Photos: Soobeen Woo.
Interview: Lara Lehmann. Published on 20. SEP 2024.
— Do you know Gelsenkirchen? Why did you say yes to GOLDSTÜCKE 2024?
Before deciding to participate in this festival, I didn’t know much about Gelsenkirchen. However, I chose to take part in GOLDSTÜCKE 2024 because the initial theme presented—Digital Identity—aligned well with my work. My project for this event, titled “Echoia,” explores the distorted and transformed digital identity of humans through the fusion of humanity and AI. Additionally, I visited Gelsenkirchen in July and experienced the city’s vibrant artistic atmosphere. This made participating in the event even more appealing and led me to make the decision to join.
— What are particularly interesting aspects of the material / medium?
For this project, I used the medium of a hologram for the first time. Since the work as a whole deals with the fusion of analog and digital existences, I wanted to use a medium that also lies at the intersection of analog and digital. In my previous work, I have focused on giving new attributes to the invisible, attempting to make it visible. I am intrigued by how the digital, when combined with the analog, can be infinitely projected and distorted. I hope my work can be reinterpreted by viewers and reproduced, distorted, and transformed depending on the angle from which it’s viewed. A hologram seemed like a highly compelling tool, both conceptually and visually, to express all of these elements.
— What core idea inspired you to create your current work and what message do you want to convey with it?
In the digital world, we often set up virtual personas, adjusting ourselves to fit them as if they were our true selves. Algorithms can sometimes control us and even limit our tastes in reality. This is an act of conforming to what we aspire to be. Virtual avatars, virtual preferences, AI, and algorithms gradually blend into our identity, transforming and distorting it. How should we perceive this digital identity, and can we call it our true self? Echoia was born from this question.
Echoia symbolizes the digital self of humans in the virtual world. It represents the fusion of a virtual avatar that changes according to my movements, transformed and recreated anew. The image is continuously reproduced and reinterpreted through AI in the digital world. Echoia is a combination of these elements, symbolizing the digital persona of a human being.
Through an installation that allows viewers to look down into a distorted and transformed entity, as if peering into a well, we reflect on ourselves. The form, accompanied by the effect of water rippling within, amplifies its meaning. It serves as a digital well where we can reflect on our digital identity, seeing our own face mirrored within it.
— What are the central aspects of contemporary art for you and how do you incorporate them into your works?
The most important point for me is that philosophy should be the focus, not the technology (including specific tools and media). When I begin a project, I always draw inspiration from academic papers, philosophy, or humanities books. This serves as the starting point for thinking about how to connect it to a particular work and how to artistically elevate it.
— Do you have a favorite work of art from the year’s GOLDSTÜCKE program?
I’m most looking forward to Slava Romanov’s work. When I view an artwork, I tend to focus on the connection between the message it intends to convey and the medium used. In this case, that connection became clear in my mind as soon as I heard the description of the work. I found it fascinating how the artist used lasers and photochromic pigments to represent the transience of human-made structures, particularly laws and institutions, by making them appear temporarily and then disappear.