Promenade – Through the Forest of Memory
Koh Wonsuk (Curator of Gallery Space)
After all trying to forget something is same as trying to think about it. (French proverb)
A Step Along the Way
It was to Strasbourg that the artist, Seung Young Kim returned after a long trip to see a trace of spectacular ancient civilization in Pompeii. He hadn’t found as much excitement as he had expected. But then while walking in the streets of Strasbourg and vacantly staring at the asphalt road, something on the ground caught his eye; the remnants of a dead bird, which was so dried out that it was hard to determine when it actually died.
The peculiar trace of this dead bird on the yellow border line between driveway and sidewalk swirled through his mind as sky, road, bridges and buildings hovered in the background.
In this exhibition, this scene is represented in the simultaneously flickering images of two monitors. As we discover that depending on the point of view objects can be perceived as completely different from each other, we realize that one cannot be one and one and two cannot really be different from one another. These silently passing images cut across space in the middle of past and present while revealing life and death, existence and non-existence, sight and sound. And all scenes keep changing in conjunction with a gaze since the body holding the gaze moves, and movement bring change to the consciousness of the body. In this way, passing scenes disappear with the intangible name of place and indifferent scenes of an outdoor billboard reveal its awkward liveliness with a rattling sound.
Water
There was a puddle somewhere near the dead bird. In the corner of a man-made space this puddle makes us feel as though it has been there since the beginning. The water doesn’t seem to possess any power, but through the fact of its being it clearly illustrates the law of gravity. As though it were dropped from upstairs, the puddles on the upstairs and downstairs floors offer a strange experience that conflict with the viewers’ previous experience of the exhibition space.
In this sense the puddles traverse the border of divergent spaces, working to enable encounters with points in the past. When standing in front of the water, one realises that what they confront there is a reflection of him or herself. Therefore, the puddles imply a multi-layered path where both the present and the past coexist. It is not a one-way path that only goes from past to present.
Ripples
Water also makes a mark. Since it always tends to flow from one place to another, its marks are quite fleeting. However, ripples created in water here are curved shapes carved into the surface of a thick stone in bluish black, almost recalling an abyss, and displaying dynamism and directionality because of the backjets sticking out in the centre. Some of these ripples formed in the center naturally spread out. And these ripples get to meet with other ripples that are being spread from other drops, but this encounter of ripples exists only in a very brief moment. However, for a short moment, we somehow want to believe that the ripples would continuously spread out. But that extinction is also impermanent. In the process of spreading we want to believe in the permanent expansion of the ripples, and when it comes to a halt, we want to believe in the permanence of its cessation, but after all, they are given a new existence every time a new ripple comes around.
Cloud
Clouds often seem to be static but they move around all the time. In the completely white space where the distinction between the ceiling, walls and floor doesn’t even exist, a cloud moves. And there we get to look at a cloud at eye level. We somehow think of a cloud as a flat object since we always get to look at it from below. However, through this work, one will discover that a cloud actually has verticality and moreover it has a kind of presence. Here the cloud seems to possess physical power, hold weight and move consistently as though it were alive while creating a lot of tension around it. A sound of wind is heard. And from time to time the sound goes away and comes around repeatedly: creation and destruction repeat endlessly.
Here once more it is the water that proves all the movements of a cloud: the puddle on the dark floor in front of the cloud image reflects a clearer cloud image on its surface. The reflected subject creating a virtual scene is also a virtual scene. It is a representation of a representation. Nevertheless, the virtual is indifferent from the real. After all, there is no such thing as absolute existence in any case. There exists only a subject that recognizes reality. Therefore, reality becomes imaginary, and the imaginary becomes reality. It is no longer meaningful to distinguish reality and the imaginary, future is a memory and the past is the present.
Chair
There is a chair that might have served to support a body tens of thousands times. The chair might have been repainted numerous times, and some of its removable parts reveal its corrosion. Although the chair is just sitting in a dark space creating a small shadow, it looks as if it is staring at us in a solid and reverent manner. When I sat on the chair, I sort of felt someone’s leftover body heat. As a result, it created a memory of some being in time and space. If one says that memory belongs to the imaginary and heat belongs to reality, here all classification loses meaning. A small chair with its remaining heat fills out the whole space. A body that used to enter a space with its complete physicality is now teleported to some infinite space through the trace of its heat in empty space. Body heat is now a memory.
Stone
Stones that have already been broken for some reason hold each other tightly. Indeed they represent the trace of a clear memory contained in a frame of existence. The thing that is one is simultaneously many being separated from each other and at the same time sticking with each other. It is an existence of paradox. It is both wound and healing, oblivion and memory.
All memories are slowly passing by. Particles of memory are falling with gentle music as if one sees them all at the moment of his or her death. Like the natural appearance of sunlight over wild plants, it illustrates a life that has formed memories. And those memories keep expiring and being born again. All different sounds of everyday life such as the sound of steps, the sound of a door and the sound of cars are mixed with gentle music and played in the space and those sounds somehow bring back petty memories, which have been hidden behind very simple clues. Before I can even try to find a clue about each name on the screen, it quickly passes. Through this work, we might be able to think about the essence of time passing even before we feel the accumulation of the memories it implies. And those names of the memories, again, gather around on paper and wriggle as though they are cells that came to life. It is indeed a self-motivated gathering. And the shape of this gathering is nothing but totally based on the sentiments of the brain that holds all memories. Unlike the disembodied and complicated reality of sentiments, the calm and sedate characteristics of quietly printed hanji (Korean Paper) are rather paradoxical.
Tower
When memories are stacked up in layers, they become a tower. Like the tower of Babel, this tower of sound seems to soar up endlessly, even past the ceiling. Here all kinds of memories and traces constitute a huge tower. Each ponderous unit seems on the verge of spurting something as if all my memories try to expel something from inside. This tall tower surrounding our bodies overflows with memories. The memory of existence recalled by the trace of a dead bird becomes the sound of a bird in flight whose sound cuts across the space. Some unknown dial tone spreads into the distance quietly but eternally. Someone’s voice is heard, and a heartbeat or proof of existence thumps here and there. Maybe the heartbeat is not anyone’s but my own. Maybe the dead bird is not from Strasbourg but rather from here. At last, my sensory cells wake up one by one, slowly but clearly. My senses become extremely keen and sensitive and each cell realizes independence and consolidation with its own reasoning. Now those memories completely come inside me and become a part of a new universe.
