Installation view © CAN Foundation

In 《Uncertain Threshold》, the CAN Foundation begins an inquiry into human essence grounded in the alienation and anxiety felt at the intersection of art and technology. In traditional arts such as painting and sculpture, media were passive materials handled and altered by humans.

Today, however, the technologies employed as artistic media operate within works far more actively than traditional media, functioning alongside humans. At this point where the boundaries between technology and art, and between human and machine, grow looser, the anxiety humans feel ultimately leads to fundamental questions: “What can humans do?” and, further, “What is a human?”

Installation view © CAN Foundation

Noh Jinah’s Speed of Hyperion converses with the audience and with two other heads presented in the exhibition. In Greek, “Hyperion” means “the one who looks from above.” The heads learn through conversation and communicate on the basis of what they have learned. Will they build a Tower of Babel? A city in which stories and histories accumulate becomes, in itself, a vast archive.

Yang Minha’s City on a Column – New York and Infinitely Reproducing search out traces of the city to generate and construct new architectures. Are only organisms capable of growth? Organisms sustain life through breathing; breath is an essential condition for maintaining life.

Choe U-Ram’s works resonate and breathe with viewers. Is breathing truly an activity exclusive to living beings?

Diemut Strebe’s The Praying One explores, through a self-learning program devoted to ceaseless religious practice and devotion, the possibility of a mysterious entity that allows us to sense the presence of the celestial. Unconditional belief in an unseen being—can such belief also be learned?

Installation view © CAN Foundation

Through works employing various technologies, 《Uncertain Threshold》 investigates the essence of the human. The four artists—Noh Jinah, Diemut Strebe, Yang Minha, and Choe U-Ram—pose questions to viewers, via technology-interactive art, about communication, growth, life, and faith—that is, about beliefs (or conditions) that only humans (or only living beings) may possess.

Between the human as a being and technology as both a means to replace the human and an entity in its own right, the exhibition’s title, 《Uncertain Threshold》, speaks to technology, people, and the boundary between them.

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