Gangnam Style is High Art; or, How to Perceive Media

TZECHAR

This lecture explores how all media—from viral pop to reality TV—reflects the society that produces it. TZECHAR argues that no cultural product is meaningless; each exists because social, economic, and technological forces demand it, and audience reactions continually shape what comes next in a cultural feedback loop. By examining how context and perception create value, the lecture reframes “low” media as vital documentation of collective desire and identity.

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TZECHAR (Singapore / Melbourne) are an experimental art duo whose work spans music, film, performance, and digital media. Their practice investigates how individuals, cultures, and systems attempt to co-exist through fundamentally absurd human constructs—from religion and finance to technology and myth.

Through immersive audio-visual performances and conceptual art projects such as The Great Void and Harmonious Product, TZECHAR reflect on the tension between structure and chaos, tradition and rupture, ritual and recursion. Their work often combines methodical composition with volatile noise and hyper-mediated imagery, invoking both the sacred and the satirical.

Operating at the edge of sound art, club culture, and contemporary installation, TZECHAR treat generative media as both spiritual and political material. Their performances function as meditations on collective perception — questioning how meaning, identity, and coherence persist within systems designed to collapse.