Installation view © Sangdon Kim

Combinations and Generations of Heterogeneous Yet Non-Contradictory Elements

A long, connected structure formed by stacking steel serving trays and black-brimmed hats in multiple layers—Solveig’s Song – Hair Skewer; a flowerpot whose stem is made of reinforcing steel rods and whose leaves are represented by shoe insoles—Solveig’s Song – Step-by-Step Flower; a fake watermelon hung from a tree, feathers inserted into branches, and mop handles forming the support structure of the tree—Solveig’s Song – Samjoko…

From the mountain scenery filled with hikers to the hardware store owner performing with a saw, the screen unfolds through a non-narrative flow of juxtaposed images. A mirror is placed within the frame, and through it a landscape emerges. The gaze is predetermined, yet the image appears in the form of an unforeseen emergence. In other words, there exists an ambiguous boundary between appearance and emergence, where the virtual and the real intertwine.

Rather than constructing a fictional character, the work turns an unspecified, ordinary individual into a contextual presence—someone “special”—through accidental appearances tied to specific times and spaces. Thus, it is closer to presenting reality imbued with a hallucinatory quality than creating mockumentary fiction.

Laughter from people fills the audio track; instead of conjuring the familiar image of slightly tipsy hikers, the sound becomes absolute, simultaneously evaporating the image while functioning as the catalyst for transitions between scenes—a necessary motive for their shift.

Photograph of artist Sangdon Kim standing before his work after the press conference held at Atelier Hermès on August 8 © Sangdon Kim

Helicopter noise above the mountains, birds chirping, the scraping sound of a saw in the hardware store, the small tapping of feet mimicking the motion of operating a sewing machine—these sounds mix and overlap with the juxtaposed mountain scenes. Sound assigns a singular voice to things that otherwise have no connective tissue and offer no identifiable context.

Although the work appears to prompt viewers to find similarities between two seemingly separate spatial domains displayed on the screen, it is more accurate to say that the two opposing realms undergo internal fusion and transformation.

Here, the modern (urban, contemporary) is juxtaposed with the mythic (mountain—not that the mountain itself is inherently mythical, but its isolated presence allows it to be endowed with ritualistic meaning. The behaviors of the people who traverse it seem to take on a performative, almost shamanistic quality). Instead of creating gaps between these differing rhythms and temporalities, sound editing—through interference and intrusion—dominates both realms, producing an uncanny sensation of a modern person leaving everyday life and entering a mythic dimension.

An elderly hiker who momentarily glances at the camera while fetching water presents a relation that extends beyond the photographic notion of “capture.” It becomes a double-discovery: with a temporal gap, the viewer sees him while he, in turn, seems to look back—creating a relational simultaneity.

 
(…)

References