Responses Busan (2024)
1. I am interested in everything in “Masterful Attention Seekers” since this problematic covers a wide field of important questions, unshared desires, unclear affirmations, strange behaviors, unresolved habits. As an artist, I consider myself – with humility – an Attention Seeker, probably not ‘Masterful’, but definitively seeking attention and aiming to be an influencer.
2. “Dear World,” my wall text, but also the title of my work here, wants to address in a few words an urgent matter to me: To stay resistant, to stay human, to stay disobedient. Not to forget that there is the possibility for seeking attention but also the possibility for giving attention, and not to lose – in running after the newest social media language – that the question of Attention is a philosophical one, as Simone Weil emphasized. I wanted to bring it into the discussion with the quote: “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” It is needed to keep reminding it when using Social Media to keep it human and not geting robotized.
3. The tools to fight ‘against the ‘White Cube’ effect – not the ‘White Cube’ as such – are multiple: covering with material, using obstacles, occupying the floor, reducing distances, not putting the viewer in a comfortable situation, not playing seduction, not using stratagems of value-augmenting, making it difficult for the artwork, and most importantly: making more not less! In all cases, what matters is not to act ‘AGAINST’ the ‘White Cube’, but always to act ‘FOR’ the artwork as such.
4. In my space, I needed to connect three independent artworks: The 12 “I-nfluencer-Posters”, the 36 “MEME” and “POST”, and the 2 “Car-Rich”. I wanted to link them together – because they are all made with the problematic of Influencers and Attention Seeker – with the text “Dear World,” a position concerning the topic. I tried to make an aesthetic link using cardboard between those three bodies of works in order to put them in a box. Therefore, even the floor is covered with cardboard, a material reminding us that all three existing artworks are constituted entirely or partially with cardboard. There is no movement more important to call for than being ready to be implicated in an artwork. To me, each artwork can be or should be a call! Each artwork – because it’s an artwork – owns the power to change the world. Therefore, “Dear World,” not more and not less than other works is a call, a call as such.
5. I want people to be implicated in my work. With “Dear World,” I wanted, I tried, to implicate all visitors, Korean visitors – of course – because we are in Korea, but really everybody. I am happy we could translate all my texts into Korean. Implication means: being touched, thinking about, being interested, being curious, wanting to know more, being disturbed, spending time with the work, wanting to see the details, being obsessed, coming back to check again, wanting to know more about, and of course – the ultimate hope – being changed.
6. The two cars in “Dear World,” – I call them “Car-Rich” – stand for Universality, Mobility, Status Symbol, Necessity, but also for the question of Energy. The two ‘Kia’ cars are also the support for utilizing the capacities of ‘cardboard’ for transformation – the transformation of the world.
7. I think social media is truly a progress but also a huge challenge for everybody and in all domains. Therefore, it is an element to consider in art, and it gives a problematic to work about also in art. It is the artist who decides to confront and work with social media in their work. Personally, social media – in doing my work – is a part of the ‘Aesthetics’ element in my work: other parts are ‘Love’, ‘Philosophy’, ‘Politics’. But I am specifically interested in how social media interact, amplify, and influence the reception of a work of art; they can be an important actor in the reception of art.
8. This is exactly the ‘tricky thing’ and the question: Can an interest in others, or an exchange with others, be quantified? Or is it the intensity of the exchange with a few others that makes us learn, progress, evolve, and gives us enrichment? Or can a big number of followers or ‘likes’ – the problem with numbers is, they always need to grow – create this intensity?
I am convinced that making exhibitions, visiting exhibitions is and will still be an important form, beside others, for being in contact with something we ignore, and thanks to an exhibition, we encounter and discover. I do not specifically think here about art exhibitions, but all kinds of exhibitions, environmental, technical, historical, etc. I am always astonished to observe how many people pay attention to things, in reading a text or listening to an audio, in exhibitions, and I believe the physical aspect creates the attraction but also the resistance of and for the form ‘Exhibition’. Visiting an exhibition is always a confrontation between the physical and intellectual capacities of humans.
9. My first impressions are very superficial because I’ve only been in Korea for one week so far. Spontaneously, the word ‘Concentration’ comes to my mind. I felt the persons I met—and furthermore, could work with—were concentrated, dedicated, and on a mission. But I could also notice Concentration in observing people around during my journey. It’s perhaps this ability of concentration, of being focused, of making the point, and of not losing the topic which I love, appreciate, and which I found outstanding in Korean cinema.