About
Disappearance, Bar in the Gallery with INTER—MISSION is a collaborative audiovisual performance of the collective INTER—MISSION’s “Life Circuit: I/O” that inhabits Lee Kang-So’s “Disappearance” or “Disappearance, Bar in the Gallery” (1973). According to the event page, Life Circuit is an ongoing project that is experimental and explores intersections between video art, music and performance. This performance also features dancers on both on-site and online presence, in collaborations with Norhaizad Adam and Syimah Sabtu from P7:1SMA in Singapore and Chiharu Kuronuma who live-streamed from Tokyo.
Disappearance, Bar in the Gallery is a restage of Lee Kang-So’s work in 1973, where he bought the entire tables and chairs of his favourite pub at that time and moved them all into the exhibition hall at Myeongdong Gallery Solo Exhibition. He transformed it into a gathering place where participants can have a glass of Makgeolli (Rice Wine) and chat freely at a time where South Korea was under an authoritarian regime.
In an interview conducted with Lee, he stated that the goal of the work was to provide the audience with an opportunity to re-experience and reflect on our own situation that we had been mindlessly experiencing by separating an aspect of our everyday life into the gallery. Lee only provided the tables and chairs. The audience will be free to participate in the work, the content comprising the visitor’s engagement and experiences, and have time for one’s own experience that others will never know.
Artist Statement – Life Circuit is conceived as a series of video demonstrations with wearable gadgets reconstructed from industrial safety equipment — welding goggles, a gas mask and earmuffs, which the I nicknamed as “Video Goggles” for video channeling, “Sound Mask” and “Amp Muffs” for audio and amplification. The modified gadgets become the extensions of my being and body that is now unable to see, speak or hear, but able to stream out video and audio feeds to the audience. The images and sounds link to other devices and displays captured from the immediate audience and space. Altering human functionality and interactivity, a “circuit” is formed between the audiences, the various media, moving images and sounds that replace human perceptions and expressions. Erasing my identity to the audience by donning the full mask, the work plays on the illusion of an invisible dialogue in an era of post-digital connectivity.
During the ending of the performance, the “Video Goggles” were projecting a live stream of the audience, the stream from Japan, and Teow Yue Han’s face as seen below.
Reflection and Thoughts
To be honest, I had no idea what was going on during the performance. Despite that, after researching and knowing more about the context and reasoning for both artworks, I think I have my own interpretation. The tables and chairs by Lee Kang-So serve as a medium for people to sit down and have their own experiences, or to be “in the moment”. Urich mentioned in his artist statement that the gadgets were just an extension of himself (which replaced his perceptions and expressions), and the projection of the audience on his “Video Goggles” and the sounds (noise he created in the background) formed a “circuit” between the audiences (noise from conversations) and the various media. Combining both artworks together may form a different meaning altogether.
My own experience of INTER-MISSION’s work is only unique to myself, and me participating as an audience looking at Urich’s gadgets is completing the circuit with the media/gadgets “looking” and “hearing” sounds from us. Similarly, everyone’s experience during the performance is only unique to them, and their perspective and interpretations are different from mine. While Urich was performing the last segment when he wore his “Video Goggles”, many of the audience took out their phones to take a picture or a video of him, while looking through their phone screens. I guess the “circuit” of technology is also completed when technology meets technology. As for those who watched without looking through their phone screens, the “circuit” is completed with their participation as an audience. Although I still don’t entirely get what was going on, I do think that the technology and equipment that INTER-MISSION used were interesting and intriguing.
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