Seo Minwoo (b. 1994) has developed a practice that visualizes and tactilizes auditory experience through what he calls “sound sculptures,” created by interweaving sound and form. He encodes elements of music, noise, and sculpture, and produces sonic objects by imagining both the corporeal core of music and the hollow interior of sculptural forms.
 
Through this process, his sound sculptures translate sound into a material experience, generating moments in which the boundaries of perception are expanded.

To create his sound sculptures, Seo Minwoo begins by collecting and assembling a range of everyday sounds, shaping them into auditory compositions. These are then transmitted through speakers he fabricates himself; he regards the speaker as a kind of internal organ, which he encloses within an additional outer skin and situates in a newly constructed spatial and temporal context.
 
In encountering the work, viewers may close their eyes and concentrate in order to listen, or, at other moments, find themselves facing unfamiliar speaker forms. Through this process, the visually centered mode of exhibition viewing is disrupted, and the hierarchy of the senses becomes unsettled and reconfigured.

His first solo exhibition, 《EarTrain_Reverse》 (RASA, 2021), drew on the experiential space of a train to experiment with the “sculptural potential” of sound, inviting audiences into a journey that guided them toward new modes of perception. Conceived as a fictional train that generates a sense of space and narrative solely through auditory information, 《EarTrain_Reverse》 continuously relayed sounds gathered from its surrounding environment to its passengers, unfolding ongoing variations of sound as the journey progressed.

Installed at the center of the exhibition, Eartrain 50-00, 50-08, 08-00 (2021) functioned as the core of the sound environment—spatial sound—that permeated the entire train. The work transformed the “auditory landscape” perceived and felt by the audience. By accentuating the textures and qualities of sounds heard in specific spaces, the train constructed a spatial soundscape that, as the journey continued, prompted visitors to imagine space as a form of “sculpture” and intensified their sensory experience.

In one corner of the train sat three travelers—Traveler E&C (2021), Traveler A&C (2021), and Traveler H (2021). Eating food or drinking beverages, listening to music through headsets, each traveler continued their own journey. The everyday noises they produced evoked ASMR-like tingles, prompting the audience to imagine the textures and materiality of sound.
 
The ‘Traveler’ series thus functions as a mediator that triggers events from which sound emerges. Encompassing everything from the “tingle” initiated by percussive sounds to the interference of sounds within specific environments, the series visualizes how sounds—ranging from their concrete physicality to their musical potential—mutually shape and constitute one another.

Accompanying them were three sculptures—Travelogue E&C (2021), Travelogue A&C (2021), and Travelogue H (2021)—which take the form of “sound-sculptures” conceived as sonic reflections on the travelers’ experiences aboard EarTrain.
 
This sculptural series reconfigures the various sounds produced by the ‘Travelers’ into object-based forms, dynamically probing the “plastic potential” of sound. Using sound alone as its material, the works experiment with whether synthesized sonic elements can function like musical harmonies, expanding the possibilities of sound as a sculptural medium.

The following year, Seo’s solo exhibition 《earcabinet》 at Mullae Art Space brought together his ongoing experiments into the materiality of sound while also consolidating the trajectory of the ‘EarTrain’ series. Staged as both an exhibition and a performance, 《earcabinet》  sought to construct an acoustic environment that departed from the familiar conventions of concert halls.
 
Rather than aiming for clarity or sonic perfection, the exhibition evoked what might be called a “space of loss”—a space in which sound can never be fully or perfectly heard from any position. As a result, listeners were compelled to move against their habitual modes of listening, attuning their senses to sound by following the losses deliberately designed by the artist.

The axis of the space was formed by “sound-sculptures.” Seo Minwoo transforms the paths of collision through which sound travels via a medium into formal variations, generating distinct sound waves. The results materialize as sculptural forms that function both as supports for sound and as intermediaries that modulate its output.
 
Created explicitly to produce sound, these sculptures rely entirely on the vibrations, amplitudes, and frequencies of speakers embedded within them—speakers custom-built by the artist himself. Depending on their configuration, each speaker emits a different sound, and the resulting output varies according to how the sound is shaped and where it is positioned.
 
In this way, Seo’s sound-sculptures experiment with the forms of sound that emerge from the friction between physical structure and material properties. Through variation and recomposition, they generate listening environments that run counter to established conventions, opening up new ways of approaching and experiencing sound.

In his solo exhibition 《Sections》, held at Hall 1 in 2023, Seo Minwoo sought to experiment with such unpredictable listening environments through segmented sound-spaces. Sound waves, colliding with and moving through space, objects, and bodies, occupy a sensory field that envelops us unexpectedly—even without invitation.
 
Focusing on this spatial performativity of sound and consistently using sound as a sculptural material, Seo, in 《Sections》, assigned sound its own spatial territories through acts of partitioning. At the same time, he actively embraced the transformed sounds that spill beyond these territories, foregrounding their leakage and distortion as integral to the work.

The materials that constitute the partitions—wood, steel, and stone—simultaneously hold sound within a formalized space while transforming the sounds that leak outward into distinct material qualities, allowing them to drift toward unpredictable destinations. As visitors moved through the exhibition, they could attend to each segmented sound individually or choose to follow the sounds as they wandered at random.
 
In addition, the operational noise intermittently spilling in from a neighboring dry ice factory intervened in the space, generating yet another unexpected listening environment. Embracing these sensations from all directions, the exhibition proposed an immersive listening environment conceived as a total space—one that encompasses inside and outside, as well as the interior and exterior of the viewer’s own body.

Furthermore, in his solo exhibition 《Slough and Trajectory》 (Arcade Seoul, 2025), the artist presented an experiment that unfolded the “conditions of listening” through a three-stage process. Structured as a sequence of a vinyl record (May), a performance (August), and an exhibition (November), this framework reconfigured sound not as a singular auditory experience but as a temporal and material event.
 
At the outset of this experiment was the record 《Slough and Trajectory: Spiral Horizontally World》, which assembles sounds collected through field recordings by fragmenting, layering, and transforming them, arranging them in ways that depart from conventional musical grammar. Rather than treating sound as a vehicle for emotion or narrative, the artist focused on exploring sound’s own materiality and temporality.

In the subsequent performance 《Slough and Trajectory: Trajectories》, the event of listening expanded into the bodily realm. Latex covering the entire floor of the venue functioned simultaneously as a surface that received sound and as a medium that recorded it. As audiences walked, stepped, and hesitated upon it, they left behind their own traces.
 
Here, footprints, wrinkles, and shifts of weight remained not as mere paths of movement but as physical residues of listening. They mark how the performance was no longer apprehended solely through the ears, but infiltrated the body through pressure beneath the feet, friction across the surface, and sensations of distraction and tension—becoming both evidence and trajectory of embodied listening.
 
Moreover, in Seo Minwoo’s performances, elements excluded from conventional systems of musical performance become entangled and are called into being as music, reactivating senses that had remained unheard. Listening, in this context, is not simply an act of perception but the fullness of experience itself, generating alternative trajectories of experiencing.

The exhibition 《Slough and Trajectory》, the final chapter of the project, becomes a site where the residues of the preceding album and performance are restaged within space. The latex used in the August performance was collected and transferred to the exhibition venue, where the footprints, wrinkles, and traces left upon its surface were preserved intact.
 
Here, latex is no longer merely a material surface but a slough of listening—an unrecorded record left by the event of listening itself. By reconfiguring this residue within the exhibition space, the artist transforms the physical traces left by the absence of sound into a new order of sensation.

No new sounds were produced in this exhibition. Instead, events and sensory fragments that emerged after sound intertwined with one another, forming a new structure of listening. Rather than presenting a closed form, Seo Minwoo composes sensations provisionally through site-specific conditions, activating the vitality of perception by drawing in unstable sounds that exist on the periphery of music.
 
Accordingly, listening in this exhibition is not fixed to a particular moment or form. Sound continually drifts through its relationships with space, the body, and thought. Here, no sense is privileged over another; all sensations pass through one another’s surfaces and resonate on equal terms.

Thus, Seo Minwoo’s practice refuses to settle into a fixed form. Through the processes of collecting and reconfiguring sound, and through the making of objects designed to contain and register sonic phenomena, he has continuously explored the ways in which sensation arises and leaves traces. While his works outwardly assume the form of music, they are situated at a point that exceeds conventional musical categories.
 
In other words, by situating the auditory products of sound within time and space, he experiments with the very conditions under which listening takes place, pursuing a sculptural practice that asks how sensation is formed and organized in the process.

 “I explore ways to affirm and coordinate flaws and conflicts that emerge in the course of making work.”   (Seo Minwoo, interview for 2025 ARKO DAY)

Seo Minwoo is based in Seoul. His solo exhibitions include 《Slough and Trajectory》 (Arcade Seoul, Seoul, 2025), 《Sections》 (Hall 1, Seoul, 2023), 《earcabinet》 (Mullae Art Space, Seoul, 2022), and 《EarTrain_Reverse》 (RASA, Seoul, 2021).
 
He has also participated in numerous group exhibitions, including Perigee Unfold 2025 《Don’t Be Hasty》 (Perigee Gallery, Seoul, 2025), 《Score for pieces of cork》 (AVP Lab, Seoul, 2025), 《The Ring of Saturn》 (Bucheon Art Bunker B39, Bucheon, 2024), 《Breathe in, Breathe out》 (Wooran Foundation, Seoul, 2024), 《Thick as Thieves》 (Faction, Seoul, 2023), and 《Hovering》 (2/W, Seoul, 2018).
 
Seo Minwoo released the album Slough and Trajectory: Spiral Horizontally World (2025) and gained wider attention as a featured artist in the 2025 ARKO DAY “Presentation.”

References

• 서민우, Seo Minwoo (Artist Website)
• 2025 아르코데이, 프레젠테이션: 작가 서민우 (2025 ARKO DAY, Presentation: Artist Seo Minwoo)
• RASA, [서문] EarTrain_Reverse (RASA, [Preface] EarTrain_Reverse)
• 문래예술공간, [서문] 이어케비넷 (Mullae Art Space, [Preface] earcabinet)
• Hall 1, [서문] 구획들 (Hall 1, [Preface] Sections)
• 아케이드 서울, [서문] 허물과 궤적 (Arcade Seoul, [Preface] Sough and Trajectory)