[Music] hello and welcome to the works I'm Ben peler and I'm Ben CH singer songwriter Claudia recently released a new P everything everywhere the concept behind which has its origins in Buddhist philosophy she'll be joining us later to tell us more since cave dwellers first left handprints on Cave walls artists have found ways to represent themselves in art since then self-portraits have appeared in many different forms in painting sculpture photography and other Creative Media currently on show at M plus is an exhibition of works by two prominent photographers ERS for whom self-portraiture becomes a way
to reflect on society celebrity and identity [Music] [Music] who am I it's an existential question that has interested many of Mankind's deepest thinkers in art to this age-old question has inspired numerous forms of creativity here at M plus the exhibition masquerade highlights two artists born in the 1950s one from Japan and the other from the United States who use photography and portraiture to reflect on identity culture and history the exhibition brings together 185 works by Cindy Sherman and yasumasa morimura it includes Maura's Series in which he impersonates well-known cultural and historical figures and Sherman's Works
inspired by movie Stills and 20th Century pulp magazine Cindy really has been through her career from the beginning to right now that she really have been thinking so hard on how to deconstruct this kind of like stereotype of um representation especially with the representation of female identity so you can see that from the uh Untitled film still that is really kind of like a beginning of her how she is really inspired by the European film or like European Cinema and how how that really kind of triggering her to using her body to perform herself into
different character Mori mura his work I mean there are many different themes in his work obviously like the tup and also the 100m celf portrait that we're presenting here is really kind of representing two themes of his practice which is more about like free performing other themes in his practices also including about art history how he often references to I onet work in our history to thinking about the relationship between Japan and the West yasumasa Mori mura was born in Osaka and studied at Kyoto City University of Arts after graduation he stayed at the University
as an assistant working mainly in painting drawing photography and woodblock printing the idea of exploring self-portraiture opened up a new path for him [Music] am LIF [Music] so far morimura has constructed at least 300 self portraits he spent seven years working on this series 100 M's self-portraits among those he has impersonated is Cindy [Music] Sherman for [Music] [Music] [Music] for [Music] [Music] Mas [Music] [Music] you for [Music] [Music] there's a theory that almost all the elements required to make up the human body were created in the furnaces of stars that theory inspires the title of
the children of dust at May arts bace in W choang the exhibition features 31 works by eight artists from China Israel Peru Iran France FR in [Music] Singapore on show out Works in a variety of mediums including painting sculpture Collage Video and mix media one thing they have in common is that they are predominantly created from natural materials such as dust soil ice and fossils to reflect on geological [Music] Transformations sub objects explored by the artists include the mineral systems in our landscape the limitations of the human perception of Nature and Science our perception of
Natural History objects and the way they Inspire vision and fantasy there are also Reflections on space time culture and Science and our relationship with the land the show runs until the 8th of febrary [Music] welcome back singer songwriter Claudia M says her compositions are driven by her love for jazz her latest EP is called everything everywhere the Chinese title of which Hong Hong is inspired by a concept from Buddhist philosophy she's with us now okay Claudia welcome to the works thank you for having me let's start from the beginning uh I'd love to hear your
journey of how you ended up becoming a singer songwriter um I love to sing since I was a kid and I got really obsessed with jazz when I was in high school uh the first Jazz SL poop singer that I fell in love with was Nora Jones and I also love uh Bill Evans Chad Baker and John Kain of course and uh I started to develop my own sound and uh try to write my own music as I grow older uh because I feel like singing jazz is of course great but I wanted to be
able to express my own uh emotions and history and personal truth and have the freedom of uh indiv individual uh interpretation right so I started to write and the lyrics flow out and the melodic ideas came in so it how that happened so chaia your background wasn't necessarily in music first you studied psychology first that's right so how did that psychology degree lead to studying music so upon my graduation I was conducting my own research uh in Texas and then uh I just encountered a professor very randomly I was asking her oh uh I want
to do a PhD or master's degree and she told me that oh you should just explore what you love before you make that decision cuz it's a a really huge decisions in your life so I thought about oh I always love music in my life I kind of want to chase it but I'm kind of hesitate because I don't know what's ahead so I decided to do it anyways and I took a detour to uh studying G in Los Angeles so uh after a year of studying and I come back to Hong Kong and I
started to perform and yeah compose but your actual first performance was uh when you were graduating from the course yeah I was studying uh performance class Jazz and uh it's the first uh performance that I've ever did was in a class setting it was a jeury exam and there's a couple of uh professors sitting in front of me and I sang the Jazz standard that I picked out and one of my professor was really encouraging uh he can tell I was really shy and intimidated so uh but he really loved my voice and my tone
so he gave me full marks in the exam so yeah I I was very I really appreciate it and then apart from performance you ended up uh doing you know composition as you mentioned but you also ended up doing producing as well so what was that Journey like how how did one thing lead to another as I evolve and I explore uh my musicality it kind of just happened very organically because when I try to compose music uh I would think about okay uh what is the stereo image going to be like so what's the
picture going to be like and uh sometimes I can uh feel the colors when I write and listen to music especially uh for jazz improvisation the colors kind of flow in when I write yeah it just happened naturally and mixing and yeah I know a little bit of everything very nice and that culminated in an Al in an EP That You released last year uh end of last year called uh everything everywhere Chinese titles Hong Hong Hong Hong uh tell me a bit about that so what was the story that went into this EP Hong
Hong is about Cosmic emptiness uh the English title of the EP is actually everything everywhere so it's like everything is empty of in her quality and uh it just depends on how your perceptions are and it's not nihilism it's uh it's not everything is fake and sad it's um everything is actually real but we're all dreaming and we all lose it dreaming it's the first uh song in the EP okay anyways and then you can wake up from your individuals suffering like any time the concept behind the EP is influenced by the Buddhism ideas yeah
cuz I love to read uh the Buddhist books as well well yeah I love the philosophy and also recently uh You released a new single called Energy um for but for this actual single you produced a music video which you actually entered into many different film festivals around the world so tell me a bit more about this single what is it about this music video is a animation and uh it's true from uh recent graduate uh she just moved to Canada but she's a very talented uh animator her name is Cyrus L we wrote the
script together everything is very saturated cuz when I wrote the song I can feel like pink color when I went into the introduction I kind of told uh this idea to Cyrus and she picked up on it and she developed more of it and there's many man-made objects in the MV it symbolized different um feelings like uh and groundedness and like just sad emotions but you kind of have to walk through it you have to get past it and to embrace uh trauma and this song is the first one that you actually released in English
yeah I think the lyrics and Melody kind of just flow in naturally so I decided to go with it right and and in a moment I'm going to hear you perform that song with uh your friend Oscar uh tell me about what Oscar's contribution on this um single uh Oscar and I produced this song together and uh the work kind of reveals itself when we explore the tunes and the possibilities so I'm very grateful of his contribution and we're going to see the images at the in the background of actual MV yeah it would be
very cool okay well I look forward to uh hearing and watching it and thank you very much for coming in today thank you [Music] what would I have done to see you what if I would I have done to see you what if I done singing to your heart holding hands tonight you and I Wide Awake the wors falling apart you're walking side by side oo I got you when you're with me I feel ready because of your energy baby no you're I want let me be your energy [Music] she healing through the dark I
so want to hang tight you and it's all it takes the worst falling apart you're walking side by side oo I I got you honey when you're in me I feel ready because of your energy baby know your I want let me be your energy [Music] how how [Music]
