Musings with Le son du couple

Moa and Namhoon, the duo behind the artistic group Le son du couple, are multidisciplinary artists from South Korea. Their creative repertoire spans writing, music composition, and filmmaking, making them a versatile force in the art world.

In a special collaboration inspired by the concept of yin and yang, they have teamed up with RUS to showcase pieces from our Essentials collection in black and white, symbolizing the harmonious balance of opposites.

Namhoon wears the RAVIOLI shirt and OHIRUNE pants. Moa wears the CHIZU top and ASA skirt.

Moa wears the RINA dress and HASAMI pants. Namhoon wears the RAVIOLI shirt and HASAMI pants.

RINA dress and RAVIOLI shirt.

Where’s home for you?

The physical home is 'Seochon', a village west of Gyeongbokgung Palace, a beautiful palace representing Seoul, Korea. This is a beautiful town called Inwangsan Mountain and has many layers of historical stories. It is a place where great writers, painters, and artists have lived since ancient times, and where their breath and steps are preserved and the atmosphere of nature is preserved.

Our real home is with each other. Namhoon becomes Moa’s home, and Moa becomes Namhoon’s home. We are each other's

home, so even if we leave our physical home, we can live stably wherever we are. In principle, we are each other's home.

What led you to start working as an artist group?

It started with a question. ‘Namhoon’ has the ability to catch the questions that are missed in order to survive. Namhoon asked himself and Moa a question one day. Putting everything aside, what do you realy want to do and how do you want to live? Namhoon is a philosopher. That point was in 2009, and eventualy we found contact with each other. Let's try to live the life of travel as we want, and record the inspiration we receive from those moments as cultural results that we can produce, and let's raise better questions for the life and travel we want. That's how we started to experiment with travel and life.

Questions, attempts, communication with others, and ventilation are what led us to become an artist group.

Although we have day jobs, we wanted to expand our own world through art projects.

Which stimulus is more important for your artistic creation, the cultural experience or the daily experience?

We can't answer which of the two stimulates us. We think we just shouldn't stop. We think of experiences as defaults, apart from cultural and everyday experiences. Just as hundreds of billions of parts of our body are destroyed and regenerated every day, so should our thoughts. People need stimulation, or movement, to change their thinking (even if they do not make art). When we move ourselves to a different place rather than our original place, our thoughts change and we can get stimulation from there. However, we must train our senses to recognize that stimulus. No matter how many cultural and everyday experiences we have, if we cannot sense it ourselves at the moment of exploration, stimulation cannot be born as stimulation.

What three adjectives define your way of creating?

Flexibly, honestly, without hesitation.

Namhoon wears the RAVIOLI shirt and HASAMI pants. Moa wears the RINA dress and HASAMI pants.

What’s your inspiration for this collaboration?

We are inspired by yin yang. We are based in Seoul and are born from ancestral and historical roots. Above them are Namhoon and Moa, that is, a man and a woman. The group's name, Le son du couple, which means the sound of a couple in French, is the story of a man and a woman, that is, the question, cry, and sound we want to make together. Two people of different genders, a man and a woman, do not separate each other, but become needle and thread and sew together, creating the name 'couple'. It was divided into black and white, which are opposite colors. In the photo, Seoul is the background, and on top of it are black Moa and white Namhoon, and white Moa and black Namhoon. We are separate, we

are different, but we are together. It's like the beginning of the stories we want to tell as we become synonymous with 'couple'. As this is our first collaboration with RUS, we wanted to introduce ourselves and give a nice greeting.

What are your main artistic references and influences that have had the greatest impact on your imaginary?

There are two biggest things that affect both of us at the same time. One is people. Among them, Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin. They really influence and inspire us. Serge Gainsbourg never built walls around himself, regardless of genre. With his cultural tools that allow him to do anything, he created music, movies, poetry, acting, and many other things. The same goes for Jane Birkin, who was his muse. The other is nature. We get so much inspiration from exploring nature and its flow. I think we create art in order to live naturaly similar to nature.

What can you tell us about your creative process? What sort of rituals do you perform to regenerate creatively?

Consciousness is ‘dialogue’ and ‘emptying’. From the time we wake up until the time we go to sleep, we have countless conversations. We work and do artwork together, so we are together almost 365 days a year. As we chat, we grow the next branch of the tree called ‘Le son du couple’. The basic process of breaking down the boundaries between travel and life to create each next artwork and recording the inspiration we receive from that moment through books, music, and video is the same, but we think about the possibility of further expansion from there. In other words, if we were a tree, creative regeneration to spread branches from the trunk.

We monitor and support each other to see what artistic abilities we have and have developed, and we never stop reproducing, such as showing books through installation exhibitions. However, 'emptying' and pruning do not stop. Quickly select what needs to be boldly discarded and what to empty. To compare it to a tree, this is how the tree grows better. We shouldn't be afraid of pruning.

À Mouchamps by Le son du couple

What role does music play in your life?

It has absolute authority. Depending on the weather and mood, we are always surrounded by music from morning to night. But some days, I'm completely empty of music. I wanted to make music because I love music, and I want to record it through music. Music becomes space, music becomes love and comfort.

What musical artist/ song/ album are you currently listening to on repeat?

Ryuichi Sakamoto / All album tracks / Tony Takitani

Julian Lage / All album tracks / View with a room

AOKI, hayato / All album tracks / MITATE

Tom Misch / insecure / insecure

How would you describe RUS universe in three words?

Orbit, flexible, harmony

What’s on your horizon? Do you follow any creative process when approaching a new project?

Question.

We just repeat, "Let's live like a trip! Let's travel like a life." Then, try to ‘travel’ the life you want for a given period of time, and record it. It's just a process of constant repetition. However, Artwork also strives to ask better questions.

Namhoon wears the RAVIOLI shirt and OHIRUNE pants.

What are your daily rituals?

Morning:

We wake up around 8 o'clock. As soon as he wakes up, Namhoon makes coffee. Moa smells that scent, stretches on the bed for 10-15 minutes, studies English for 10 minutes, and only after making up the blanket does she leave the bedroom. Namhoon opens the window and lets the indoor air that had been lingering all night go outside. We drink a cup of coffee and wash our faces. After we both wash our

faces, we sit at the living room table or on the balcony and read the book we want to read for about 20 minutes while enjoying the flow of the seasons. Select the bgm according to the weather of the day.

These days, it's more common to open the window and listen to the sounds of nature coming from the mountain next door as background music. We bring the weather and nature into our homes. However, on days when we are busy with work, this time is omitted. When we really have time, as soon as we open our eyes, we go for a walk on ‘Inwangsan Mountain’, the mountain next to our house. There are many beautiful mountains in the center of Seoul. There is a hiking trail 3 minutes away from my house that not many people know about. It's realy quiet, and there's even a small babbling stream. After we finish our walk, we drink good, acidic coffee at our favorite local cafe. We also share small talk with local people who come and go. A walk is one of the great daily rituals. Palo Santo wood is often burned from morning to evening. It calms the mind. And I drink tea often from morning to evening. Depending on our mood that day, we drink different types of tea, such as green tea, black tea, and matcha.

Evening:

We prepare delicious food (we usually eat it) and talk over a glass of wine, traditional Korean liquor, or Japanese sake. For us, good food and delicious alcohol are like rituals that enrich our lives. When we have time, we try to watch movies anyway. We really love cinema, which is a comprehensive art.

We believe that even our clothing and appearance can reflect our inner emotions, desires, and moods. How does this idea resonate with your personal style/ work?

It has a tremendous impact. A person's outside and inside are one. We can never share. Just like us, two other people become a ‘couple’ and continue their daily lives and art. Metamorphosis, our clothes and work have changed along with the times and times. The same goes for style and work. The seven books we have created prove it. Along with the music and films we have made. Now we like to wear clothes in neutral colors, but when we first came up with the artist project, we wore clothes in a variety of colors. (Surprisingly, our tastes are becoming similar. It's been 21 years since we lived together). When we were more inclined towards vintage style, books, music, and videos seemed to be in a similar orbit with those textures. It's still like that now. Also, the cultural results we left behind when our minds were complicated still contain that confusion. The outside and the inside are one.

If you could design the future world, what elements would you include?

Teleportation and oblivion.

We wish we had the ability to teleport. Because we know that we won't be able to go where we want to go until we die. We don't want instantaneous travel across time. The past must be confined within the name of the past. The moment must be confined within the name of the moment. Only then is it valuable, and art leaves it to the next generation and era.

One is oblivion.

We wish we had a machine or ability that could erase about 3 memories and emotions we want to erase in our lifetime. If we could erase the memories and emotions of the past, such as when we were embarrassed because we fell in front of our crush, or when we were scared because we suffered from the same nightmare, or when we lost a loved one and it was very painful, wouldn't the lives of many people who spend their whole lives trying to overcome it become a little more peaceful? People are born with the ability to actualy forget, but once a painful wound is imprinted in the heart, it remains as a trauma. It cannot be erased. We wish we could solve what cannot be solved with medicine and love.

Oh, and finaly, we want to design a comfortable home that is given equally to everyone. We want to make sure everyone has an equal home. A house that protects you from the cold and allows you to sleep warmly. We also want to design a fair society where we can all drink clean water.

Namhoon wears the RAVIOLI shirt and HASAMI pants.

Moa wears the CHIZU top and ASA skirt.