Showcase 2020
: Scale, Scanning

<Scale, Scanning>

We get artistic inspiration from the times read in the technological environment, or we employ technology as a useful tool to realize artistic expression. Scale, Scanning was organized to present the observations (scanning) and experiments artists have conducted over the last 6 months to create works across the range of areas (scale) of the contemporary media environment.

Space, time, media, and human scale surrounding our body

The Art Collider Lab in the Center for Art Convergence at the Korea National University of Arts presented the theme of the 2020 <Creation Support> as “Human Scale,” a term used in the architecture field that refers to a physical scale to design a space or object based on the human body. It also means the size of the area humans can perceive. With the development of the media technology environment, humans have stepped into the expanded area, going beyond the previous physical limit. In the midst of this time of change, we are continuing the discussion on the diversity of the body and perception. Pushing beyond the established concept of human scale in the physical sense, it begins exploring the changes in society and culture ecology caused by the development of technology, experiments of body and perception, overturning perspectives on humans and the natural environment, experiences that surround beings and artistic interpretations by scanning our surroundings.

Artist’s observation of the contemporary environment, media scanning

There are a series of things that make us experience changes in the perception system such as scanning the perceptible scope of the real space using sensors, experiencing the restructured environment according to the individual technology, and building an environment that works regardless of the law of physics in the virtual space. It brings about the need for a discussion on the expansion of the human scale. We are experiencing the landscape within our hands based on the size of the user device and use, or the maximized stimulation of certain senses and the immersive environment in scale depending on the way of projection. The concept of scale developed around the human body is also undergoing a process of diversifying its subjects. The technology developed to see a specific object closer to the eyes is now making us see the world in an unprecedented way by transforming the things/objects, that used to be observation objects, into speaking beings. This exhibition looks into the human scale, closely associated with the scope/method of scanning, in various ways, including objects that are placed all over the place, but not mentioned.

Artist’s research and experiment

Ten artists/teams join the program, dealing with stories about the body, environment, transition, expansion, and reconfiguration.   

- Body

Firstly, it starts from the story we face as a being with a body. Seonyoo Park presents the performance video, titled “(My) Unfamiliar Body out of My Control.” It is composed of body movement (choreography) employing a composition technique called total serialism, visual space setting (stage and video) and auditory expression of the theme (music). Teri Seo analyzes Bach’s 10 Inventions to choreograph a duet dance, then unites the two bodies from the same place-different times in a space using visual media. Hayne Park continues the research on “light,” conceived from the phenomenon, “phosphene,” usually seen when eyes are closed, addresses the image only available to feel by personal senses.

- Environment

This takes us to the stories about the environment surrounding us. DOI has continued the work of extracting data from the natural environment and reprocessing them into sound. They present a work that brings the part of the ecology from DMZ to the exhibition through AR technology and media, going through the process of nature-data-sound. In observing and recording the changing environment, however, there is a distinct limit in technology to document in its entirety. Sojin Gwak came to discover the limit in video technology while documenting a flock of crows appearing in the cities due to climate change. Under the theme of “Black,” this work explicitly exposes the limits and paradox or expands metaphorically.

- Transition

Jungwon Yoon×POD imagines human accessing their world from the perspective of “non-humans,” prior to seeing the world from the perspective of humans. They answer the question, “How non-human scale is produced by human scale?” with two types of “non-human.” One meets the other biological species that is existing in the world in the new media and the other explores the conventional action/concept to meet the beings that no longer exist in the world. Through this, they demonstrate their research and experiments about the transition in perspective between humans and non-humans, using various media.

- Expansion

HjkEg Collective, a team of Heeju Kim and Eugene Godunov, presents a video work featuring the research which aims to build a “Neo” perspective on the human scale, expanding through microorganisms, humans, nature, and the universe. Lost Air designed a spatial system that is expandible to the area of the air (Synoptic scale) and filmed the space changing through the performance. Jiyeon Kim attempts the expansion of the human scale by linking reality and virtual space using a cube as a medium. The virtual space, the identical cube-shape from reality, is connected to the actual object in front of the screen and reflects the changes when the cube operates. This work demonstrates that a single space can be approached in various ways according to the media accessibility as well as the size, scope, phase and dimension of space. Daeun Joo created a virtual space based on the actual spatial data of the courtyard at the School of Visual Art of the Korea National University of Arts. Through the voice narration sound reading partial lines from interviews and novels, the artist suggests the reconfiguration of time and the spatial environment.

Environment reconfiguration for the expansion of human scale: about the changes in the set value

What kind of changes would the human scale go through ahead? While there are expectations that the scope of the expansion would be amplified due to the change of the technical medium or the opposite case would increase, it is expected that the transitional landscape would continue, where there would be shifts in form and character.

While the exhibition Media, Configuration Setting (Exhibition Program NEXT), which opened earlier at Seongbuk Young Art Space (branch of Seongbuk Museum of Art), was an attempt to interpret the existing media as an environment with different properties according to the artists’ configuration settings, this exhibition Scale, Scanning (Emerging Artist Program NEW) aimed to predict the landscape of the changing reality and near-future in regard to the developing media technology by addressing various perspectives on the human scale. We hope these attempts would be considered a small proposal for the expansion of the human scale and meaningful analysis at this inflection point of a configuration setting, whether small or large.

Dayoung Lee (Researcher / K-ARTS, Center for Art Convergence), Seongeun Ahn (Curator, Seongbuk Museum of Art, Seongbuk Young Art Space)