Tree of Voice

JUNG Moonryul

2021

optical fibers, LED, arduino processors, steel, sound, variable installation

Motivated by the Tree of Voice, a medium through which the Na’vi communicate with nature in Avatar, a 2010 American science fiction film directed by James Cameron, Tree of Voice is a symbolization of an artificial nature. Its materials, parts, production, and operation method rest heavily on mechanical engineering, electronic engineering, and computer engineering technologies. Tree of Voice is a sort of a cyborg (cybernetic organism) in which the viewer becomes the Na’vi and experiences interactions with nature which is the source of all life forms and recuperative powers.

Cave for Rest #03

YUN Jeho

2021

moving head lasers, acrylic cubes, LED, mirrors, hazer machine, speakers, variable installation

Contemporary humans tend to perceive an online network where digital data float as a natural environment. If digital data is readily accepted as the ingredient of nature, rest can be found even in digital space, and a break suitable for contemporary people who are floating aimlessly can be completed. Cave for Rest #3 is a site where digital nomads can rest for a while. This work is an invitation couched in light and sound to pose a question concerning our existence in a digital cave in which our senses of space and time become dull.

MOANAIA

LEE Jinjoon

2020

5m, single channel video and sound installation

MOANAIA delivers a virtual experience of an aquarium through its large screens. It also indirectly projects the technological development of contemporary world along with the culture and environment of Oceania, largely neglected in world history, which is centred on the northern hemisphere. Moanaia is a compound word made of moana, meaning ‘large ocean’ in Polynesian, and –ia from Oceania. This area, almost appearing non-existent in the Atlantic-centred map, is difficult to travel to, although it takes up a massive space on earth. Its rather well-preserved environment is due to such paradoxical geographical character. On the other hand, this area has been experiencing severe illnesses since the age of empires, armed with technology, driven by anthropocentrism. The video provides a strong immersive experience of the real world and the virtual space through the editing with visual AI technology. Wandering human shadows, objectified nature, and the history of Oceania represented by individual statues is posed together to ask an existential question on humanity’s utopia. Particularly, it questions the peril of science, technology, and civilisation to the future environment.

Plant Gesture no.2

PARK Goeun

2021

terrestrial laser scan material, 2channel video installation

Plant Gesture no.2 features details of a tree’s movements recorded by a Terrestrial Laser Scanner (TLS). Terrestrial Laser Scanners are usually used for detailed three-dimensional data acquisition of objects moving slowly such as trees, water, and the earth. This work is made up of 43 data files scanned at ten-minute intervals, and each file is composed of approximately 16,000 point clouds. The scanning files documenting a tree’s movements with scientific figures and data are artificial information, but tens of thousands of point clouds are vigorously moving within them.

Virtual Garden in Meta_Garden 21_ver

SEO Sanghee

2021

plant, 3channel video, variable installation

A virtual garden is built through the fusion of real plants symbolic of the analog and nature and artificial light from digital media and video images. We are led to the blurred boundary between analog and digital or an opaque network as shimmering light interacts with actual plants and causes some deformation in natural objects. Boundaries between real and imaginary spaces fall apart as these two spaces interact with each other, which provides a pictorial space in which we can simultaneously experience two conflicting notions, virtuality in reality and reality in virtuality, digital and analog, or virtuality and reality.

The world we live in v 2.2

NOH Sanghee

2021

In The World We Live in v 2.2 NOH Sanghee scientifically gauges the influence of fine dust on the cells and nerve networks in our bodies and makes use of the data as a parameter, displaying it in projection mapping. This work is a visualization of how some negative external factor like fine dust leaves a deleterious trace on the cell and the nerve network through a scientific measurement, defining a cell as an independently active living organism reacting to external stimulus. The projected video images are a three-dimensional reconstruction of the state of cells and nerve networks, demonstrating the condition of a body exposed to fine dust.

Video Garden in the Air

PARK Sanghwa

2021

5m, projection mapping on structures, 2channel video installation

This work is a projection of humans assimilated with nature in inactive nature and the Peach Blossom Land onto box structures with projection mapping, a projection technique used to turn objects into a display surface. This work projects pictorially reconstructed images of quotidian scenes (buildings in the city, a building’s indoor scenes) and natural landscapes (clouds, the sky, grasslands, groves, seas, waves) into space after reinterpreting them from the artist’s point of view. The viewers are able to appreciate these scenes and have an experience of becoming part of this work or a scene, coming in and out of this video installation. They are also allowed to have a time of relaxation, meditation, and recovery, sitting on the boxes set on the floor.

Sound of Water, Sound of Wind

SON Bongchae

2016-2021

oil on polycarbonate, LED, variable installation 90x180x10cm 2ps , 80x120x10cm 4ps, 120x160x10cm 120x80x10cm

Sound of Water, Sound of Wind is an installation featuring a shade tree referred to as jeongja namu (정자나무) that is widely distributed throughout the southern provinces of the Korean Peninsula. This kind of tree whose age is usually 350-500 years old works as a tutelary deity or a resting place, conveying historical narratives. Such a tree seems to be a witness of history, capturing aspects of the past, present, and future. Our deep introspection might be provoked by this work through the relation with nature by which we have shared tears, dreams, and hopes.

A Fundamental Principle

KIM Hyeongsuk

2016

9m 55s, 3channel video installation

A Fundamental Principle touches on the rules and principles the universe, nature, human beings, and what artifacts rest on for their existence through the Fibonacci sequence, a core mathematical principle. This work shows that all beings we come across in our daily lives are in accord with this principle, reinterpreting this mathematic theory from art’s point of view through the notion of geometric dimension. Every scene in this work questions the infinitude of the universe or nature and the role of humans. This work also serves as an opportunity to rethink of existence itself couched in artistic idioms.

Heuristic of New–Ecosystem

SO Soobin

2021

plants, sensor, arduino, acrylic, LED, monitors, variable installation

Growing plants in Heuristic of New-Ecosystem are future plants that adapt themselves to the environment, combined with machines. These are artificially evolved plants that are created not by ecological evolution but by human developed science and technology. This work also visually presents an intuitive question concerning how we have to see the future new ecosystem, experimenting with the process of artificial modification (plants+machinesàmobility).

Wind, Rain about the Special Memories

GUEM Minjeong

2021

interaction software, mapping PC, internet, projectors, video installation

In Wind, Rain about the Special Memories GUEM Minjeong makes weather changes like temperature react to video images in real time using landscapes of specific spaces such as Gaetkkak Jusangjeolli Cliff, Columnar Joints in Jeju, and Sosweawon in Damyang. A video image reminds viewers of some specific memory and emotion. Changing weather conditions bring about changes in one’s emotion. Such emotional change has an influence on human behavior, reacting to the present time. The correlation between weather and memory as well as emotion and mood is very intriguing and reveals the special presence of time involving one’s memory of a place one has already seen.