WEBZINE ACC

Before I entered the exhibition, I looked up the meaning of Posthuman Ensemble, the title of the exhibition. The first impression of the word “Posthuman” reminded me of the images of movies like The Terminator, or the more recent Dune Part I for their advanced technologies and human responses to them. But this is merely a part of “post-anthropocentrism/posthumanism” discussions; recently, the focus has been shifted to non-humans rather than machines, and their relationship to humankind. To meet this trend, following the exhibition of Equilibrium that explored the boundaries between humans and the ecosystem from the eyes of artists, ACC presents the voices of artists that ponder “harmony” in this exhibition. Most of the artworks in the exhibition are new works created through continuous communication between the artists and the exhibition curator. Thus, visitors are recommended to enjoy the artworks at a leisurely pace while keeping the theme of the exhibition in mind.

The exhibition that spans across ACC Creation Space 3 to 4 is sectioned into three parts: “Prologue,” “Section 1, 2, and 3,” and “Epilogue.” They seem like musical movements which are inspired by the “ensemble” of the exhibition title; Posthuman Ensemble. Like an ensemble that creates a beautiful harmony of many musical instruments, this exhibition with 14 artists/teams presents the harmony between human and non-human beings through their artworks.

A view of Lugas Syllabus & Jeimin Kim's exhibition (2021)

First of all, the exhibition begins with the “Prologue” to give an overview of the exhibition, with the works of Lugas Syllabus, an Indonesian artist, and artist Jeimin Kim. The two artists captured their thoughts on the posthuman era in their artworks amid the age of the COVID-19 pandemic. Lugas Syllabus who depicted human civilization as a part of the vast nature in his Moon series presents the scenes of posthumanism in his new work Step of Life. The artist argues that posthumans still need families and the stairway to heaven symbolizes humans that walk toward their families. The landscape of nature and civilization and the back of a human walking up the stairs placed in the middle of the scene seem to be a positive nod to the humankind that struggled in the presence of adversaries. In the paired artwork, the artist Kim Je-min depicts a humorous scene of weeds replacing humans in their daily activities. Daily Happiness shows a nameless weed relaxing on a massage chair and Weed persistently cultivating life force, which depicts a plant performing bench press to build up its physical strength, shows personified natural objects to allow the audience to form a rapport with non-human objects which are the theme of the exhibition.

Leaving the strong first impression of the exhibition behind, let’s venture further into “‘Section 1, 2, and 3,” the main body of the exhibition. In this part, eight artists explore the theme by asking this question: “what are non-human beings?” In this section, the audience will be awed to find out that humans are sharing the present with immensely diverse beings from visible things such as plants and fungi to invisible things such as viruses and unknown beings in space. And the artists emphasize that these diverse beings share the same space as humankind.

Kyoungha Lee: Empty Space series (2021)

Lêna BÙI: Kindred(2021)

Under the keyword of empty spaces around her, Artist Kyoungha Lee identifies and records green plants and artificial wastes that grow and turn into dust in those spaces. Empty Space and the 10 pieces of Drawings of Empty Spaces series that have been newly created for this exhibition depict the concurrent cycle of generation and fading away in one scene. The natural cycle of human and non-human beings continue in the fantastical experiences of a Vietnamese artist, Lêna BÙI. The artist tells the story of her body transforming into a new entity through the gate of a temple in her video work, Kindred. Through her artworks, she recognizes human beings as a part of nature rather than the dominator, and systematizes the circular relationship between humans, the gate (portal), and nature in her 10-piece series work of Circulations.

Hwang Moonjung: Non-human Zone (2021)

Artist Hwang Moonjung’s Non-human Zone focuses on the marginalized non-human things in our urban settings such as wastes, pigeons, cockroaches, rats, weeds, and others. Seeing how human efforts to eradicate them prove to be futile, the artist put this situation in a game-like experience. The electric signboard on the miniature apartment building gives the audience the mission to clear non-humans (marbles) on the board. The audience would collect and clean the marbles, but they will come back on the board. This artwork invites the audience to recognize the non-human beings that resiliently survive cleaning activities and come back to the surface.

Pei-Yin Lin: Virophilia (2021)

Pei-Ying Lin, a Taiwanese/Dutch artist combined the word “virus” and “philia” for her work Virophilia. This giant paper roll work lists the names of viruses discovered on earth from A to Z. And in front of this artwork lies a fictional recipe book written in 2065 that uses these viruses as ingredients. Unlike today's people who deepened their fear of the virus because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the artist recognizes the virus as her neighbor. She took her artistic performance one step further and recorded cooking according to the recipe and consumed the outcome in a video.

Heeah Yang: Infinity Garden+△ (2021)

In the last section, the visitors will enter into artist Heeah Yang’s Infinity Garden+△. The geometric architecture in the center, the glittering installation that falls to the ground from the ceiling, and drawings that depict floating things—these artworks of Yang sparks the audience’s imagination on the pure and unknown beings beyond the reaches of the universe that humans are yet to discover. These curious things expand in the record placed on a table. This record is a collection of conversations that the artist had with numerous physicists with the keyword of “quantum mechanics” for more than 2 years. The conversations grow more toward “physics maniac” as they progress.

Now, the ensemble reaches the last section, the “Epilogue.” Go to Hall 4 through the corridor, and you will be greeted by convergence artworks such as drones, AI, brain wave monitors, etc. Perhaps, many visitors, including I, would instantly think ‘Finally, the posthuman exhibition that I’ve imagined!’ The four artists and teams individualize and actualize various emotions and reflect their flows into one non-human entity. Emotions are translated through machines and the audience are invited to the process of making the new human relationship

Younghwan Cheon: into the mind (2021)

Artist Younghwan Cheon’s exhibition into the mind captures spectators’ eyes to the colorful glass bottles displayed in the showcase. The work is called “Emotion Vaccine,” a collection of re-interpreted emotions of people that participated in the projects that the artist led in the past. Each bottle is labeled with various emotions, such as sadness, joy, rage, and more. The vaccines, the re-interpreted emotions presented in various colors and odors through brain wave monitors and AI decoding processes, have subtle differences, showing the endless depth of human emotions to the audience. Placing one of these vaccines on an analyzer will change the color of the gigantic screen in the front as if it empathizes with the bottled emotion, inviting the audience into someone else’s mind.

Eun Woo Cho: Brain Wave & Ideal City No.2 (2021)

Brain Wave & Ideal City No.2 of artist Eun Woo Cho awaits the visitors in the deepest section of the exhibition. The installation detects certain brain wave frequencies of the audience and illuminates the tall tower. The wearable brain wave monitor for the illumination is designed to react to biosignals (data) that occur in the moment of “‘creative” brain waves. The audience would look at the parts of the body cast by the artist such as the brain, arms, legs, and torso, and partake in relationship-building by connecting themselves in the mirror and their brainwaves to the lights.

From the beginning to the end, I felt “warmth” from this exhibition that explores the concept of posthumanism. Although not all artists in this exhibition are included in this review, they all present humanism that hopes for curing diseases that rage across the world due to destroyed ecosystems caused by anthropocentrism by embracing non-human beings rather than having a critical view on these issues. With hope for warm hearts that would recognize and embrace non-human beings around us, I end the review of Posthuman Ensemble.

• Written by Choi Bo-Gyeong (sasha.bochoi@gmail.com)
  Photography by Hwang In-ho (photopneverdie@naver.com)
  
  2021.12