Petite Animations(2007-2009)

10 channel short animation installed on digital picture frames 11”x 7” x 1.5” (each display), each animation varies playing time about 30sec to 2 min..

The installation comprises 10 panels each of which plays a loop of a different animation dealing with a certain virtually-possible physical phenomenon using a stack of petite cubes. The work brings a microscopic but spatial illusion in a different scale of displaying moving images in a very minimal style.

 

Korean Dinner (2009)

DV documentation, Performance and Installation with rice & LCD projector


installation view at 119 gallery (Lowell, MA )

In late Jan. 2009, my family and I had to move to Korea without knowing whether it was going to be permanent or not, which we still do not know as of now(March 9, 2009).. It is a visual letter to my friends and colleagues at US. Video was projected from the ceiling to the floor where rice is spreaded.

 

Uri  (2007)

Interactive public installation (Southwick building at UMass Lowell, MA, USA), microcontrollers, servo motors, LED lights, acrylic parts, wood pannels (96’x24’X6′ for each pannel)

Commission: Uri is the inaugural piece for a public art initiative Random Arts Program in the University of Massachusetts Lowell. UMass asked me to build a piece for the hallway to one of heavily crowed cafeterias in the campus. Random Arts program supported the artworks including the idea of combined disciplines of art and science. Nano science and engineering is one of strongest areas in UMass Lowell and the shape and look of nano molecular structure inspired me to start this work.
For more about Rendom Arts Program, click

It is an interactive, kinetic sculpture based on the nano-carbon structure. Korean word “Uri” translates as “we” or “community”. The hexagonal or honeycomb shapes within the sculpture represent the elemental structure of all carbon-based life forms. The two-part sculpture is composed of custom-designed acrylic parts mounted on two oak panels. The mechanical components include Super Cricket microcontrollers, LED lights, servo motors and infrared proximity sensors. The sensors and motors are programmed to respond to the movement of passersby by opening and closing individual arms within the structure. Through their gestures, the viewers transform the sculpture creating different patterns each time. The interaction of the sculpture and the viewer suggests the mutual and transformative nature of life in all its forms.


Before & after interaction ( one example )

Watch “The Artist’s Loft: Episode 4 Part 2/3” featuring Brian Knap’s Deep Wounds and my “Uri”(starting from 3:28) as well as art scene in the city of Lowell, MA (USA) at Youtube. Another video documentation by myself ( 35″, 13.8MB)

 

FalseBody  (2007-2009)

11 laser-engraving on plexi glasses 16”x 28” (each panel) & digital animation loop

Falsebody comprises a digital animation and a series of digital prints exploring the immaterial aesthetics of digital culture by engraving  the image of the digitally-generated body from an odd perspective of 3D virtual camera onto plexiglass, a tangible physical material.

The artist has been fascinated by the immateriality and virtuality of digitally depicted imagery, especially images of the body.  Extremely photo realistic characters are not unusual in nowadays’ video games and animations. With highly sophisticated lighting and rendering, the characters are sometimes almost believable to be real. It is a false sense that we like to have for the sake of entertainment.

With a closer look at how 3D digital imagery is produced, one could tell the surface of the object makes things look existing. Beyond and beneath the skin of the virtual body is hollow space. The skin is the demarcation of our perception about the existing and the non-existing. Only the skin of the virtual body matters. The virtual skins composed of mathematical components; vertices, edges and faces, as a famous 3D software calls. This immaterial and virtual aspect of digital skin is physically projected on to tangible medium, plexiglass.

The digital body model was carefully crafted from a 3D graphic software, then the wireframe images of the model were taken by a virtual camera from inside of the body using extreme wide-angle lens. The resulting vector images were taken to a laser-cutter for engraving onto plexiglass. The installation includes nine pieces of laser-engraved plexiglass hung from a ceiling.

Depending on the angle and position of viewing in relation to the piece of the plexiglass and the light condition, the images look differently because of the shallow groove along the wireframe made by the laser-cutter.

The pieces of plexiglass are engraved by Trotech Laser cutter supported by Prof. Fred Martin’s Engaging Computing Lab at UMass Lowell.  Projectors and computers were supported by the Art Department of UMass Lowell.

 

Robot Symbiosis v.1.0, v2.0 (2005-6)

Interactive installation with plaster, video projection, robots, sensors, motors, Handyboard, and wireless mics

Photo by Ryan Sullivan

Robot Symbiosis is a collaborative art and technology installation and performance exhibited at 119 gallery December 2005. The installation explores the symbiotic relationship between the human body and the artificial mechanism in the contemporary techno-society. Mobile robots, sculptures with projected body images and immersive sounds constructs a new body form, the dynamic hybrid of the organic and the inorganic throughout the gallery. Viewers are invited to be a part of this synthesized body form by walking through the sculptures and by interacting with the robots of different personalities and behaviors, while hearing and controlling the sound interactively.

The exhibit was made possible in collaboration with Fred Martin (Computer Science), John Shirley (Music) and their students: Vasiliy Dulskiy, David Grossman, Michael Howlett, Tristan Lewis, Eric Morrison, Nathan Palmer, Eric Pow, and Ryan Sullivan.

Video documentation of the installation and performance (mov file, 1’47”, 18.7MB)

 

Feedback  (2005)

Live performance with projected realtime computer animation and video
Tech/Software/Media:Realtime video/CG processing, realtime audio analysis, Max/MSP/Jitter

This work is incolaboration with a composer Abby Aresty and a performer Gretchen Snedeker from the Eastman School of Music as part of 2005 ImageMovementSound Festival in Rochester NY. By implementing the interaction between the performer and the digital images, this project simulates how human beings have developed technologies, and have been so much influenced by the technological environment in their life in general. The live performers will trigger imagery that will then inform their musical decisions and ultimately change the imagery.

We employ grocery store as an example of the technological environment, which represents a huge change in how humans get their food( the basic need) and therefore deals with how we have changed technology, and also how technology has effected humanity. We found a poem “Allegory of the Supermarket” by Stephanie Brown delivered similar idea that we had about the grocery store and decided to use it for our project.

 

Selves  (2005)

Digital Video with 3D animation, 5min
Tech/Software/Media : Maya, Final Cut Pro

This work combines animation and dance on camera in an exploration of dichotomous self-identity in both the virtual and real world. Tangible interaction between the physical body and the disembodied immaterial virtual entity will point to the varying degrees of wellbeing associated with each state at a given moment.

The movement of both characters, the physical identity and the virtual identity, is directed by the choreographer. The dancer on camera is integrated with the computer generated imagery created by the filmmaker in different terrain, interacting with one another and with the composer’s own dichotomous score featuring the acoustic identity of one instrument and its parallel, processed self.

Animator/Video: Hyun Ju Kim
Choreographer: Missy Pfohl Smith
Composer: Abby Aresty
Dancer: Jessica Blaida
Cinematographers: Moonsik Jung, Hyun Ju Kim, Missy Pfohl Smith