An Gayoung, The Hermes’s Box, 2016-2018, Interactive video game(using Unity3d engine), 1 channel projection screen, custom Joystick, Playtime 20-30min., Installation view of 《The Hermes’s Box》 (Seoul Art Space Mullae, 2016) ©An Gayoung. Photo: Yolanta C. Siu.

An Gayoung (age 32) is holding her solo exhibition 《The Hermes’s Box》 for eight days from Saturday, September 24 to Sunday, October 2 at the Box Theater of Seoul Art Space Mullae. This exhibition was selected as one of the 2016 projects of 〈MEET〉, a support program by Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture’s Mullae Art Space. It stands out by connecting analog-style games with video games and merging artistic practice with game programming technology.

Set in an analog space, the exhibition features a “box” that symbolizes internet information, which the visitors can physically move to create a pathway for “Hermes”* within the installed media. (*Hermes: the messenger god in Greek mythology)

An Gayoung, The Hermes’s Box, 2016-2018, Interactive video game(using Unity3d engine), 1 channel projection screen, custom Joystick, Playtime 20-30min. ©An Gayoung

The exhibition 《The Hermes’s Box》 creates a distinctive space where installation art and media art converge. The entire Box Theater is transformed into a virtual environment where visitors can move box-shaped objects and engage with digital media. By using the figure of Hermes, the messenger god, the artist metaphorically portrays the process by which information is discovered, collected, distorted, and disseminated for amusement within the internet. Through storytelling and programming using a game development tool, the artist assigns missions to the audience, who then engage with the cyber space constructed by the artist through gameplay.

Upon entering the exhibition space, the audience must perform missions to help Hermes escape from a sprawling maze-like network filled with viruses and traps. When visitors pick up the boxes placed in the exhibition and move around the space, sensors detect their movements and alter the terrain of the game. Additionally, the contents of the boxes change depending on the information collected by the visitors, meaning the outcome of the game is determined by their actions and choices.

An Gayoung, who planned and produced the exhibition, stated that her inspiration came from news of a FedEx anthrax incident involving the US military in Korea. She was less struck by the potential danger of the contents inside the box than by the delivery system that carried it, and she developed the concept of this work from that realization. Although Hermes, who follows the orders of Zeus, the chief deity of the Greek pantheon, appears as the protagonist delivering information, the narrative introduces a twist where Hermes begins to question the contents of the box and ends up lost in an internet labyrinth. Through Hermes’s perspective, the digital landscape is filled with joy and truth, disgust and error, portraying the chaotic nature of the internet world.

References