Foreword to the “Foreword to #12”
One unassuming evening as I was writing up documents at my corporate job, riffling though loads of paperwork, I was tapped for a sudden task. Quite ironically on many levels, I was to write up an English-translated foreword for an emerging digital NFT artist, Mr Misang, whose artworks center around cartoonish-pop satire of modern Korean working culture.
Housed in a 12-part series entitled “Modern Life is Rubbish” (“MLIR”), most of Mr Misang’s illustration-turned-animations highlight the dystopic loss of individuality in modern society — a worker’s hope-draining assimilation into the technology collective — each piece wryly topped with sprinkles and neon-bright…
“Nothing really happens on its own. You call things to happen to you.”
Originally published in The Harvard Political Review
Anggun is an Indonesian-French singer-songwriter and TV personality who has been performing music since the age of seven. Her first international album, “Snow on the Sahara” (1997), and her six studio albums to follow have throned her as the Asian artist with the highest album sales outside Asia, with gold and platinum album status across Europe and Asia. Anggun has appeared as a judge for “Asia’s Got Talent”, the French version of “Masked Singer”, as well as the Indonesian versions of “The X Factor”, “Got Talent”, and “The Voice”. …
“If my introduction to film was for the sake of self-therapy, I’ve now been thinking about how I can make films for others.”
I first encountered Seunghee Kim’s work in her latest piece for The New York Times, Tiger and Ox, a riveting op-doc about her relationship with her mother, aptly represented by a tough-headed tiger bashing heads with an introspective ox. Coarsely penciled sketches stringed by a soft interweaving narration of two speakers talking past each other, the short film is like revisiting a time-capsule, filled with mulled secrets, now revealed to the world.
A film that was initially made only for herself as an means to uncover and burn away the past, Tiger and Ox took a life of its own…
“After all, how many Asian dads — when at church or golfing — can proudly say that their son has won two Grammy Awards?”
David Yungin Kim is a multi-platinum, two-time Grammy-winning audio engineer from LA. His work for the late Nipsey Hussle on “Racks in the Middle” and Kendrick Lamar’s “To Pimp a Butterfly” has landed him two Grammy Awards. Cultivating his craft, he has engineered songs for popular American artists and producers including Nas, Travis Scott, Ariana Grande, Post Malone, Big Sean, DJ Khaled, Hit-Boy, Future, as well as influential Korean artists such as Baekhyun, Tiger JK, Junoflo, Changmo, Dok2, Loopy, Los, among others.
Woojin Lim (WL): How have things been for you recently?
David Yungin Kim (DK): I’ve been bombarded with…
“My YouTube channel is essentially my journey to becoming a better person.”
I met up with Jay inside a bustling local brunch cafe overlooking the Han River, just days after Covid-19 social distancing restrictions were lifted in Seoul. He sat across a wooden table, having already ordered an iced coffee, clad in an oversized shirt that matched his enthusiasm.
Both of us Korean-Canadian, as we politely waited for my cup of cappuccino to arrive before starting the interview, we started chit-chatting about our fondest memories studying back in Vancouver, our provincial proclivities to resort to the vernacular “eh,” and our shared passion for earnest filmmaking — an ode to what a small…
“I felt compelled to play and replicate each of these instruments — Eastern, Western, Hawaiian — with only my voice.”
Jason Tom is an American beatboxer and slam poet who has represented Hawaii at the sixth International Human Beatbox Convention and the first and fifth American Beatbox Championship in Brooklyn. He received the Hawaii Scene Choice Award for Best Solo Human Beatbox Performer, TEDx Presenter Award for his “Vocal Groove” presentation, among other accolades. He co-founded the Human Beatbox Academy, where he leads outreach performances, speaking engagements, and workshops for students of all ages.
In his interview with The International Wave, Jason talks about his childhood inspirations, references exhilarating onomatopoeic beatbox sounds, and kowtows to his Asian cultural heritage as…
“As classical musicians, we don’t lip sync. We don’t have fancy smoke machines. We’re delivering it live every single night.”
Violinist Sarah Chang has for long astounded audiences across the world with her now-signature Romantic flair, technical precision, and full-arm bow flourishes. At the mere age of six, Chang started lessons at the Juilliard School, from when the title of ‘child prodigy’ followed her to her debut with the New York Philharmonic at age eight and her first album recording, “Debut,” at age ten.
Unlike many other child prodigies who tend to grow out of music, Chang soared past that “confusing” stage in her life, finding value in music beyond the ritzy stage: she delivered handcrafted violins to children in…
Originally published in Harvard Political Review [October 29, 2020]
Charles W. Mills is a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at The Graduate Center, City University of New York. Born in the U.K. and raised in Jamaica, he is a leading thinker in social and political philosophy as it centers on class, gender, and race. His first book, “The Racial Contract,” introduces the titular concept: a “contract” that permits white people to violate their own moral principles in dealing with non-white individuals. …
HarvardWood Alumni Profile
Originally published in Harvardwood [October 1, 2020]
Kenneth S. Williams AB ’78 began our hour-long conversation with a flip-side marketing pitch on why film school students should consider returning to a virtual fall: having a firm grasp of collaborative software solutions and non-in-person digital tools could well-position a job-market candidate entering a world bestrewn with uncertainties such as the COVID-19 resurgence. “The old way of in-person work will soon be replaced by the new normal,” he says. “A lot of companies are not only looking for temporary work-arounds, but they’re trying to find permanent solutions to future-proof themselves.”
As the…
““Yellow Rose is a story of perseverance. Rose is almost as old as the film took to make by the time I made it — almost 17 years old.”
Diane Paragas is a Filipino-American documentary and narrative film director who produced the 2011 documentary, “Brooklyn Boheme,” a portrait of the Black arts movement in Fort Greene during the mid 1980s through the 90s. Paragas called in from her apartment in Brooklyn, New York, with a view of Manhattan on the right, preparing for the October 9, 2020 theatrical release of her debut feature-film, “Yellow Rose.”
Drawing from real-life interviews with families detained by ICE, Paragas in “Yellow Rose” vividly portrays the story of Rose, an undocumented 17-year-old Filipina (played by Tony Award Nominee Eva Noblezada), who aspires to become…
Woojin Lim
Harvard | arts & film reviewer, philosophy-themed columnist, in search of new conversations | Twitter @limowooj
