Disappearance, Bar in the Gallery: Reflection

On 22nd August 2019, we went to the National Art Gallery to see an interactive exhibition titled, “Life Circuit: I/O” by Inter-Mission which was a response to Lee Kang-So’s 1970s works “Disappearance”.

When I first entered the exhibition space, you could see people buzzing around in tables and performers were setting up their electronic equipment. There were projectors, various controllers and random screen recordings were played. We were encouraged to sit around freely from the tables to the stairs.

When I first sat with the audience, I did not realise that the performance had started. The projected videos on the three different scenes were actually live feeds from Japan, some motto from NAG and real-time video of the audience. it seems like a mish-mash of montage videos compile together. While all these visual footages were playing, there was also a distinctive white noise heard, it is sometimes manipulated by the artist by twisting knobs or controlling it via his computer.

The two main artists were wearing head and body gears which project images on the goggles and screen as you can see below. They were seen walking around, creating different images and white noises as the walk. I was very confused throughout the performance. I kept asking myself, were they trying to facetime someone or calling someone from other countries to get “live” feedback. I kept waiting for the white noise to be clear to hear a proper sentence. But it didn’t happen.

After the show had concluded with a camera feed of a group crossing Japan’s Shibuya crossing which I have known much later, the crowd slowly dispersed after welcoming applause. With a casual conversation with one of the performers, I learnt that they were trying to covert images to sound. They were having a live feed with another group of performers in Japan and it was a response to reinterpret the chaos of mundane life back in the past of Korea.

The latter part of capturing Lee’s work is still a part I cannot quite grasp the idea of with the performance. I think if they performed in a different setting it could still imply the same theme and aims they wanted more effectively.

What got me into interactive art?

I remembered my very first trip to the Art Science Museum, Future World: Where Art Meet Science last year. I was awestruck.

This exhibition was created in collaboration with teamLab, a renowned interdisciplinary art collective.

Flowers and People, Cannot be Controlled but Live Together – Transcending Boundaries, A Whole Year per Hour

teamLab, 2017, Interactive Digital Installation, Sound: Hideaki Takahashi

This artwork is always changing. A whole year of seasonal flowers from cherry blossoms to winter flowers bloom, wither and scatter all around the interactive space within a period of an hour. When I stood in the space, self-absorbed in the environment felt like time stood still for myself, whereas the “nature” around me appears and disappears. It may perhaps be holding a sign of the nature’s ephemeral quality.

An important thing to note, this particular interactive art was not pre-recorded nor was on an animated loop. It uses a programme which monitors the interaction between the viewer and the installation and hence produces a result. In this instance, if I stood still, flowers around me would bloom, whereas if I had walked around and touch the flowers, they would scatter and disappear. Thus showing the fragility of nature. Hence the experience for each and every viewer is unique and could not be replicated. The underlying message mayhaps is the cycle of life and death (born, grow, bloom, scatter, wilt) where the experience of one human is not the same as another…

“I hope people will keep coming back because the experience will be different every time.” quote by teamLab’s founder Toshiyuki Inoko

teamLab’s concept and theme were strongly based on the aim of transcending /removing boundaries of art. As stated from their website “In the mind, there are no boundaries between ideas and concepts, they are inherently ambiguous and influence and interact with each other.”

With a digital platform in this millenial generation, art is able to transcend physical and conceptual boundaries. Digital technology allows interactive art to be created and break free from the static frame and go beyond the boundaries. Elements from one work can fluidly interact with and influence elements of the other works exhibited in the same space. In this way, the boundaries between art pieces dissolve.

Putting these underlying motivation and inspiration it pushes me to think deeper what interactive art can do and hence I wish to learn more about it through this course.