ArtVitamin
KCCommunications 1996.1.20 1-1971
2007 .PrintedbyKCCommunications
2007.
KIM, CHANG KYUM
2007. 9. 12 - 10. 31
KIM, CHANG KYUM6th SOLO EXHIBITION
ArtVitamin
2007. 9. 12 () - 10. 31 ()
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The recent works of Kim, Chang-kyum consists of composite
photographs and some series of video installations from his previous
works that are more upgraded and sophisticated this time. The
photographs that he is presenting for this exhibition are mainly
computerized composite photographs and still images from the video
installation works. At first glance, the photographs and video installation
works do not look to be related to each other, however, when
considering them as the results of the technical process of composition,
they are actually quite similar. In the other words, the images from his
video installations are first made out of editing and composition
techniques. But these images are then projected onto objects that the
artist produced himself; therefore, the images and objects are
compounded again. Some series of photographs also appear repetitively
on a canvas, and fragments of different and unrelated images are
compounded and mixed naturally. Such composite images and technical
processes in his photographs and video installations can seen as be the
main elements that come through Kim, Chang-kyum's work. With
composite images, the artist suggests highly artificial reality, wherein we
cannot recognize the difference between sensuous reality and artificial
reality: an artificial situation, simulacra.
Video InstallationsIn this exhibition, for video installation works, Kim presents five works
including (5min 50sec.), (9min 99sec.),
(6min 40sec.), (14min.) and (7min. each)>, which is a
two channel video installation installed to have the images of a man and
a woman facing each other.
As a matter of fact, this series of video installations is the main part of
this exhibition, and they possess the inclinations of video images and
installations at the same time. This certainly differentiates Kim's works
from other video artists'works that are based on the peculiarity of the
medium as video itself, since he makes the objects himself and then
projects images on to them. For instance, he makes a TV, a fish basin, a
mirror, a stone mortar and many differentkinds of bottles with plaster
casts. In the beginning, he used plaster cast, but nowadays he often
uses polyurethane. Through this process, plaster or polyurethane objects
are produced, and this is in line with plaster techniques in conventional
sculpture. And such physicality and substantiality becomes the most
conclusive point for characterizing the artist's video works.
On one hand, the objects that Kim created are similar looking objects
that only resemble the original forms, but never the same as the real
objects. We can say that the forms of real objects are transferred onto
Works of Kim, Chang-kyum _ Edited and Composite Reality and Hyperreality
Kho, Chung-hwan (Art Critic)
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white chunks of plaster or polyurethane. The artist, therefore, makes
objects that can be considered as something similar. After that part is
done, he produces video images including images of the originals.
Otherwise said, if he makes an object in the form of a mirror, he then
makes a video of a real mirror image, and finally unifies the objectand the
image by projecting the image on to the object that he made.
Such video images projected on to the objects-the projected images on
the surface of the forms- deconstructs the barrier between reality and
fiction. At the same time, it shakes the firm belief and preconception
about the reality of the objects and images. The objects only look similar
to the original objects; there is no similarity between those two other
than the appearance. On the other hand, the video images also only look
similar to the original objects, but there lacks a sense of physicality,
which makes a real object become a real object. Like this, the
relationship that the objects and video images have with the original
objects is one of absence and deficiency(since they only mimic a part of
the original objects). Therefore, they have a standpoint of substituting
and supplementing the real objects. In this way, the artist's works bring
together fiction(objects) and fiction(video images); further creating hyper
realistic circumstances, which pass over reality through the overlapping
of simulacra and simulacra(This might be the same as how negative and
negative can create absolute positive in logic). On top of that, the artist's
work tries to induce the audience to experience such circumstances as
reality; such a creation of circumstances that transcend sensuous reality
is the core theory of the artist's work. As a result, the artist's work
seems sophisticated for its digital appearance, but in its process, it is still
analog; in this sense, the artist's work brings a response from the
audience with the impression of sophistication.
In his works a video projection onto an object
and a work that makes the background including a
mirror with video images only, Kim, Chang-kyum is dealing with the
meaning of mirrors and the real nature of memory reproduced by them.
Mirrors have the characteristic of reflection, the mirror in Kim, Chang-
kyum's work hints at a kind of self-reflective nature and occasion. People
try to recall their memories and remembrances when they face mirrors,
nevertheless, mirrors only returns fragments of imperfect memories and
remembrances. The scene in the mirror and the background where the
mirror is placed are not the same. Further, a wandering shadow image
overlaps with all these scenes, the projection is brought togetherin two
or three layers; making it so, the reality of memory cannot be grasped.
The artist even inserts the scene of a mirror getting broken, and with this
scene, he adds the uncertainty of memories and remembrances. Thus, a
memory gets mixed up with another memory, and recollection gets
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mixed up with another recollection.Not to mention a consistent narrative,
but we can only revive faulty narrative produced by all different kinds of
fragments of memories that are like broken parts of a mirror.
In the video installation works and , such a symbolic meaning of a mirror and evocation of
incomplete memories through the mirror are transferred into the surface
of water- a form of water mirror. In these works, the uncertainty of
memory and remembering is described by fragmentedand
heterogeneous scenes that disturb a consistent narrative, or are
supported by changing images or broken images with 'bang' sounds or
ripples on water surfaces. In particular, these fragmented scenes are
characterised by some anonymous person's monologue in the
background. "Lost...certain...now...in the past...each...the past was..." the
voice that you can't hear unless you really pay attention signifies the
imperfection of memory that overlaps with truth and adaptation, and
present and past. Memory is not restoration of the past, but an
interpretation and adaptation of something that happened in the past.
The desire of present time gets projected onto the truth of the past and
then distorts reality. Such a voice that testifies the failings of memory
belongs to the body and states of unconscious desire, rather than states
of consciousness. They are different words from those existing, words
that even change existing words they are the words of body and words
of desire. Jacques Lacan's saying, 'I think where I am not; therefore, I
am where I do not think,' supports such words of body and desire, and
the difference between words of consciousness and unconsciousness.
In this way, a monologue in the background of Kim's video installation
achieves a different significance. 'I am watching
you... you are watching me.' However, the speaker does not appear in
the projection. Owing to the hidden subject, at first it seems like the
work was suggesting a theory of power relationship regarding a visual
sense between the anonymous subject's gaze outside the canvas and
the gaze of the subject in the canvas. Furthermore, it even sounds like 'I
am watching you, but I can't watch myself. You are watching me, but
you can't watch yourself.' Here we can see the artist's existential self-
consciousness that there is a gap between I(me being conscious) and
I(me being unconscious) and his alienation that says 'I' and 'You' cannot
reconcile(only through subjectification of each other and objectification I
can see you and
