Seo Jaewoong, Residue, 2015, Oil, graphite, and spray on canvas, 130.3 x 194 cm ©Seo Jaewoong

Artist’s Note

Society has become densely standardized, filled with countless forms of information and the countless manuals that stem from them. Within this over-ordered world of excessive information and instruction, there are bodies and minds that have been left out—excluded and discarded. Though these exist as part of “us,” they are treated as if they do not belong. As this exclusion deepens, one's sense of essence becomes distorted, and relationships built upon such distortions inevitably remain superficial. We begin to relate without truly relating, creating a state of disconnection that ultimately leads to a loss of reality.

Modern life is a virtual one. Our smartphones remain ever-ready, even when we are not consciously awake. Encounters with others are increasingly mediated by screens—via social media, messaging, and calls—while the time spent face-to-face diminishes. Through television and computers, we undergo far more experiences than we actually live. These experiences are rendered as images. Long before real experience even occurs, our lives are already surrounded by layers of images.

This lifestyle pattern concentrates primarily on the connection between the eyes and the brain, pushing the rest of the body’s organs aside. This visual-centric mode of living creates fragmented thinking that relies on image-based sensations and image-based ideas. Fragmented thinking gives rise to fragmented movement, and the body gradually loses its natural rhythm—trapped instead within those image-based sensations and ideas. The modern body is constrained. It is no longer the body as body, but a body caught within the sensory and conceptual images of itself. Truly vital movements are blocked. A stifling condition emerges—one that harms both body and mind. We must restore the organic relationship between the body and the head.

Perhaps the first step is to give presence and form to the bodies and minds that have been excluded and cast aside. Is it not possible to cultivate thought that arises not from image-based perception or abstract ideas, but from the body itself? And if such thought were to emerge, what kinds of movements and encounters might it bring into being?

References