Latency/Contemplation. Artist Films and Videos from South Korea since 1960s
Invisible image produced by the action of light on silver halide crystals suspended in the emulsion of a photographic material. History of Korean artist’s cinema is exactly the same as latent image, writing our history is much the same as archiving unexposed film prints. Experimental film and artist moving image made over five decades in Korea are extremely difficult conceptualize due to lack of historical contingency. Although our consciousness is suspended by the presence of archive itself, this program focuses on the ways in which artists in South Korea have addressed the intrinsic conditions of cinema and the changing social and political context that have defined the ways artists have been able to work. This screenings will attempt to map the continuities across various generations and the crucial role of artists’ organizations. (This program title is borrowed from Cho Seoungho’s video work.)
Lee Jang-wook
23’ | 16 mm | Color - B&W | Silent
1999
Screening format: 16mm
United States
Surface of Memory, Memory on Surface
This film is based upon the form of an individual’s diary. I created new images using several chemical treatments on the film surface, multi-printing, etc., utilizing footage of daily life recorded on film. This serial works were begun from trials that I had communicated seeking to re-construct my own memories, memories deeply connected with memory on film and with the film itself. The film is a conversation with personal documentary and everyday practice at darkroom.
Min-yong Jang
5’ | 16 mm | Color | Silent
2001
Screening format: 16mm
Korea, Republic of
The Dark Room
The Dark Room is homage to a 16th-century apparatus, camera obscura. I tried to create a uniquely cinematic sensory experience. The views of Pacific Ocean could provide the powerful sense of moving water as mass and volume.
Shon Kim
3’ 30’’ | SD | Color | Stereo
2005
Screening format: High-definition digital video
Korea, Republic of
Latent Sorrow
Moving painting #7: to reach coexistent points where abstraction and concreteness are equally fused.
IM Heung-soon
24’ | HD | Color | Stereo
2011
Screening format: High-definition digital video
Korea, Republic of
Sung Si (Jeju Symptom and Sign)
This video is inspired by the phrase “Two omens: bamboo blossom and the morning star” (4.3 Speaks, vol. 4, pp. 341–342). Rather than deliver the mere historical factuality of Jeju uprising on April 3, 1948, my intention is to generate, with a minimum of information through images and sounds, a situation of sympathy with human existence and its emotions, as it helplessly faces historical tragedy, In Sung Si, I wanted to depict situations at that time where happiness and safety were suddenly removed and anxiety and fear took control, and the desperation of survivors, whose lives could only to be lived through “praying hearts” and forbidden mourning. Sung Si means disaster and omen in Jeju dialect.
Kim Kyung-Man
10’ | HD | Color - B&W | Stereo
2014
Screening format: High-definition digital video
Korea, Republic of
Beep
The images of this film are taken from propaganda films produced by the Korean government over the past 60 or so years, and most of the sounds in the film are taken from these films and the audio-visual teaching aid The Anti-communist Case of the Anti-communist Child Lee Seung-bok, which was produced separately by the Ministry of Education and Culture. This audiovisual aid consists of a slide film and a cassette tape, and the high-pitched sound of the cassette tape is synced over the film.
Youjin Moon
11’ 52’’ | HD | Color | Stereo
2015
Screening format: High-definition digital video
United States
Europa
Europa is an experimental video that depicts poetic encounters between the seen and unseen, between delicate details and expansive spaces. Enveloped in pure colors, elusive existence and frigid weather events, an imaginary landscape resonates with the constant state of perceptual ambiguity. Through the accumulation of time, the imagery creates a threshold between reality and imagination.
Seoungho Cho
6’ | HD | Color | Stereo
2016
Screening format: High-definition digital video
United States
Latency Contemplation 1
In this video, Cho transforms the sea shore into a visual poem. His inner landscapes and his perception of the outer world come together in an abstract meditation about space and place, light, time and traveling. The video consists of heavily distorted electronic images which result in mainly horizontal lines and color bars which are reminiscent of the horizontal lines of VHS video.
