WEBZINE ACC

'We must act now, or the world as we know will disappear forever'. This was the warning given by the British economist, Nicholas Stern, in the 2006's Stern Review against the danger of global warming. The report painted a concrete and dramatic picture of the apocalyptic results that climate change would bring to human civilization:

An increase of 1° in average temperature will place the supply of water to 50 million people under risk and result in the extinction of 10% of the world's animals, while an increase of 2° will result in the death toll of 60 million by malaria, in Africa alone. An increase of 3°? 40% of the animals are gone, and Southern Europe will be devastated under a fatal drought.

The Chernobyl incident of 1986 was the largest warning of the destruction of life in the 20th Century, and the climate change of the 21st Century holds up a stark picture of the limitless potential for environmental damage.

The sociologist Ulrich Beck defines environmental risk as a side-effect of the industrialization of products and the production process, which pose a risk to the foundation of human life and nature. For us to recognize its horrific results, he argued, there is a need for direction and visualization, as well as a 'global dialogue among the various cultures'.

But no matter how many warnings were issued from all areas, the threat to life from the destruction of the environment has caught up to our throats. In this crisis of life on Earth, what are the things that the artists are thinking about? There is now an attempt to engage in a dialogue through an 'artistic visualization' under the theme of 'life'.

「The Craters 」 - Jae-ik Lee

Asia Culture Center (ACC) Creation Space 2 is hosting the 2021 ACC_R Residency Beyond Biophilia (Love of Life), an exhibition dedicated to the works of artists realized through the ACC_R Residency program held from December last year to April of this year. The exhibition itself, which will be concluded on May 19, will host 19 works from 22 participating artists.

This year's residency program is distinguished from the last year's focus on the justification of ecology and nature as a part of life, under the idea of Biophilia (Love of Life), through the effort to expand upon the scope of what that "life" is. Thoughts about "mechanical personalities", "materials that were once life", "Are virtual characters life?" have brought an extension of what life is, and at the same time, enabled new observations and research on a human-centered definition of what life is.

This exhibition includes projects utilizing technological convergence and integration, contemporary interpretation of traditional craft, convergent and critical inter-disciplinary research, new joint creations in the performing arts, and other works that discuss the idea of "Love of Life and Beyond" from different perspectives.

「 Night Walk 」 - Yuri Lee

Yuri Lee, a participant of the ACC_R Creators program, sets the boundary between the natural and the artificial and raises questions on the boundary of life through the work, Night Walk. The artist, who was inspired by the various forms of intelligence in nature, has created a fungal robot as a new form of artificial life. In particular, the work utilizes the folding and the unfolding of the origami to express the organic part of the non-living robot, so that the robot can embrace the concepts of growth and biological modification within its structure.

「 Trace 」 - Won Deok Kwon

The artist, Won Deok Kwon, who took part in the ACC_R Design program, presents through his work entitled Trace, the organic view of the material character of trees. The work focuses on the burning of wood as an emphasis of tree rings as a trajectory of the life of a tree, and the cracks as a trajectory of the process that transforms the tree into wood. Through the overlapping of the trajectories from humans, trees, and the environment, the artist seeks to imagine the world Beyond Biophilia.

「 A Journal of Digital Objects 」 - Ju-hee Park

Artist Ju-hee Park, a participant in the ACC_R Dialogue program, came up with the research A Journal of Digital Objects: A Study on the Agency of Objects that Control the Media Art Ecosystem in South Korea. In her research, she focused on the complicated character of the digital transition faced by the Korean media art creators and art organizations, and the tracking of agency for actions that digital objects (software, computing language etc.) analyzed from a socio-technological framework of the actor network theory.
Through her study of the formation process of the alliance between the creator (human agent) and the digital object (non-human agent), she discusses digital capitalism and digital westernization to present an alternative practice for the media art network to grow more democratic and ethical.

「 Overlapped Territory 」 - Surat Kaewseekram

Overlapped Territory, a work created by Surat Kaewseekram in the ACC_R Theater program, is an installation based on actual events that befell the so-called "hill tribes", a collection of highland indigenous communities who are under the threat of forced relocation for the goal of environmental protection. "Must forests be free of humanity? Or can humanity and forests coexist?", "How will the coexistence with humanity affect the forest?", and other questions on the coexistence of nature and humanity form the message presented by the artist.

Mini-interview -- Academic Researcher, Riwon Im
The following is a Q&A with Academic Researcher, Riwon Im, the planner behind the 2021 ACC_R Residency Beyond Biophilia (Love of Life) exhibition.

History comes from data collection

This exhibition is not a simple report on the results of the residency program: It simply reflects the processes that have taken place. We are in a process where we write our histories by supporting the artists during their residency, creating continuously, and researching. It may not be readily apparent, but we have spent the last few months creating and researching with artists. Histories emerge as we collect various data. By doing so, we are studying things that we may not have been so attentive to before, like our history, society, and politics.

Supporting the convergence and integration of contemporary art and technology

ACC's strength is that it has a very strong infrastructure. Equipment on the cutting edge of technology are available for use, and our technicians are always there to guide the artists through their use. We assist our artists in attempting new things with technology. The work at ACC_R Creators is a process where the convergence and integration of contemporary art and technology are used to elevate technological media to the level of art.

How ACC is writing the Asian identity anew

The ACC is writing a new history of Asian identity. This process is a series of works where we see the thoughts of Asia, seen from the Eurocentric and others perspective even by ourselves, from a perspective of agency. The reason why we sought to cover traditional craft in this exhibition was also because these works can accompany us in our chosen mission at the ACC.

BiophiliaClick to go to the page.

• Written by: Mi-hye Yoon mi4430@naver.com
  Photography by: Ki-ho Song song@diam.kr
  
  April 2022