Requiem for Hybrid Life

Kenny Kyungmi Kim, Director

If the 20th century is called the “age of physics,” the 21st century could be called the “age of biology,” indicating how far behavior biology and evolutionary biology have developed in that time period. This project aims to shed light on insights into interaction between machines and living creatures in the present and future. It will examine the current status of science and technology as well as converged science and technology, such as vivisystem, cybernetics, and artificial life, that can predict what kind of ecosystem machines and humans will create, along with visual arts, music, and performance. In order for technological systems tomimic nature’s systems, shapes, machines, and systems will become profoundly complicated and will act autonomously. Therefore, we predict a new age in which distinctions between machines and living organisms can no longer be made. Now, as we transition into an age when ecosystems, such as communities of life-forms, and machines created by humans, such as robots or artificial brains, are no longer separate entities but rather existing in harmony, thereis no longer a divide between the perception of the physical and the mental in a world where biology, computers, and mechanics are entangled. The location of the current Seoul Innovation Center, which was proposed as the location of this project, was previously occupied by the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Therefore, Seoul City remodeled animal experiment rooms, medicinal warehouses, and waste disposal facilities to transform them into a strong hold for innovation. The inspiration of the topic was site-specific, and the plan was made under the assumption that exhibitions and performances would take place in the SeMA (Seoul Museum of Art) Chang Go and waste disposal facilities inside Seoul Innovation Park. Rather than concerns over loss of humanity and dystopia caused by technological development, the aim is to question thehuman-organism-machine relationship and to support ritualistic installation art and performances, in order to console victimized animals.

“Visual music”refers to sound or music that has been transformed into a visual form and vice versa. The historical origin of visual music includes Composition, painted by Wassily Kandinsky (1911-12), Oskar Fischinger’s abstract animation expressed in Allegretto (1936) and Radio Dynamics (1942), and the production of abstract films and color organs such as Lapis (1963-66) and Permutations (1968) by brothers John and James Whitney. As for visual music, installations of contemporary music videos and real-time interactive systems, alongside performances and computer programming, were used to produce algorithmic composing and sound data. Based on this, visual languages were created, and visual language factors, such as colors, shapes, and movements, were applied. Additionally, diverse sensors were used to create an audio-visual immersion to expand the users’ experience. As ofnow, theatre performance forms such as New Interfaces for Musical Expression(NIME) have become diverse forms of media art. The concept of time that penetrates visual music is connected flow, and this flow is ever-changing and always-moving. It is a flowing energy that is alive (qi), and it moves according to the laws of the universe (li) and rhythms and patterns that have always existed in natural phenomena. Such scientific and philosophical perceptions about time, sound that transcends such understandings and perceptions, new expressions, and the portrayal of unfamiliar space that comes as a result of the artists’ creativity, which transcends time and space, make rearranged rhythms and patterns that make infinite time seem like a fleeting moment. A fleeting moment like eternity and other diverse cutting-edge technologies such as VR, AR, Speech Recognition, Robotics, Projection Mapping, Sound Interactive Visualize, were installed in six different spatial categories, and the visual music performances related to those installation art pieces were also put into the plan.