2018 Gyeonggi Creation-Center Artist in Residence : HyoungSan Jun

Irresistible crust #4 ; Electric chair｜HyoungSan Jun｜2011｜Mixed media , Interactive sound installation ( rocking chair, telegraph, motor, speakers, television )｜Variable size

[ Artist Note ]

Now a days, through a various medium, we live in a newly contemporized period. Individuals form systems of cognition and awareness based on combination of collected sensible information. Unknowingly, I becomes familiarized with overwhelmed and limitless information and this circumstance make myself misunderstand senses as the absolute truth. My work starts from suspicion on my senses itself and postponement of judgment. Also, it tells how our senses are imperfect and we often make hasty decisions with certain conditions. This is the one of the process for new understanding “I” in modern environment. The new understanding will occur through various medium that reflects our perspectives and the importance of following judgment.

As the < Incomplete Truth > series reveals limitation of sensory centered understanding system, it metaphorically reflects that we need multifactorial communication method to understand specific events.

Furthermore, the < Irresistible Perception > series informs that reasons which reflecting the judgment and inference should connect with our perceptions and it must be seen as the result of the process of mechanical impression. For those reasons, the project take interactive component. The work structured with ‘display to tell’ and ‘display to make listen’ which deals with communication conflicts that comes from individuals’ custom or traditional social relationship.    

< a priori bits > series start from noise itself and one of ‘fabrics’ are creating through structuralization of sound object. This has distinct characteristic as one of medium and metaphorically reveals realistic process within the latent state of sound noise. This kinds of sound noise and inter-phases, which happens every day of our life and even unable to escape from, are communication line with the world and create relationship between real ( visible object ) and imaginary ( invisible space ) world. The sound that produced through that process are not the noise anymore but sound of all existent in the world.

Thus, my current work has been in progress following the topics: the production of non-musical sounds and ‘musicalized’. ‘Sound’ is settled in categorization between the musical and nonmusical group within the long historical standard. Within the history, general perception of recognizing unintended sounds as noise but not as music is one of significant issue with this work. The feeling of the low-tech sounds is not beautiful but more annoying to our ears. However, this work practicing with analogue and mechanical method to produce nonmusical sound to extend areas of sound and interact that offers chances for unique and sensible communication. Also, it has the meaning of ‘hyper-media’ as by creating a new symbologies in the form of Synesthesia work through a combination of ‘hearing’ and ‘seeing’.Therefore, this work is trying to bring transformation to the structures of perception that observes the outside world through the new experiences of the sensory organ. Therefore, this work is trying to bring transformation to the structures of perception that observes the outside world through the new experiences of the sensory organ.

< Suspension of Disbelief >

Suspension of Disbelief #1; Void｜HyoungSan Jun ｜2018｜

Sound installation, mixed media｜140×60×180cm

Suspension of Disbelief #1; void recognizes the surrounding environment through the camera repeatedly moving up and down, and creates new images, and it follows the mechanism to function as the graphic score of another picture. In fact, the machinery scans the surrounding environment of the exhibition, including the spectators, to begin the performance, and the performed graphic score is printed and stacked in the space. This refers to the system where the visual image becomes the invisible sound and that sound returns to become visible as a graphic score, and this creates the space of sound being void and non-void at the same time.

Suspension of Disbelief #2; tremor｜HyoungSan Jun ｜2018｜

Sound installation, mixed media｜dimension variable

The machinery of Suspension of Disbelief #2; tremor reads the color slide being composed by the artist to create the vibration of the wire, and the movement of the cable car limits the vibration of the wire. The sound, which began with a small vibration, shakes the space and reveals its existence.

Suspension of Disbelief #3; contact｜HyoungSan Jun ｜2018｜

Sound installation, mixed media｜dimension variable

the author records all produced sounds on the luminous board Suspension of Disbelief #3; contact is a work which maximizes sensory effects in order for the spectator to feel the contact of sound with the whole body, beyond the audio-visual senses. 6 glittering antennas ( Loop ANT ) pick up frequencies we would never recognize, and the rotating cylinder as a graphic score, which is the origin of sound, tries to dismantle and to re-deploy the indiscreet sound. The sound being made like this would move and rule the space through 4 speakers spread throughout the exhibition, and would make one spectacle by adding the movement of the light and the machine. However, there is no recognizable implication, and it is not properly re ned or comfortable, either. The spectators only exist in the overwhelming space, and they are just waiting for the meaning reproduced newly through their movements and experiences.

Suspension of Disbelief #5; dismal｜HyoungSan Jun ｜2018｜  

Sound installation, mixed media｜25×28×100cm (2ea)

2 face-to-face speakers of Suspension of Disbelief #5; dismal emit a voice reading 1984 by George Orwell. The tone of the sound generated by the symbolization of ‘X’ and ‘X’ with a very little time difference coming from each speaker becomes fainter as the distance diminishes. The smaller sound, as the distance diminishes, would stimulate the desire of humans to rule sound, but the control of humans breaks down, and the spoken languages(logos), being deemed as an absolute transmitter of meaning, function as an auditory experience itself, which exists as just sound.

Suspension of Disbelief #6; Here$Now｜HyoungSan Jun ｜2018｜

Interactive sound installation, mixed media｜86×20×41cm (2ea)

Suspension of Disbelief #6; here$now, consists of two light boxes, and aims to produce nonverbal communication. The spectator begins the communication through the Morse code machine at the right, and this message will be transformed into a sound by an internal device upon its visualization in the liquid crystal. The sound being created in this process is delivered to the device on the left, but it recognizes the surrounding sound at the same time, so it creates a completely different sound from the originally entered message. Now, regardless of existing here, various messages, in accordance with the surrounding context, which have lost their original intention or purpose, produce an error of the discretionary value judgment. However, the free world of the imagination being created by this error also has the positive aspect of opening up a new meaning of possibility at the same time.

< 4 Little Strangers >

4 Little Strangers｜HyoungSan Jun ｜2018｜Sound installation, mixed media｜25×13×38cm (4ea)

4 Little Strangers, which consists of 4 light boxes, modi es the signal of the electromagnetic wave to the sound and provides a sound that you have never heard before. Each generated sound is left as another sound that only exists, but is not consumed.

< Words Not Being Dissipated >

Words Not Being Dissipated｜HyoungSan Jun ｜2018｜Sound installation, mixed media｜50×40×20cm

Words Not Being Dissipated, visualizes the sound entered by the spectator through a microphone, or the sound entered by the surroundings on the luminous board of the turntable. The sound created by someone will disappear from this space soon, but its trace accumulates and is left on the turntable. Things not being consumed in reality, where production has value and meaning only when it is directly connected to consumption, are deemed useless and meaningless.

[Critique] Excuses for Deut.Bo.Jab( Eum ) : The Solo Exhibition Reverberation Time of Hyoung-San Jun (Wonjoon Yoo, Media Aesthetics)

0.

There is a term that is often used by the younger generations on the Internet. It's “ Deut.Bo.Jab ”. It refers to something( hereinafter referred to as “ Jab ” ) that you've never “ heard ( Deut ) ” or “ seen ( Bo ) ”, and it is used to describe an object( or a person ) that appears suddenly when you didn't even know it existed. It is a term used jokingly, so it is a bit funny to think about it seriously. Nevertheless, you get caught repeatedly thinking about its meaning. Maybe this is because the made-up words of these times accurately reveal the perceptions of the public or a reality. “ Deut.Bo.Jab ” literally is the condition of existing in reality that assumes a sort of being in a visible/audible area. In other words, a figure ( or an object ) must be “ heard ” or “ seen ” to have the necessary and sufficient condition of not being a piece of “ junk ”. This paradoxically reveals our common perception regarding an existence as junk if we can’t hear it or see it. This term understandably arouses controversy, such as “ who is the subject that hears and sees? ” When this term is commonly used, there is a dispute about the possibility that the person given this term may be “ Deut.Bo.Jab ”, but the person might also be very influential. The “ subject ” here refers to the perspective of the general public, but it is hard to deny that our conventional and biased view of hiding ourselves in the group called “ the public ” is pervasive.

1.

Friedlaender’s short fictional work, Goethe's Phonographed Speech introduces the story of a professor who traces the footsteps of the dead Goethe, who can no longer be heard or seen. The professor restores the occipital area of Goethe’s skull and connects it to a phonograph for a girl who misses Goethe’s voice, that she heard when he was alive. He assumes that “ if the voice caused vibrations whenever Goethe spoke, its echo only subsides over time, but never disappears, ” and so he attempts to restore the sound pattern that imprinted Goethe’s voice from a noise into sounds by using the acoustic amplification technology of that time. This story is predicated upon a scientific fact: that the essence of sound is vibration. So, the trace of something that is audible or visible will still remain now, if it existed in the form of sound in the past. This scientific fact has become commonplace nowadays, but we still try to understand sound as a phenomenal approach to the medium that carries sound. Thus, we belittle sound or consider it as nonexistent if it does not appear as music, or in the form of a very easily recognizable sounding body. In other words, it is simply “ Deut.Bo.Jab( Eum ) ” as in the context above.

2.

“ Reverberation ” is sound that remains after the echoes of the body of sound. It corresponds perfectly with the rule of “ Deut.Bo.Jab ( Eum ) ”. We must, however, understand that a certain subject has a very flexible existence that can be converted into something visible and audible through some circumstance, even if it is not visibly revealed or identifiable in the auditory perceptive area. This is because it always exists around us scientifically or philosophically, although it is in a potential state that is not turned into a realistic occurrence. This kind of understanding becomes the basic foundation for approaching the artist’s works. Jun has been continuously working with “ nonmusical sound ”. “ Nonmusical sound ” at this point (of course, it has a greater scope semantically) is presented as sound that has not been heard or seen. By turning down the commonsensical schema ( of nonmusical sound ) that not all sounds are music, we reach the field of artistic experience that is feeling sound itself, rather than music, and the possibility of Deut.Bo.Jab(Eum) opens up there. Accordingly, the exhibition title, “ Reverberation Time ”, which is interpreted as “ the time in which remnant sound remains ”, is the story about the journey of sound that reveals its traces or disappears when sound(vibrations) meshes with the path of time and space.

3.

The artist carefully arranges “ trivial ” objects in the exhibition hall. His strength as an artist is clearly demonstrated here, as he displays a combination of these trivial things in a refined way. He diverts old analogue machines for other purposes. This is well revealed in this exhibition. A variety of objets you may have passed by in compound shops or hardware stores are installed in the exhibition hall in strange combinations. This view shows the thematic sense that this exhibition wants to present. In other words, machines that lost their functional meanings over the course of time ( or by spatial migration ) show their semantic system being marginalized. The reason why each work in this exhibition has come down to only one strand, even if they all have different storylines, is based on the reinventing of the medium suggested by the works.

The exhibition is basically divided into the Suspension of Disbelief series, 4 Little Strangers, which is an individual work, and Words Not Being Dissipated. The subject or theme of the exhibition is not easily approachable, and, furthermore, the titles are somewhat abstract. Let's look into Suspension of Disbelief #1; void, which is the first work you encounter as you enter the exhibition hall, and which takes up the greatest portion of this exhibition. This work looks like a giant sewing machine and functions as a sort of instrument. The camera installed inside this piece scans the scenes appearing on the front of this piece into images by moving up and down. It is connected to the monitor that displays these images visibly, and the key mechanism of such an operation is hidden behind the operations of the machine. Interestingly, the images on the monitor, displayed as musical notes, are printed on the floor of the exhibition hall. The moment the viewers are blinded by these (external) devices, the work exposes the corresponding noises derived from this scene.

4.

The point that the artist wants to challenge is the dissolution of the dichotomous world signified by sound. Normally, such an attempt comes from the attempt to prove that a nonvisible area exists by using other senses to discover it, or by following the traces of sound that exist in an inaudible area. Words Not Being Dissipated inside the exhibition hall and Suspension of Disbelief #3; contact in the basement are concretely showing such approach by the artist. Words Not Being Dissipated is a process of stamping the sounds coming from the viewers or the exhibition hall on the record, and the process of listening to sound (or music) through a turntable in the past takes place in reverse. That is, the turntable here is a recording device for collecting sounds rather than playing them. Unlike the people who erase the trace of sound the moment they listen to and recognize the sound, this device visualizes the traces of sounds that vanish into space and time faithfully. Sounds that have not been heard or seen are reborn into traces of their own. Recalling that a certain sound inevitably faces the passing of time once it is generated, the existence of the reverberation that remains as the remnant is fully dependent on time. Meanwhile, Suspension of Disbelief #3; contact enlightens the world of the senses about sound, which expands synaesthetically beyond time. This work collects frequencies that transcend our sensitivity to being aware of these sounds through six flashing antennas, and returns them to the viewers by breaking them down and recombining them through a rotating cylinder in the center. While the senses firstly exposed or used in this work are vision and hearing, the process of returning the sounds is carried out in a tactile way. The spatialtemporal path of sound that penetrates the entire space and resonates adheres to the skin.

5.

The last piece of the story is completed in Suspension of Disbelief #5; dismal. You need to pay attention to the muted sounds coming from two speakers that are facing each other. The sounds are like the words ( language ) of people, and they die away like the chorus of a round of song as they move between the two speakers if you get close to them. The audience is convinced that these sounds are a language ( voice ) and try to interpret them, but eventually fail to understand their meaning. This is when the “insignificant sound”, namely, the remaining “surplus sound” that did not vanish, occurs. Realistic moments, where sound itself becomes the meaning, which is a kind of fact that this sound is heard and seen, are handed over to something that did not hear or see those moments. The phenomenological philosopher Merleau-Ponty insists that a “meaning ( significance ) is always a gap ( écart ) in a sense”. This makes us reflect when we are restricted by the definition of a meaning. Our desire to exhaustively reach the signified in the unintended interval of the unconscious or subconscious disintegrates, exhaustively.

Biography of Artist

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