COMO&HAPPY SCREEN_NOVEMBER 2018 《Hyper-real Fantasia》
2018. 11. 01 - 2018. 12. 30
Exhibition Venue & Open Hours
[ COMO SCREEN ]
SKT-Tower, Euljiro 1-ga Exit no.4 / Daejeon SKT Dunsan Bldg
08:30 ~ 19:00
[ HAPPY SCREEN ]
SK Bldg 4F
09:00 ~ 18:00
*Closed on weekends and public holidays
Artist Hwayong Jung
Organizer Art Center Nabi, SK Telecom, SK Innovation
Inquiry 02 2121 7224
Exhibition Statement
Humans constantly record to cling on to the
things that are disappearing and being forgotten. These records, along with the
development of technology, have led to the creation of hyper-real world beyond
the preservation and representation of human memory. Today, data produced via
digital technology exists as a more ‘realistic’ simulacre. From a specific
object to time and space, to human senses and emotions, these records create a
new virtual world beyond the recovery of lost memories, with the desire to
regain and preserve what has been lost and forgotten.
This November, COMO & HAPPY SCREEN 《Hyper-real Fantasia》 exhibition introduces Hwayong Jung’s Mantra (2017) and Artificial & Archived (2018), which present the visual experience of the surreal world by re-assembling technically generated images and human shapes and memories.
Archives, which put origin on the word
‘arkhe’, possess the meaning of both ‘commencement’ and ‘commandment’. Derrida
saw archives as ‘the place where certain laws commence’, as well as the
dominance and the exclusive right itself that allow possession, maintenance,
and interpretation of the laws. Although archives are used to reproduce
selective memories, they actually become a motif for a new memory that only
preserves the traces of their absence.
Artificial
& Archived presents a narrative of a new memory
through pictorial panorama in virtual reality, rather than a building of
perfect representation of memories through modern technology that extends the
boundaries of exx-pression. With the background of an apartment building that is
to be redeveloped, and in which the artist’s childhood is enclosed, the townscape
in the artist’s memory and his reminiscence of it are fragmented and
reassembled. This is artificially recorded through the technology of Virtual
Reality, and is intended to lead to a new cycle of circulation where new
memories and meanings are derived via the process.
In Mantra,
dynamic and delicate movements of human’s traditional dance and “randomly
generated or sometimes thoroughly computed” images of the computer code bloom
like a kaleidoscope, flowing in the form of fantastic, surrealistic panoramas.
This visual euphoria created by the materials and non-materials extends beyond
the ‘record’ of tradition and modernness, virtuality and reality, and the
interaction between man and machine, spreading the horizon of exx-pression
boundaries, introducing a new direction, and unfolding a fantasia.
Artwork Description
Mantra, (2017), 16K Video, 10’12’’, Single Channel Edition. Choreographer:
Unhee Kim (Seungmu)
Body language and sound generated from digital object and human are permeated into the digital scenario and gives birth to the new cycle of synthetic beauty. A traditional dance called Seungmu, which performs a human desire to overcome his suffering, presents dynamic and yet delicate movements, and its encounter with computer codes creates randomly but meticulously calculated images - a beauty created by human and images made by machine. Inside of endless communication between them, a new experiential form of vision and sound will be developed and provided.
Artificial & Archived, (2018), Virtual
Reality, Oculus Rift, Video Monitor, PC.
This
piece consists of a 360-degree panoramic video of shots taken within the city
that represent memories. The shots focus on areas undergoing redevelopment,
containing scenes of places that will soon disappear or undergo drastic changes
within the city. The panorama serves as a tool for exchanging the memories and
emotions surrounding the areas as the artist remembers them, using surreal
imagery to represent memories.
About the Artist
Hwayong
Jung attempts to push the boundaries of the conventional attributes by
utilizing digital media as an expressive tool to create new, atypical images
and adopting multifarious digital methods. The significance of Jung’s panoramic
video work lies in the fact that it uses the virtual world beyond the Symbolic
as a support of meanings and captures the subversive feature of the digital
world that is centered around heterogeneity. Virtual space of the digital world
can be a space of liberation that can break down the fixed semantic system. Jung’s
works are intended to fully visualize the world that a computer simulation
intrinsically possesses, the world of Heterotopia, while drawing esoteric
meanings and experimenting images of extreme atypicality derived from the men
and the machines.
His
works have been featured in numerous exhibitions such as Ars Electronica
Festival, SIGGRAPH, Asia Culture Center, Seoul Museum of Art, DUMBO Arts
Festival, Vision Hall gallery of Hyundai Motor Group, Museum of Contemporary
Art of Vojvodina, Cairo Gezira Art Center and BRIC Arts Media House in
Brooklyn, NY. He was selected as the finalist and the winner of the Excellence
Award in the 2nd VH Award in 2017, sponsored by Hyundai Motors. He
has been actively collaborating with experts and engineers from diverse fields
whilst participating in a variety of residency programs, including the2016
residency program by Ars Electronica Center in Linz, Austria.