EXP.... REALLY and “Alien Concept”

The Interview

Interview with “EXP” members
As a member of such a unique boy band setting, what do you guys think of this project and how do you envision pop music could exist in the art world? (an excerpted conversation between the IMMABB team and EXP band members)

Frankie: I certainly believe that pop music can exist in the fine art world when it’s presented in that form. Today most music is released on the radio and on TV and very rarely, if ever, is it introduced in an art exhibition or museum. When you give the fine arts world a chance to look at pop music as a fine art, they can see it in a more literal art form.

David: I would place this project on movie screens around a museum. No sound needed.

Bora: Why no sound?

David: I want people to guess what we are doing and why we are doing it, and silence allows the people who are viewing us to use their own imagination and form their own opinion.

Koki: I like this project because we are not Korean boys, it presents the contrast of cultural differences in a pleasing package.

Sime: It would be an interesting concept to non-Koreans because we are talking about Korean culture here, but not a lot of people understand it. For instance, when we talked to Yoahn (Han), he was saying there are so many small things that surprise people. It also must be interesting for you guys to see how we are taking up that culture.

Samantha: That is how different cultures communicate with each other.

Karin: Or don’t communicate with each other.

Hunter: Boy bands are so manufactured and machine-made. It would be very interesting to do what ‘N Sync had (that whole no strings attached thing). We have strings attached to us at certain points, and they show that a lot of these are forced or made, an idea of what should be.

Koki: Not only manufactured, boy bands are also imagining “a perfect version of male,” somehow we are like figurines. We should make a line of action figures.

(Laughter)

Tarion: What if we are these figurines in the center that have strings attached to us, and when people come in there are these different buttons they could press, and we will learn 3 or 4 songs to do when they press the buttons. You know like Power Rangers when they all morph together, they become this huge machine, but they are different parts of that machine. So we are separate, but we come together.

Hunter: Or we could put six samples of our , and people need to taste them and guess which belongs to whom. (Laughter)

Bora: That could actually be a good art piece.