Experiments with Video
Scream, 1999
single-channel video & sound installation
Originally, I planned to excavate the floor of the exhibition space and install the projection deep beneath it.
When this proved impractical, I instead constructed a black cylindrical structure measuring 140 cm in diameter and 140 cm in height, embedding more than ten speakers inside it.
Covering my face with flour and water to create a grotesque, monstrous image, I performed a scream directly toward the camera, later adding echo effects to intensify the sound.
The 140 cm height of the black cylinder was intended as a repositioning of viewing: it prevented shorter viewers from easily seeing inside the structure.
However, the gallery provided step stools, which effectively neutralized the intended discomfort.
The installation therefore functioned partly as a mischievous provocation.
By confronting viewers with this obstacle, it encouraged them to actively negotiate their own mode of viewing.
Scream is a device that destabilizes image, sound, space, and the body simultaneously.
It is not the scream of a being that refuses silence, but rather a raw cry thrown toward a reality in which speech has become impossible.
5-channel video installation a glass box, no sound
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The Man in the Box, 1999
Inside a one-square-meter transparent glass box, tracing paper was attached to the inner surfaces.
Close-up images of body parts pressed and rubbed against the glass were filmed from multiple angles and edited in slow motion.
These images were then projected onto the five sides of the box.
The fragments of flesh move across the surfaces at different speeds and directions, twisting and grinding against each other in painful distortions.
The body appears dislocated and deprived of subjectivity, dominated by the power of the gaze that observes it.
Through this structure of looking, I sought to explore how the human body enters media, becomes fragmented, and is edited into otherness.
Dung Dung Dung-Du-Kung, 1999
single-channel video & sound installation
The title comes from the drumbeat used in Korean shamanistic rituals to summon spirits.
The work was constructed by editing together a single nodding motion of the head and the sound of a pen knocking once against a table, repeating these elements along a timeline.
Viewers are placed inside an enclosed dark room where they watch the repeated movement of an inverted face, accompanied by rhythmic sounds and pulsating vibrations.
Within this environment of darkness, rhythm, and repetition, viewers experience a strong psychological and bodily response produced by the control of sensory perception.
This work emerged during the period when the repositioning of “safe viewing,” first explored in Hairlines of Control and The Room of Silence (1993), was approaching its most extreme point.
Dori-Dori, 1999
Produced together with Dung Dung Dung-Du-Kung, this work transforms the repetitive head movement of an infant.
The motion was altered and recomposed frame by frame, generating an uncanny rhythm in which heavy beats and hesitant gestures become strangely synchronized.
Like the previous work, this piece also sought to reposition the conditions of safe viewing.
It belongs to a period when my work was gradually approaching non-linear conceptions of time, a trajectory that would later lead to the irrational-number algorithms explored in 2004.
single-channel video & sound installation