Yunchul Kim (b. 1970) is an electronic music composer and visual artist who has worked with installation, drawing, sound, text, and various media. Kim, who has asked fundamental questions about “material” since studying abroad in Germany, has explored the possibilities of imagination and the creation of another reality that goes beyond the realm of human experience, paying attention to its potential tendencies.

He integrates diverse references such as mathematics, science, technology, music, philosophy, literature, and cosmology into his work, capturing and exposing the fluid encounters between objects, including non-human materials. Through this, he transforms the material entanglements of the universe into artistic form.

Kim studied electronic music in Korea and later went to Germany to study media art. In his early career, he focused primarily on immaterial works like sound art, media art through projections, and generative art. While living in a foreign land where everything felt unfamiliar, one day he suddenly felt a sense of futility in working on a computer that could vanish at the push of a power button. This led him to want to work with materials that he could physically grasp.

Deciding to work with his hands rather than a computer, he began creating Self_portrait.jpg (2003). Seemingly abstract at first glance, Self_portrait.jpg involved transcribing about 140,000 characters of code, which digitally translated his own facial image, onto paper over the span of three months, embodying repetitive labor.

This work marked a significant turning point in his practice, shifting from immaterial to material-focused art. During this process, he experienced materiality and temporality through the changing condition of the paper, influenced by the warmth of his hand, weather, and physical fatigue, which would later become key elements in his work.

In 2009, Kim presented Epiphora, a work that began as an exploration of the properties of water, specifically liquid. This kinetic installation featured black ferrofluid, enclosed in transparent liquid, that pulsated, circulated, and interacted through machine-like devices resembling bodily organs. This work marked the beginning of Kim’s development of artworks incorporating fluid mechanics and electromagnetic devices.

In 2010, he participated in the Kunstlerhaus Bethanien residency program in Germany, where he expanded his artistic world by interacting with experts not only from the arts but also from scientific fields.

Building on this experience, Kim created Effulge (2012-2014), a fluid mechanics installation featuring golden photonic crystals that moved under pressure, which he designed. In 2016, he was awarded the prestigious Collide International Award by CERN, recognizing artists who contribute to the creative fusion of science and art.

In 2018, Kim Yunchul’s works Impulse and Argos, commissioned by CERN, demonstrated a technical expansion while reflecting the artist’s contemplation of the relationship between materials and humans, specifically between the non-human and human.

The work Argos is a 41-channel muon particle detector. It reacts with a flash each time a muon particle emitted by the universe is detected in the air – a mechanism that is carried over to another work titled Impulse. Impulse is a work consisting of numerous cylindrical tubes that extend out like the hanging branches of a tree as clear fluid flows through them. Impulse responds to signals from Argos whenever particles are detected, causing the internal liquid to move.

In this dynamic interaction between the two machines, human viewers witness a new form of creation resulting from the organic and active relationship between the two. Within this universe of objects, humans are not positioned at the center but rather become equal participants in the network of interactions these entities generate.

Meanwhile, Coptic Light (2019) is a planar mechanical work that utilizes the molecular structure of hydrogel, a water-soluble gelatin. This piece involves applying immense pressure to the hydrogel, altering its molecular structure. Fluorescent filters are installed on the front and back, allowing light to pass through. As the light refracts through the altered molecular structure, it acts like a prism, creating self-generated patterns and colors.

In this way, the machines in Yunchul Kim’s works go beyond merely operating mechanical functions. They serve as catalysts that reveal the inherent tendencies of the material itself.

In 2022, Kim was selected as the artist for the Korean Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, once again drawing international attention. His new work, La Poussière de soleils (Dust of Suns), continued the aesthetic exploration of the inherent structures and tendencies of materials, a recurring theme in his previous works.

La Poussière de soleils (Dust of Suns) was inspired by the philosophical exploration of machines, humans, life, and death found in the French writer Raymond Roussel’s novel Poussière de Soleil. For this piece, Kim pulverized stones that had been buried underground for thousands of years, transforming them into nano-sized particles. These particles were then turned into a fluid that, when in motion, acted like a prism, creating a spectrum of colors.

The colors produced by this molecular structure are referred to as structural colors in science. Unlike colors assigned by humans, structural colors are created by the material’s structure itself. This idea aligns with Kim’s philosophical view of the material as an “active agent.”

At the Venice Biennale, Yunchul Kim also presented the fifth series of his renowned work CHROMA. The large-scale installation CHROMA V, measuring 8 meters, is composed of curved surfaces and kinetic devices that fill 382 individual cells. Each surface is filled with hydrogel, and as the kinetic mechanisms surrounding the material move, the hydrogel subtly deforms, naturally revealing its inherent vibrant colors.

Through the vortex-like knot structure of CHROMA, Kim aimed to visualize a form and force that have no clear beginning or end. To create the numerous loops in this work, he had to engage with the abstract realm of mathematics. In topology, a mathematical discipline, the creation of knots from a series of numerical sequences signifies the formation of new dimensions.

From this cyclical knot structure, Kim discovers a nonlinear state of the world that existed before language. The ambiguous cycle of CHROMA’s structure suggests an endless entanglement of the unconscious, reality, matter, nature, and religion, inviting viewers to imagine another form of reality.

In this way, Yunchul Kim’s works transcend being mere mechanical devices or fixed forms of matter. Instead, they exist as non-human agents that interact with other works, humans, and the world, forming organic relationships. Within the exhibition space, these agents create a vast sensory network. The audience, through bodily engagement, experiences the light or sound emitted by the machines as an "affective experience," becoming intertwined within this relational web.

“I believe art holds true aesthetic value when it is fully liberated from language. (...) As an artist, my goal is to create works that approach the audience not symbolically but symptomatically.
 
I want to show spatial and temporal depth, a different dimension of sensibility. It is closer to the realm of punctum rather than studium, meaning it is more bodily and sensory than rational or semiotically analyzable.”
(Leepoétique, Interview with Yunchul Kim, November 21, 2019)

Yunchul Kim works internationally currently based in Seoul, Korea. He has been the recipient of a number of international awards, including the 2016 Collide Award from CERN, the world’s largest particle physics research institute, the VIDA 15.0 Third Prize, along with awards at Ars Electronica and Transmediale.

Kim was chief researcher of the research group Mattereality at the Transdisciplinary Research Program at the Korea Institute for Advanced Study. He is a member of the art and science project group Fluid Skies as well as Liquid Things, an artistic research project at the Art and Science Department of the University of Applied Arts, Vienna, Austria.

His works have been presented by a number of renowned international organizations, including CCCB (Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona), Spain; FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology), Liverpool, UK; Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria; Frankfurt Museum of Art, Germany; International Triennial of New Media Art, Beijing, China; VIDA15.0, Spain; Schering Stiftung, Berlin; Transmediale, Berlin; and the 6th Electrohype, Ystad Sweden.

References

• 김윤철, Yunchul Kim (Artist Website)
• 바라캇 컨템포러리, 김윤철 (Barakat Contemporary, Yunchul Kim)
• 바라캇 컨템포러리, 김윤철: GLARE (Barakat Contemporary, Yunchul Kim: GLARE)
• 메종코리아, 베니스 비엔날레의 자이어, 2022.04.07
• 국립현대미술관, 임민욱 | 국제호출주파수 | 2011 (National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Korea (MMCA), Minouk Lim | International Calling Frequency | 2011)
• 리포에틱, 김윤철 인터뷰, 2019.11.21