Surim Cultural Foundation Hosts 'An Artist's Perspective on Science'

The Surim Cultural Foundation will hold the science and art fusion project ‘AVS (Artists' View on Science) 2023-24’ from Friday, April 12 to Saturday, May 18. Since 2018, the Surim Cultural Foundation's ‘AVS’ has aimed to address contemporary social phenomena and present future society from new perspectives through various combinations of science and art. Marking its 5th edition this year, ‘AVS’ expands the project by holding simultaneous exhibitions at the Kim Hee-soo Art Center (located in Dongdaemun-gu) and Surim Cube (located in Jongno-gu).

‘Assemblage: The Assembled World,’ held at the Kim Hee-soo Art Center (located in Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul), revisits the meaning of ‘convergence’ between science and art. While reflecting on the differences between science and art, it aims to present various collaborative processes between scientists and artists to discover new meanings and possibilities at their intersecting points. Participants include scientists Park Chang-beom and Lee Pil-jin from the Institute for Basic Science, and artists Kang Ji-yoon, Mujin Brothers, Park Min-ha, and Jo Choong-yeon.

Kang Ji-yoon collaborated with Lee Pil-jin, starting the work from the act of ‘seeing.’ The invisible gaps between people were cast in plaster, becoming sculptural masses with materiality installed inside and outside the exhibition space. The video work simultaneously shows an out-of-focus image projected on the wall behind the screen and an in-focus image on the front screen. The artist’s work approaches the structure of quantum physics, where the whole cannot be seen at once.

The Mujin Brothers collaborated with Park Chang-beom to express two skies seen from the perspectives of an artist and a scientist through slide film projections. Actual portraits magnified 100 to 800 times under a microscope appeared like cosmic background radiation, confusing viewers as to which images were of space. Approaching the plaster installation, viewers discover the reality of the cosmic images and realize that the distinction between the micro and macro worlds is meaningless.

Park Min-ha collaborated with Park Chang-beom, developing work inspired by the possibility of the universe’s fifth element, which Park has recently researched. This work uses ‘Dark Matter,’ a concept introduced to explain observable entities in the universe, as its theme, with celestial imaging technology that visualizes invisible forces serving as a clue. Just as a scientist inputs keywords into a computer to generate scientific images, the images on the analog monitor screen were produced based on a series of input values created by the artist.

Jo Choong-yeon collaborated with Lee Pil-jin to present the physics proposition ‘Everything is a wave’ through an AI video work. The video features a protagonist who created a special auditory device to hear atomic wave sounds and a hearing-impaired person who hears sounds through this device. The sound work, using Lee Pil-jin’s modulated voice as material, connects the principle of waves with sound. Classical machines contrasting with AI-generated figures evoke the technological romanticism of the 1930s-40s and question the attitude we should adopt toward the approaching future.

‘Tomorrow, Again Tomorrow, and Again Tomorrow,’ held at Surim Cube, invites three teams of artists who participated in ‘AVS 2022-23’ to present works that continue or evolve their previous concepts. Through continuous collaboration with scientists, the works will reflect technical completeness and humanistic reflection. Participants include scientists Park Jong-gil and Hwang Dong-hyun from the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), psychiatrist Cho Cheol-hyun from Korea University Medical Center, 3D artist Lim Seung-hyun, and artists Kim Joon-soo, Min Chan-wook, and Bang & Lee.

Kim Joon-soo is a media artist deeply interested in creating kinetic mechanical devices using metal as the main material and experimenting with light and movement. For this exhibition, he closely collaborated with robotics engineer Dr. Hwang Dong-hyun, who researches the biomechanical structure and function of the human hand to develop artificial hands. The two developed a new multimedia work where the audience performs a handshake?a mutual recognition?with a robotic hand, and the numerical values derived from the movement are applied to a specific equation and transmitted to the robotic arm-mounted artwork, producing about 180 solenoid movements.

The media artist duo Bang & Lee collaborated with Dr. Park Jong-gil from KIST, who researches neuromorphic semiconductor design technology, to present a narrative series that anticipates a future where artificial intelligence surpasses human senses and perception. The exhibition features the metafiction 3D animation Eyeshine, centered on an accidental crash caused by an AI-controlled autonomous vehicle, and The Hearing on AI Prophet, as well as ‘Reconstruction of the Incident’ and a series of paintings portraying the AI’s perspective returning to past records/memories of the accident.

Min Chan-wook is a media artist and technologist who contemplates the rapid infiltration of accelerated technology into human daily life. Over recent years, he has continuously explored digital avatars/selves existing in the binary world. For this exhibition, he collaborated with psychiatrist and Digital Twin researcher Professor Cho Cheol-hyun from Korea University Medical Center and consulted 3D artist Lim Seung-hyun to develop an exploration of human identity and modes of existence in the digital age.

‘Assemblage: The Assembled World’ and ‘Tomorrow, Again Tomorrow, and Again Tomorrow’ can be viewed free of charge at the Kim Hee-soo Art Center and Surim Cube, respectively, and are open from noon to 6 p.m. The exhibitions are closed on Sundays and public holidays. Detailed exhibition information is available on the Surim Cultural Foundation’s website and social media channels.