Monica Lim
Produced, edited and transcribed by Chelsea Wilson, i
n partnership with Melbourne Recital Centre and Quiet Riot
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
music, sound, space, project, piano, organisation, people, movement, thought, feel, work, board, dancers, composer, artists, film, art, audience, composition, technology
TRANSCRIPT
Chelsea
Hi and welcome to Control, the podcast where we speak to incredibly inspiring game changers and change makers in the arts and creatives industries. I’m your host Chelsea Wilson, and in this episode I’m speaking to pianist, composer, sound designer, entrepreneur and board director, Monica Lim
Born in Malaysia and then migrating to Australia in her teens, Monica Lim has produced work for theatre, contemporary dance, installations and film, as well as solo and ensemble instrumental pieces.
Based in Melbourne, her work has been presented at Arts House, AsiaTOPA, White Night, Melbourne Fringe and Arts Centre Melbourne as well as international symposiums such as the International symposium of Electronic art and The International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression. Monica is currently undertaking postgraduate research at the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, University of Melbourne in gesture-led composition and new technologies. She is also part of the research team at VCA Dance's TrakLAB and the University of Melbourne's Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Digital Ethics.
Monica is co-founder of Project Eleven, a philanthropic initiative which supports the contemporary arts and serves on the boards of the Melbourne Recital Centre, Substation and Liquid Architecture as well as the Member's Council for Musica Viva.
In this conversation I ask her about her recent award winning electro magnetic piano, her time as a fashion designer, her recent collaborative project Jagad and much more.
This is Monica Lim, in Control.
Chelsea
Hi, Monica, welcome to the control podcast. And thank you so much for joining us.
Monica
Thanks for having me.
Chelsea
I'm really excited to chat to you about your research work and your recent composing projects. But if we can, I'd love to go back earlier in your career, you were born in Malaysia, you studied piano from age four, and then migrated to Australia as a teenager. You then studied arts and law at university. However, I read that you wanted to continue in music, but you left the classical scene to focus working in law. What was some of the barriers that you faced that led to that decision?
Monica
Yeah, look, at the time, I guess, being a pianist, it's quite a solo, quite a lonely pursuit. I think I it wasn't as if I could go join an orchestra. And I knew that I didn't have the technical chops to be a solo pianist or you know, someone at the top of that game that I could make a career out of it. So I decided to do the sensible thing. And at the time, like, no, I didn't even the thought of composition or doing something outside of that classical music performing sphere didn't even occur to me that it was an option. You know, I just thought that was the only thing I could do as a pianist. And well, I'm not good enough to do that. Therefore, I won't do it, I'll go and study something else.
Chelsea
Was that part of the classical piano training? Do you think that nobody sort of said, hey, Monica, you could train as a sound engineer or you could also be a songwriter? Or you could work in these other music spaces that you just thought it's either recital level pianist, or nothing?
Monica
Yeah, I think probably it was just a lack of lack of knowledge, lack of people around me that because I come from a very academic family where everyone's like, professional, like, is a doctor or accountant, there's no artists in my family. So I did not have anyone I could talk to, in that sense. And this, if you remember that this was pre internet days, as well. This is pre YouTube. And yeah, it wasn't information wasn't as readily available there.
Chelsea
So you moved into the law space, but specifically into tax law. Is that right?
Monica
Yeah, just sort of fell into that. When I finished law, GST had just been introduced, there was a huge demand for people who could advice in that space. And I just fell into it was the first job that I got out of uni.
Chelsea
Do you think there's any parallels or connections that you can make between working in the legal world and working in the music scene?
Monica
Very loose parallels. I mean, they're both quite creative, to be honest. Working in taxation is very legislative based. But there are, I suppose, ways that you can structure things that don't require some creative thought, or at least some out of the box thinking. I think really being in a professional sort of corporate professional world has been really useful for me in terms of other skills that I find I'm probably, I'm probably one of the more organised artists out there. I do invoicing really well, do admin really well. I answer emails really promptly. It's something that maybe doesn't happen, or it's not as, I feel like since I'm in the art world, that sometimes there's a little bit more leeway for you to loose communication, when there isn't such a thing in the corporate world
Chelsea
You also established your own fashion label, fame agenda and a chain of clothing stores across Australia and Asia, which is a really interesting move. What was this time in your life like and what was the impetus behind the label?
Monica
That started when I was pregnant?
Chelsea
Really?
Monica
Yeah, so what happened was I got pregnant was in the maternity leave, and I was so bored. I was bored out of my mind. (laughs) I think I've always been one of those people that need to do things and new things as well. I'm just really easily bored.
Chelsea I complete relate.
Monica
So while I was pregnant with my first child, I started making handbags. Yeah, because it's one of those things I thought that was more accessible. Like I didn't have any technical background in sewing and anything else in handbags was quite easy to start and learn. So I did some courses and yeah, I started a chain of, a label of handbags which actually do quite well. I think we will. Lane Crawford in Hong Kong picked it up like the first collection. And then after a few years of doing it, I thought okay, let's move into let's move into clothing and that's how Fame Agenda started. You know, Absolutely no business planning. No SWOT analysis or anything like that. Just thought, I'm gonna do this.
Chelsea
And did you expect that kind of response? You know, what did that feel like having a retailer in Hong Kong wanting to stock the bags?
Monica
It's a great feeling. But also, when you're starting out, it's really intimidating, because then you've got the supply these bags, you've got this order, which you then have to fulfil. Yeah, so and I was working, I suppose I was designing the bags myself here. But then I was getting them made in Indonesia. So a lot of difficulty with that international sort of trying to get things made somewhere and being here as well. Yeah. And having babies at the same time. Yes, I remember actually a few trips where I took my six-month-old four-year-old child to Indonesia, and to the markets to buy hardware with this child on prem?
Chelsea
And what do you think your biggest learnings were from this time developing your own label your own range, your own retail stores? What are some of those major things that you learned?
Monica
I think the major thing actually for me was just the fact that you have to be when you when you run a small business, you have to be self-sufficient in many, many things. So you have to learn a bit of everything, you got to do a bit of your marketing your website, design, like I learned, you know, photoshop, whatever. And I guess from that, I got the maybe the mindset that I can actually learn, I can learn if I need to, and to not be afraid of learning new things.
Chelsea
That's brilliant. I read that around 2014 or so you felt a need to compose again, and you decided to move back into the music space in a serious way. What was happening for you, at this time to make that move?
Monica
I met some people who encouraged me. So I did actually do, when I was in high school here, and my first or second year of uni, I was involved in some student productions, theatre productions. And I was actually writing music for those productions a little bit. That was something which I absolutely, like I really loved. Although it still never thought to do composition, I don't know why. And then, I don't know, eight, eight years ago, maybe I met people who were in that world and wanted me to encourage me to start writing music for them. And that's, that's how it started. So I would write things or arrange things for people. And then I got to the stage where I thought, I need help. I need I need some sort of reference around me so that I can actually improve, because, yeah, I was just doing it myself. And that's when I went back to uni, to do music.
Chelsea
So how did it feel kind of going back into that composition space?
Monica
Weird! Weird, because well, partly because of age, the age difference hours, it's because I started back at a bachelor with a Bachelor’s degree in interactive composition. And I was studying with 18-year olds who are basically like the same age almost the same age as my children by that stage. So it was really good in a sense, because now I think I have a good understanding of a really wide range of music, musical styles. But it is challenging to be the mature age person.
Chelsea
Yeah, but you also have the life experience and the things that you want to say in your composing.
Monica
Yeah, yeah, I have to say that. I mean, I don't see how my colleagues who were 18 could compose because I could I don't think I would have been able to do anything meaningful when I was 18. Whereas I think, yeah, I do have more to put into the work now.
Chelsea
So between studying originally with piano, and then moving into law and moving into having your own business and moving into motherhood, did you continue to play and compose just for yourself? Or did you have a complete stop with music?
Monica
It was never a super complete stop in the sense that I always had a piano at home. So there were times where I could just play but you know, there could be months where I didn't touch it. Yeah, it definitely my technical skill level definitely just went down the drain. So it was only after I think, after had all that franticness of the career building and the business building sort of settle itself that I found myself needing to find the music again.
Chelsea
Did it make a difference also what age your children were at in terms of returning to music? Being able to have more time you know, the more independent the kids get, the more time that you have back to yourself where you can focus on creative pursuits.
Monica
So time has always been the biggest challenge because when I, when I started looking at music and composing again, the kids were still quite young. But I actually found that the lack of time sometimes pushed me to actually do things. So I would be, I'd be composing in the car while waiting for them, you know, on the sports activities. Yeah, that literally because that was the only time I had yeah, so because I was doing other things as well, still in the business. So whatever time I had, I would just jump into the music. And actually now that I'm more focused on music and sort of doing it more full time, sometimes I find that I probably need to be I need to be pressured a bit more.
Chelsea
Yeah, there's nothing like a deadline is there, or just I've got this half an hour window. I've heard that as well. You know, I've got a two-and-a-half-year-old. And, you know, just having a mate, take him for a walk around the block and just going right, I've got an hour to finish the lyrics of this song. And that's all I've got. So I better do it. You know, whereas if I had the whole day, you know I’d probably end up scrolling Instagram, and having a cup of tea and chatting to mum on the phone. And, you know, the day just feels endless, and the lyrics don't get done. So you're currently completing a Masters of music at the Faculty of Fine Arts and music, University of Melbourne in Interactive composition. Can you tell us about your work with cognitive neuroscience? And the work that you've undertaken with dancers and motion sensors? It's amazing.
Monica
Yeah. Well, I've transferred to a PhD. So I'm halfway through the PhD now. Yeah, how did it start? Gosh, this is what this is a project that I started with Carol Brown, who's the head of dancer at VCA. And we were doing work with the neuropsychiatry department and just looking at how times could inform a creative arts approach, like what we could use from that to actually create work. So from that we decided to, because looking at the whole cognitive area, we decided to try this whole area of interactive sound, what we call choreo-sonic, so movement making sound. And that's become a whole research focus for me actually, just looking in terms of how we can use our body to make sound because, I mean, with classical music, and in the old days, like, we have to use our body to make sound like you either sing or you, you bow, you bow something, you plug something, you hit something. But now with computer music and electronic music, actually, we have basically separated the body from sound making. And then now we're trying to sort of try and put that back together again. So using the digital space, but still using the body to make sound. And I work a lot with dancers in that space, but also with non-specialist, what we call non specialist musicians. So I use that as a way of participation in sound making for anyone. So for example, I'm building a work at the moment where we are using just computer vision. So for children to actually play the piano, play the Disklavier, just ways of making sound that you don't have to be a complete expert to encourage participation from everyone in sound making.
Chelsea
I saw a piece of yours online, the Mental Dance Project, which was developed during and across the different lock downs. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? So it was originally intended to be a dance music collaboration piece that was going to be live, but then you sort of moved it across to zoom and you had a digital audience? Yes. Can you tell us a little bit about that project and how it worked?
Monica
Yeah, so it started off with a collaboration with Carolyn (Brown) and Marta (Garrdio) on mental dance. And we were using wearable sensors, so wearable sensors, like like your phone, they basically since gyration, and acceleration. And of course, we've locked downs. That whole project had to stop because we couldn't be in the same space and the dancers, the dancers didn't have the technical ability and the sort of programmes and technology with them to be able to do that themselves. So the only way we could collaborate still in this choreo - sonic world where you have interactive sound and sound and movement was through zoom, because that was easiest, everyone knew how to use Zoom. But how do you analyse movement through the screen? So the only way that could be done was through computer vision, and luckily enough, that has now advanced so that the AI that can recognise the body through the screen is now very advanced and very fast. So we did some performances where I would basically through zoom, analyse the dancers movements, and then that would be transferring to trigger sound. And then that goes out
Chelsea
In real time?
Monica
In real time, in real time.So you could have, we had two dancers. So basically, they were working in separate spaces in their own homes, but their movement together was affecting the sound. So there was, yeah, it was interesting idea of being together yet still apart.
Chelsea
And the dancers were performing set choreography that was designed for them?
Monica
It wasn't set, I think it you know, they had loose sort of, it's almost like a graphic score. If you think about it, they had set movements. But within that there was also space, space to improvise, especially one of the movements, we actually use a neural network. So we use an AI to actually learn the movement as they did it. So every performance of that would be different, because what you start off with would be mapped to a different sound. Yeah, I feel like I'm not explaining it very well (laughs) .
Chelsea
I watched it. I watched a lot of it on Vimeo. And I read the accompanying article as well. But I still just kind of, you know, I had so many questions like, how does this actually work? So in terms of the musical note choices, how had that been programmed? So that particular movements triggered particular notes? Is there a kind of musical decision that you as a composer or the programmer of the technology, on the receiving end is pre-programmed so that it doesn't just sound like a completely, you know, unlistenable mess of notes?
Monica
Yeah, I think a lot of that sound designed rather than using notes, we were playing with the voice actually. So we recorded Austin Haynes, who is an amazing countertenor. And we actually use the movement to, to change effects on the voice. So for example, we use granular synthesis quite a lot, where that's where the voice is cut up into, or sound samples are cut up into small grains. And then the movement would change. You know, what sort of grains are being sounded how large those grains are the intervals between the grains and things like that.
Chelsea
And so what was the audience response like, to the online performances,
Monica
We got lots of feedback that it was definitely the liveness was something that they felt was really important, because a lot of digital, so the online works during lockdown, they were prerecorded, and you were just basically watching something that had been prerecorded. So we're missing this live, this feeling of something being at risk of going wrong, you know, that liveness - that performance, manage to still have to give the audience that feeling of liveness. and also for actually, the performance, we felt like the dancers were saying that they felt nervous before the performance, they felt the butterflies in the stomach that they hadn't felt for a long time. That's why I'm sort of interested in this technology space as well is that feeling of unpredictability that you get things that are slightly out of control?
Chelsea
Last year, you won third prize in the 2021 Guthmann, musical instrument competition? Congratulations. Can you tell us about creating the electromagnetic piano?
Monica
Yeah, well, it's not it's not a new idea, first of all, there has been lots of versions of electromagnetic pianos made throughout the years. But what happened was, they're all elsewhere, somewhere in a university somewhere overseas. And David Shea who's my collaborator, and I, we wanted one that we could play here. So we thought as usual, like you know, I just dive headlong into things first without thinking so I thought oh, let's make one and luckily we came we are new Mirza who is the engineer who who did most of the actually hard work actually making you know, the, all the electronic bits. But the idea of electro magnetic piano is that it just it's an extension to the normal piano and acoustic piano, but it allows different timbre and more techniques to be used. So the one limitation of the piano is the fact that it can't sustain very long, the notes die out really quickly. And you can't do things like say go from soft to loud just you are either soft or loud. So what happens with the electromagnetic piano we use electro magnets on each string, which basically vibrate the string. And that's controlled by little mini computers on each string. So we can basically sustain that note as long as we want. And we can, yeah, we can do harmonic sweeps. We can do loud, too soft. Just kind of gradual effects on the piano that we can’t usually do.
Chelsea
And how do you actually play the electro magnetic piano?
Monica
Yeah, so it just works on MIDI, MIDI being the most common protocol for electronic instruments. So you could play it with anything with any MIDI interface like a keyboard or pedals. I use, I tend to play with a computer. So I tend to make sort of generative algorithmic music and then get my computer to basically play the piano.
Chelsea
Wow. Has there been recordings with electromagnetic piano in popular music that people wouldn't even realise is an electromagnetic piano? Or is it kind of not crossed over into those spaces as yet?
Monica
Yeah, I mean, I don't know of any that have crossed over into the popular music sphere. I'm pretty sure there are recordings, there's certainly YouTube videos out there of compositions that have been done to electromagnetic piano, not popular music. Now, there could be an opportunity that,
Chelsea
Yeah, I feel like the Bjork’s gonna get onto this at some point. And one of the clips that I saw, it was, again, gestures and movement. How does that work with the instrument?
Monica
Yep, yep. So that's something that actually we did as a concert, earlier this year, where we actually set up three stations in a room around the piano. And so the audience was actually going around and playing the piano and also affecting effects on the acoustic sound with their movement.
Chelsea
Wow. And what was the audience experience and feedback like? Will the audience musicians or non-musicians?
Monica
A whole mixture of musicians and non-musicians, you definitely didn't have to be a musician he was programmed to be to just work with any movement. Audience feedback, didn't do a survey of the audience after, but I was surprised by the, because sometimes it's really hard to get people to participate. Yeah. But I was surprised in this case, because actually, from the very start of the performance, right till the end, there was always someone at those stations, it was never empty. So people were very willing to give it a go and try it out.
Chelsea
And what did it sound like? What kind of genre space do you think this instrument really would thrive in?
Monica
Well, what we did was pretty very much within the experimental space. However, because the magnet sounds so good as a drone, I could actually see in a lot of, you know, like, Nihls Frahm that sort of very sort of meditative, easy listening, classical contemporary will also it will also really work well, in that environment.
Chelsea
You've been quoted as saying, as a composer, you're never fully satisfied just working with sound and that you see colour with pitches. So visual elements are a major part of your work. Which is why you often collaborate with film and dance. Can you describe more for us what you mean by seeing pitches in colour, and what that experience is like?
Monica
So this is something that it was definitely a lot stronger when I was younger. And I think a lot of the research, you know, on synesthesia, speaks about that as well. I used to always see the note G as brown, and F was always blue, Aqua. And I suppose there's been a lot of research. A lot of some composers, obviously, very well known Messiaen (Olivier Eugène Prosper Charles Messiaen). I don't know whether it has really influenced my approach to sound and interactivity. Maybe I just, I guess, I'm always interested in the social context of music as well. And maybe that's why music is so abstract, that that for the moment, at least I feel like I need another medium to to explore those sort of social relational aspects of music, where we can use music, to explore relations between people or our relations to the technology that we use social media, that sort of thing.
Chelsea
You've collaborated with fellow interactive composers and lighting designers for projects such as white knight, which was a project you co developed which spanned three kilometres. Can you tell us what you think makes a great collaboration and how you approach making work for a public space?
Monica
That work was a very early work. I did it in second year of undergrad. So I think that was one of the first public works that I've done. Collaboration is a really difficult one. A lot, most of my projects are collaborative. I like working in that space, I guess, because no one is an expert in everything. And I feel like. I learned so much when I work with other people. But it's challenging, especially because I do a lot of cross-cultural work as well. So when dealing with someone from another culture, as well, it can take a lot longer. You just need a lot more time and patience to give space to everyone. But you end up making something that you could never make on your own. So I love collaboration.
Chelsea
What do you think makes a great collaboration?
Monica
Generosity, I think everyone being generous enough to give space for ideas. I think for me, that's that's the major, major part of it.
Chelsea
Your recent project, Jagad combined dance, music and film. And this was another project that was originally conceived as a live show, but then became a film during the lockdown period. But recently became a live show again, but then incorporating the film, can you tell us about this project and how you approached designing the music?
Monica
So this project was unusual in the sense that I design most of the music first. And then, and then the film was made, which is the total opposite of how it's usually done. Usually you make the film first.
Chelsea
So how did that work? They edited the film to your music.
Monica
Yes, yeah. Which is, yeah, not the usual not the usual process. So yay, for musicians. When I'm first started on the music, and it was inspired by a book, I always conceived it as a dance work for some reason. But then, you know, someone introduced me to Garin Nugroho this amazing film director and Rianto
this amazing dance dancer. So we decided to make it into a film. And yeah, which worked out well, because of COVID, and everything else. And then when we made it into a performance work again, so I did this music had already been made, but then I totally reject it. Because when you start working with bodies in the space, and I had two choreographers, Melanie and Rianto. So a lot more ideas thrown into the space. So the music just had to change like we had we I still use bits of it and ideas of it. But you know, the whole pieces had to be rewritten. And then Rianto, also really loved the whole interactivity of his movement making sound. So I had to make some sections where, where we use that where we actually use this moment to make sound which which worked well in the context of the piece, because he was like the mother figure in that piece. So it makes sense for him to be controlling and making sound with his movement in that piece.
Chelsea
So how did it work in terms of collaborating with the choreography? Were you at the development stage and the rehearsal stage, and then they'd say, oh, actually, Monica, we need this section to be longer. Can you change this section? Were you responding to the movement? Or they were responding to the music? How did you go about that back and forth dialogue?
Monica
Oh, it was definitely all of that. All of that. So I was I was in a development we had. We didn't have too much time. Actually. We had three weeks of development, and then the presentation.
Chelsea
Wow, that's really short.
Monica
Yeah, it was intense, especially with two choreographers, because you know, space for everyone. It takes time. Yeah. So a lot of the music, they could try out already like, okay, we've got this idea for movement. Let's try this music with it, or, and then there were things that were just developed when I say, oh, I need this thing to change, I need a beat. And a lot of my music doesn't have a beat. So I just had to create something that had a beat that the dancers could follow so and then a lot of it was just tweaking durations to fit to fit the durations that we needed and things like that.
Chelsea
So the live incarnation was a three week kind of development period, but the project had been going for quite some time before that with creating the original film and composition. So how did it feel for you to finally kind of see this as a live work? Did you celebrate afterwards?
Monica
Yeah, we definitely did. I'm just so glad that it could like we finally made it and delivered the work because there were so many hiccups along the way. We did have a prior development which got shut down after a few days.
Chelsea
Why was it shut down? because of lock down?
Monica
Lockdown yeah. And then just trying to get everybody. And for a long while with, I thought that we'd have to do it without Riatno, because I just didn't see him being able to come into the country. So we were working towards a version where he was there just as an online presence, a digital presence. But I'm so glad that he actually managed to come come in, in the end for the end project.
Chelsea
Yeah, what a relief. And you know, so incredible that you all manage to rally and get this together, because there's been so many international collaborations over the last few years, that just have not been able to see the light of day, you know, given the circumstances, it's still ongoing now. I mean, I think Japan's only just opening I think later this month, you know, like, there's still, we're still so limited with how we can collaborate with our artistic peers in other territories? Will there be more shows of Jagad, do you think?
Monica
I hope so. I'm a very inexperienced producer, I also produced this piece. So I need to do more work in that space.
Chelsea
Well, that's incredible, if that's one of your first producing roles, and it's something that involved film, dance music, sound, AI, people coming from different countries. I mean, that's incredible. So a huge congratulations on that. Circling back a wee bit, we were just saying before, how you articulated from the masters of research over to her PhD? What are some of the main questions that you're hoping to find answers to through the PhD work?
Monica
So I'm really looking at this question of participation in music, a lot of my work in sound making, creating technologies to enable that, not creating technology, I suppose using existing technologies by creating interfaces to enable that, for example, the computer vision one, I created a tool where anyone really can use, can just go to a website and use your movement to change sounds or change MIDI. So that's a really accessible sort of interface that you don't need any coding skills to have. I work a lot with web audio. So Web Audio is audio that is generated by the browser. So it used to be that websites could only playback audio files. But now on the browser, you can actually synthesise audio, which means that you can then use all sorts of technology on the web to be interactive. So I'm looking at that as a way of participation as well for music making.
Chelsea
Any you enjoying the process of putting together the PhD and the work associated with it? Or does it seem that the more you look into it, the more questions you have, and the more ideas you get?
Monica
To be honest, I, I'm just so busy making work. I, I trust that when it comes to the writing of the thesis, it will all come together. And I think it will, because there are definite threads of inquiry that are common to all my projects. But it's definitely a creative, what we call a creative lead PhD. So the actual creation of the art drives the research and that's definitely been my approach, I make the art and then I guess I will put that into some sort of comprehensible useful publication for others somehow.
Chelsea
You're also a board director and serve on the boards of Liquid Architecture, the Substation, the members council for Musica Viva and the Melbourne recital centre. Can you talk us through your role as a board director, and what inspired you to work in a strategic leadership position?
Monica
the positions that I have as director, I guess, fairly new? And look, I've been involved in sort of the philanthropic space in arts for a while, and I've always been interested in how we can, I suppose, contribute and create great opportunity for artists and especially emerging artists. So when I get approached to be a director, I guess, I guess I'm just trying to do my bit. I feel like perhaps I can bring a perspective that might be slightly different from the usual Board director because I am a practising artist in a fairly niche field.
Chelsea
You're also a business woman, and a creator and a lawyer. Pretty incredible skill set as a Board director
Monica
Possibly, possibly a very mixed skill set. Yeah, but I think yeah, a sense of I'm very practical like I when I get things done, so I think that's something that's maybe hopefully useful to the boards that I'm on. But it is a learning process because I'm as I said, I don't have much experience as a board director. Actually, that's something that also requires experience to be an effective one, I think. And I'm finding that I need to learn actually to be more forthright and more, maybe more more forceful in my opinions as well. So that's something that's that's taking time, I'm learning and I'm hoping that that sort of space can open up to more people of diversity as well, because it is sometimes quite a non-diverse space.
Chelsea
In terms of being on the board for Melbourne recital centre. Can you tell us what you think the role of a recital centre is in a major capital city?
Monica
So the ambit of the recital centre because it is a state based organisation is to be a space of music for everyone, for all Victorians actually, that's the specific term, place for all Victorians. That's what drives the board or certainly the Board Vision. When the recital centre I think first was established, there was definitely this view that it was a place for classical music, fine music, they called it, I think somewhere. But I think to be a space for everyone, it's got to include a lot more than that. And that's, that's an area for me as a board director that I'm really interested in to, to actually to see how we can bring bring more audiences to the MRC that are, that are representative of Victorians of all backgrounds.
Chelsea
Yeah, and I think that inclusivity really starts at board level staff level, you know, and how to work in with artists, I think spaces like the recital centre can feel so intimidating for, you know, different types of people or can feel kind of exclusive. So, trying to develop strategies and ways for people that make all kinds of music and people that want to enjoy all kinds of music to feel like that's a place for them, you know, is quite challenging. I mean, in contrast, working on a board like Liquid Architecture, I mean, that's an organisation that's making work, what's the kind of difference in terms of being a board director of an organisation making work versus an organisation presenting work?
Monica
I guess it's different in the sense that Liquid Architecture has a particular focus. And it doesn't need to cater for all Victorians, it can be very specialised in what it does. So there is that freedom to do something quite specific, whereas the MRC definitely has a broader role than that in Victoria. So that's quite different in in terms of the focus of what you can do. Budget wise, it's very different, of course, being a state funded organisation on the MRC on one hand, and Liquid Architecture being a very small organisation. The board is bigger than the staff, you know, it's we've got more board members, 10 staff members. (laughs) So the function, yeah, the board functions very differently as well. It's a lot more hands on, as opposed to the MRC, which we have to be just a lot more strategic and higher level.
Chelsea
I'd love to chat to you about Project 11, which is a philanthropic organisation that you established with your partner to support the arts. Can you tell us about the organisation and what you hope to achieve next?
Monica
So it's just a very loose term that Project 11, I think we just, we just wanted something that we could pop everything that we do in and it's basically, my partner Konfir and it's basically the projects that we want to support this, there's no, there's no, there's no board or you know, constitution that we have to adhere to. But our passion, my partner Konfir he's very much he's interested in the visual arts and myself more in the performing arts. But the one thing that we have in common is that we like things that are a little bit crazy, that take risk. So basically, we feel that we need to, to find the type of art where maybe others might not fund, because it's it's risky, it might turn out to be an absolute disaster. (laughs) And that's fine. Because it's more the process and the idea of being able to take that risk that attracts us. And that's where we feel that that perhaps it will be very difficult to for artists in that that sort of space to get funding, other types of funding.
Chelsea
And that's how we learn and that's how art progresses in general, right? So if you're having to think in a vocational way about trying to always make revenue from the art, then there's certain limitations around trying to make something for the mainstream. Whereas if it's purely about experimentation, and pushing boundaries, and it does sound terrible or look terrible, that's okay. As you said, it's about the process and those processes are going to, potentially in future inform new mainstream processes, you know, and we say that all the time with contemporary music and popular music artists like Solange, who incorporates these beautiful visuals, who, you know, I'm sure 20 years ago, that was part of some experimental thing that looked terrible. That's really beautiful and she can just use that technology and pick up those ideas and make it work in that kind of context. So you're a board director, you're a composer, you're doing a PhD, you're a mum, you've got a lot that you're juggling here. How do you manage all of this without experiencing burnout? Or do you sometimes experience burnout?
Monica
I'm really lucky, because I have an amazing mum. My mum's here at the moment. So and all through my life, I think when my kids were young, she's always been there to help out. And that has given me a lot of flexibility that other mums wouldn't have had. I remember, actually, when I first started my business, and my younger one was six months old, I left him in Singapore for six months or three, three months, I'd lived in Singapore for three months. Because the business really required like 100% of my time at that stage. So I was lucky.
Chelsea
So he was in Singapore with your mom with my mom. Yeah. Not by himself.
Monica
(laighs) yes with my mum
Chelsea
just to clarify that.
Monica
Yeah. Not by himself. He was a really independent six month old (laughs)
Chelsea
He’s just at Changi Airport just hanging out (laughs)
Monica
Yeah, yeah. So I suppose that extra family support was was really super, super helpful. Juggling juggling. We all juggle? I don't know. I have quite a fast worker. And I guess yeah, when you don't have much time, you just tend to do things? I think.
Chelsea
So does it just feel like one project to the next to the next? Do you take time out to celebrate what you've achieved? Or does it just feel like you're just constantly ticking things off a list
Monica
Its definitely constantly thinking ticking things off a list? Maybe it's all artists, I'm sure you feel the same, but you're never fully 100% satisfied with what you've done. Yes, you've resolved something, a project, you've resolved it enough to be able to deliver it and finish it. But it's never as good as you want it to be. Or certainly I feel that way. It's never as good as I need to be. So its onto the next project.
Chelsea
A lot of your work is in exploration and experimentation. And you seem to just dive in and boldly try new endeavours, which I really love. You've already achieved so much. But what do you want to discover next? What is on that Monica Lim bucket list of things that you still yearning to do?
Monica
Wow, there's still so much because I've just I feel like I've just started. I've just started on this journey of being creative and making making things that maybe people can interact with and find meaning in it. I don't have a bucket list because everything that I do is so I feel like every project is so different. So it's definitely but it's always one project leading to another question, which then gets explored in another project, which leads to another question. So it's never ending. And I hope that continues. Actually, I hope I continue to find those questions that lead me to the next project.
Chelsea
It sounds very much like the fire in your belly and the joy for music is still really strong. Monica, thank you so much for joining me on the Control podcast. It's been so great to chat to you.
Monica
Thank you so much for having me.
Monica’s work
