MOON Kyungwon & JEON Joonho, News from Nowhere: ECLIPSE, 2022 © Noor Riyadh

Media art duo MOON Kyungwon & JEON Joonho participated in ‘Noor Riyadh 2023.’
 
Noor Riyadh is the world’s largest light art festival. This year’s edition runs in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, under the theme “The Bright Side of the Desert Moon,” continuing through December 16. Associated exhibitions will be on view until March 2, 2024.
 
For Noor Riyadh, the artists present News from Nowhere: ECLIPSE. The single-channel HD video installation runs for 17 minutes and is composed of sound, LED lighting, and an aluminum structure. The work portrays a man stranded at sea who turns a lifeboat into his home.
 
LED lights attached to the massive grid-shaped structure surrounding the video flash in response to the sound, filling the entire space with rhythmic illumination. The man trapped at sea paradoxically counts the days of his isolation within what feels like infinite time. The narrative reflects the human instinct to escape loneliness. As he searches endlessly across the ocean for other survivors, the man’s journey points toward a virtual reality world.
 
The work deliberately blurs the boundary between reality and the metaverse, revealing the porous borders between the physical and virtual realms today. Like someone lost in a vast and unfamiliar virtual world, the protagonist confronts struggles that evoke humanity navigating a rapidly changing society. The work does not disclose the protagonist’s name or backstory and offers no clear resolution; instead, it invites viewers to reflect poetically on the turbulence of the present.
 
Based in Seoul and Busan, MOON Kyungwon & JEON Joonho have worked together since 2009 and are widely known for video works that highlight issues in contemporary society. In recent years, they have developed their practice around the interdisciplinary project “News from Nowhere” (2011), inspired by the utopian novel of the same title by 19th-century artist and designer William Morris.
 
“News from Nowhere” functions as a participatory platform that brings together experts from diverse fields, ranging from fashion and architecture to medicine. Centered on the concept of dialogue, the project unfolds through films, exhibitions, and public participatory programs.
Through fictional narrative devices set in utopian or dystopian futures, the artists address the present while exploring the role of art in a rapidly changing world.
 
The “News from Nowhere” series was first presented at DOCUMENTA 13 in Kassel in 2012 and later represented Korea at the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015. MOON Kyungwon & JEON Joonho have held solo exhibitions at the Art Institute of Chicago (2013), Migros Museum in Zurich (2015), Tate Liverpool (2018–19), the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul (2021), the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa (2022), and Art Sonje Center, Seoul (2022).
 
The Noor Riyadh festival is curated by Jérôme Sans, Pedro Alonso, Alaa Tarabzouni, and Fahad bin Naif. More than 100 artists from 35 countries present over 120 works, including large-scale light installations, building projections, and performance works. More than 35 Saudi artists also participate in the festival.
 
The associated exhibition “Refracted Identities, Shared Futures,” curated by Neville Wakefield and Maya Al Athel, features works by 32 artists from around the world exploring multidimensional worlds of light.
 
Noor Riyadh is part of Riyadh Art, one of the world’s largest public art initiatives. The program was launched to foster local talent and support the growth of Saudi Arabia’s cultural industries. Riyadh Art aims to transform the Saudi capital into a “gallery without walls,” installing more than 1,000 public artworks across the city through ten programs and two annual events.
 
Through its first and second editions, Noor Riyadh has brought extraordinary cultural experiences across the city, giving millions of visitors the opportunity to encounter world-class light art and showcasing Riyadh’s evolving cultural identity. In 2022, Noor Riyadh recorded more than 2.8 million visitors and achieved six Guinness World Records as the world’s largest light art festival.

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