Move-Sound-Image

The magnificent and vivid images sent to us by the James Webb Space Telescope inspire awe in the Homo sapiens on Earth, but they have also greatly shocked and frustrated artists who create visual images and curators who plan exhibitions of those images. It is because the images have opened our eyes to how primitive and incomplete our biological eyes are compared to telescopes and microscopes. The human eyes can neither grasp the cosmos nor fathom the world of cells. Human art has thus been trapped within the spectrum of rays visible to human physiology, always bound to the Earth governed by Newtonian dynamics, and hopelessly fixated upon the anthropocentric narratives of cultural anthropology and aesthetics. Just as the novel coronavirus ground the entire world of human affairs to a halt, the James Webb Space Telescope sent us images that revealed the marvel that is the cosmos. The coincidence of these two history-making events has fundamentally altered our perception and attitude in relation to humankind and civilization. Just as we were forced to admit to the defectiveness and imperfection of our senses, we were ironically able to embark on the path of co-evolution between the organic and the inorganic, between humans and machinery, and between space and time. Planes form spaces, and spaces merge with time to create new dimensions. Like blueprints that become buildings and notes on scores that become music, the times, spaces, and energies that had been dispersed about clashed into one another to open up new worlds and dimensions. Genes and memes combine to pioneer new horizons.

 

Live in Your Head: When Attitudes Become Form (1969), curated by Harald Szeemann, was the watershed event that brought installation and performance into the world of art that had only known two forms—painting and sculpture—until then. The advancement in telecommunications from 2G to 3G, to 4G, and to 5G at the latest, has also brought disparate disciplines of art together to give rise to a much more expansive world of art that merges moves, sounds, and images. Self-innovation and co-evolution with technology in the art world have placed contemporary art at the sharp edge of civilization. At last, we have entered the 21st century of visual dominance, where art embraces and transcends literature and music for the first time in human civilization. Contemporary art enjoys an unprecedented level of prestige and admiration today as Total Art.

 

The fact that the universe continues to expand means that there are voids throughout it. This is because, like a balloon filled with air, no expansion is possible without empty space. East Asian philosophies and religions have sought to grapple with such emptiness and nothingness since ancient times. These voids, or nothing, are where Eastern philosophy and contemporary physics meet. The James Webb Space Telescope captured the moments of the universe in expansion precisely in these empty spaces. These voids also inspire artists as much as empty canvases do. These are places where time and space refract, merge, and perpetually create new things and dimensions. The discovery of these spatial voids led to the rediscovery of religion and art—particularly Eastern religions and thoughts—that had long been dismissed as mystical and superstitious. We are now witnessing the long-awaited union of scientific reason and artistic imagination. The moment of universe creation, our lifeworld, and our ever-advancing civilization all come about as results of connections and combinations of moves, sounds, and images.

 

Move-Sound-Image is the new exhibition that is now being held in Ground Seoul Gallery, alongside the Real Banksy: Banksy is NOWHERE exhibition already in place across Ground Seoul Space. With the addition of the former, which occupies four out of five ground floors, while the latter had already been taking place in the four underground floors, the nine-story Ground Seoul has finally opened itself in full to the public. Move-Sound-Image, marking the debut of the later-completed Gallery space, reveals the raison d’être behind the project of Ground Seoul as well as what kinds of exhibitions and events it will host in the future.Ground Seoul focuses on the potential for the birth of new art at the very moment when the concept of subjectivity began to expand beyond the Earth into the universe. The institution heartily endorses contemporary art as the Total Art of the 21st century, bridging scientific reason and artistic imagination. Ground Seoul aspires toward becoming the void of the art world that showcases the most sharp-edged civilization made by contemporary artists, curators, and collectors. It wishes to become an important player in the tight-knit and growing networks of intellectual and cultural movements that constitute Seoul as a global city. All these ambitions and aspirations would not have been possible without the dedication of the featured artists as well as staff members and fellows who have always been

behind this exhibition. They deserve all my thanks.

 

Yun Cheagab, Director