone / Kablam / ptwiggs / Swan Meat

Can you tell us a bit about next year's new project “XATAR”? And besides that, what other music projects are in the pipeline for 2022?

“XATAR” is an experimental virtual space, a “Meta-Limbo” for artists and musicians, where parties, talks, and exhibitions can all happen within.

Friends and I have been doing online multiplayer performances with game engine since 2020, such as AFTERLIFE網路來⽣:ev20f1 with Unsound Festival. We always hope to connect with genuinely creative and rebellious minds regarding the physical border that constantly traps us. And we feel it's more urgent than ever to have an underground space other than the mainstream “Metaverse”. Currently working on new EP and debut album, hope to see you soon.