Bon Kim: Robinienhof
Interview: Gamze Can. Published on 16. SEP 2024.
Today, we have the opportunity to speak with an artist whose work focuses on heat and the connection between humans and the environment.
— Are you familiar with Gelsenkirchen and the GOLDSTÜCKE? What motivated you to apply for the Open Call?
Herne was the first city I lived in Germany, which allowed me to explore Ruhrgebiet, including Gelsenkirchen, where I feel a strong connection. I’ve worked on an art project in the region, at the new now festival in Essen. The Open Call’s focus on diplopia intrigued me because it aligns with one of my projects. I plan to project a thermal video onto an empty building in Gelsenkirchen, showing living beings in the city. The thermal imagery offers a “second vision”—revealing the temperature and feeling of these beings, embodying the concept of diplopia by showing two realities at once.
— How would you describe your artistic practice?
My artistic practice explores the body in a materialistic way, with a current focus on heat as both a conceptual and physical medium. I use heat to break down boundaries between living and non-living, matter and life, and human and non-human. By researching somatic phenomena, I often work with evidence of life activities such as body heat and breath—vital signs of life that are perceived through constant giving and receiving with the surroundings. In my project “A Chair for Co-responding,” I attempt to form a relationship between participating plants and the audience through human body heat. By sitting on the chair, body heat is converted into electricity. This electricity powers a light that amplifies photosynthesis, generating oxygen that the audience then breathes, creating a cycle of exchange. In “Mourning Heat (When a Breath Resonates),” I used heat as a medium for mourning. The ‘mourning apparatus’ produces sound through the airflow caused by heat, reflecting on the ephemeral and cyclical nature of life.
— What aspects were particularly important to you during the creation of your artwork?
Recently, I’ve been reflecting on the significance of surplus time and surplus activities. I believe that spending time in a state of idleness or allowing for unstructured moments can lead to the discovery of better ideas and clearer insights. This surplus time allows me to explore concepts more explicitly and find missing perspectives that might not emerge from a more rigid or constrained approach.
— What core idea inspired your current work, and what message do you want to convey with it?
Seeing the world through heat is a metaphor for perceiving the world as a sense, not just as a surface. When we perceive living things through heat, it means treating them as living beings that generate heat, regardless of their background, country, ethnicity, or even whether they are human or not. Dealing with non-living things is also the same. Just as relatively cold and hot do not imply anything negative or positive, anything superior or inferior, non-living things that do not generate heat are relatively cold. When they come into contact with living things, they interact and intermingle, exchanging heat. The current work proposes a way of sensing the world in this way, and it is hoped that by sensing the world in a different way, those of us who are accustomed to seeing will be given the opportunity to empathize more sensitively with beings different from ourselves.
— In your work, you primarily use thermal imaging technology, which is applied in various fields – from military operations and building diagnostics to energy efficiency and surveillance. Which processes and methods are central to your use of this technology, and how do you reinterpret its application in your artistic work?
My initial motivation for using a thermal camera was to explore the idea of “seeing the world of feeling.” I’ve worked with various mediums, including thermoelectric generators and thermal acoustics, but I started using the thermal camera during my last solo show. I wanted to highlight body heat as evidence of life. In the exhibition, I installed chairs that generated electricity from the body heat of people sitting on them. However, it was challenging for the audience to grasp whether it functioned as a touch sensor or if it was actually absorbing heat. To clarify this concept, I decided to display a live thermal video of the installation in a separate room, under the title “Assistive Feeling Device for Those Who Are Used to Seeing.” This recontextualization helped viewers better understand the idea of perceiving heat and body energy as forms of interaction, thus reinterpreting thermal technology as a medium for experiencing invisible aspects of life rather than just its conventional technical uses.
— Do you have a favorite artwork from this year’s GOLDSTÜCKE program?
I haven’t checked out other artworks yet, I would like to check them out soon.