Jae ho Hwang is a South Korean graphic moving image designer and artist based in London. Here he tells us about his creative process.

I have been working in collaboration with London based music producer Kirk Spencer since we met over a burger sometime last summer. Originally from South Korea, I came to London to complete a master in graphic moving image but stayed because I fell in love with London and, more importantly, the communities I became involved with here. Kirk and I bonded over mutual visual influences – Gaspar Noé, Norman Mclaren, Oskar Fischinger and 1960s music visuals. However, most importantly, we shared a passion for creating immersive audience experiences through performance.

When we first met to discuss how we could collaborate it was over a cheap fry up. Kirk already had a huge oeuvre of tracks to start working from but what I’m trying to emphasise through these meal anecdotes is the importance of face–to–face interaction in our creative process. Behind the scenes, Kirk will usually send over a track and I’ll stay up late listening to it endlessly and sketching out different idea for visuals, but the most important part is how the two parts work together; how one can shape the other and vice versa. It’s really important that we both understand each other part and how they create an experience for the audience. We’ve performed together at several venues across London now and each time we understand more about the audience and the effect of the music with the visuals together.

Work in Progress – Jae ho Hwang

Whilst our main form of collaboration is through the performances, to celebrate the launch of Kirk’s new EP “Kingdom”, we decided to create this series of shorts that are ideal for sharing on platforms such as Instagram and Facebook. In conjunction to our exploration into the shared experience, we have considered the private experience of interpreting music and namely music videos. We are hyper aware of the way these platforms have affected a generation’s attitude towards digesting information. For example, from my experience, when surfing on websites or clicking through articles on social media, I have developed an intensely short attention span online – I’m conscious that there is always an endless option to scroll.

By creating short clips, 10 to 15 seconds long, we wanted to reinterpret the music video. We wanted to capture and communicate the essence of the track quickly and allude to something bigger. On social media, 10 or 15 seconds can be long enough to deliver and share a message with people. These days, people tend to pick up information very quickly and not to stay on one thing for a long time.

The visual accompaniment contains five tracks from the new EP: Primrose, And Swim, Magic Carpet, Human and Blue Skys. In each video, I have attempted to create and build the relationships between music and visual in a different style for each track and make sure that they work in perfect synergy.

Watch excerpts from all five tracks here:

Kingdom by Jae ho Hwang and Kirk Spencer

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