PARK Seong Jun, Patho-, 2024, interactive installation, 6 computers, 16 sensors (or 4 Kinect sensors), 16 stage lights, 4 speakers, 2 projectors, 8 headphones, plastic bag and doll, discarded ice cream container, binoculars, paper airplanes (copies of ID cards), 2 broken golf clubs, old belts, old TV, circus music box, pills and syringes, fake luxury handbag, architectural model (house), delivery boxes, waterless fish tank, work shoes, miniature furniture, pieces of old flooring, Dimensions variable © PARK Seong Jun

Patho- comes from the root word ‘pathos,’ which means subjective/emotional elements or passion or intensity. In the work, participants can experience objects, light, sound, and interactive devices as elements that evoke human emotions and imagery.

By directly participating in the ‘spatial montage’ (Language of New Media, 2014, Lev Manovich), they imagine their own narratives, scenes, and emotions. As their personal existence, (individual and communal) memories and events intersect, each viewer constructs their  own unique narrative. When visitors enter the exhibition hall, they step onto a platform that serves as a stage, a pedestal for objects, or a backdrop for a story.

There, they encounter objects arranged in a structured 4×4 grid on the floor of the black box space. While strolling between the objects, the sensor-activated sound is triggered, and they follow their own path around the everyday and familiar objects placed on the floor.

Accordingly, the audience hears words and sounds. The auditory information of words and familiar sounds in daily life evokes scenes and stories. However, the disjointed and fragmented information causes the participants to reassemble or reconstruct images in their imagination constantly.

This work is a story, but it also resembles a kind of ‘poetic structure’ composed of various forms of poetry such as movement, words, text, and shadow. The algorithmically generated sound for each movement is ‘repeated,’ aligning  with the concept of ‘difference and repetition’ (Difference and Repetition, 2004, Gilles Deleuze).”

Here, ‘difference’ becomes a creative process rather than simply meaning difference, allowing the participants to experience the world and existence as dynamic forces that interact continuously rather than seeing them as fixed structures.

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