Emergent visions: Kimchi and Chips (by Bao, Fabian and Zifeng)

LUNAR SURFACE (2014, 2015)

In collaboration with photographer Eunyoung Kim.

LUNAR SURFACE by Kimchi and Chips, In collaboration with photographer Eunyoung Kim.
Digital photo print 1500 x 1000mm, Live scanning installation [dimensions variable].
2014, 2015

A vertical flag of fabric is stroked by the wind, displaced by curves of air, swinging back and forth. The fabric is tracked by a 3D camera whilst a projector replays a response onto it according to its evolving shape. As it sweeps, it leaves a trail of light which draws a heavy fragile moon floating in space. The flag renders this moon from another reality, the silk surface acting as an intermediating manifold between reality and virtuality.

This artwork is an installation set up within the concrete chambers of Bucheon city Incinerator, a stagnant industrial processing plant decommissioned in 2010.

At locations within the building, the artists collaborated with photographer Eunyoung Kim to capture moments of the moon being birthed. Long exposure photography trades the dimension of time for a dimension of space, extruding the moon into existence on a set of photographic prints, capturing a painting enacted by the details of the wind.

2015_Lunar_Docu2_123 / 2015_Lunar_Docu2_123_w1 / 2015_Lunar_Docu2_123_w2

Inspired by the 2 moons of Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84 (a Japanese fictional book) and the flags of space travel, the artists present a portal into another existence where another moon orbits. This other place is made material by the fabric of the flag.

LIGHT BARRIER THIRD EDITION(2016)

Concave mirrors, Projection, Scanning, commissioned by the Asia Culture Center in Gwangju. The technology is enabled by Rulr, an open source graphical toolkit for calibrating spatial devices, created by Kimchi and Chips.

The installations present a semi-material mode of existence, materializing objects from light. Light Barrier Third Edition is a new installment in this series that exploits the confusion and non-conformities at the boundary between materials and non-materials, reality and illusion, and existence and absence.

The 6-minute sequence employs the motif of the circle to travel through themes of birth, death, and rebirth, helping shift the audience into the new mode of existence. The artists use the circle often in their works to evoke the fundamentals of materials and the external connection between life and death.

I think that Kimchi and Chips place a lot of effort into producing the Light Barrier and making it work, also as mentioned by Elliot Woods, when they started their project, they were not really earning a substantial amount of money and the project seemed really expensive to build as the concave mirrors and the structure needs to be customized built. This is also why the scale of the first edition of light barrier was much smaller. However as my own preferences, I like the first edition more due to the light beams were more focused as there were lesser mirrors used.

 

Halo (08 – 27 Jun 2018.)

Kimchi and Chipswill have a new outdoor installation, commissioned by Somerset House. Halo will be happening in London from 08 – 27 Jun 2018. 200 mirrors will reflect sunlight and together with mist of the fountains in the courtyard, a shape of light will be ‘drawn’ and suspended in the air. The mirrors are programmed to react to the direction of sunlight.

This kind of reminds of our Spectra light show at MBS, which make use of light projection and water sprays to create sort of holographic effects, except that it is done at night.
Kimchi and Chips really utilise technology by looking at the physics behind the machine. These states of semi-materiality created is as fascinating as any wonder of nature we could possibly encounter. And they make us immediately want to make sense and grasp the seemingly new material, only to discover it is just nothing but light.

 

Author: Ong Zi Feng

Just doing things, making stuffs.

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