Seo-Seoul Museum of Art presents newly commissioned games, videos and photographs through Nov. 8

Seo-Seoul Museum of Art is presenting “Kim Heecheon: Moles,” a solo exhibition examining how digital technology reshapes perceptions of reality, identity and human experience.

Running through Nov. 8, the exhibition is the first in the museum’s series devoted to major South Korean media artists. It features games, moving images, photographs and installations, including new works commissioned and supported by the Seoul Museum of Art.

Kim has investigated contemporary technology and visual culture since his first video work, “Lifting Barbells,” in 2015. His practice begins from the view that screens no longer merely reproduce reality but have become environments that actively produce and structure it.

The exhibition focuses on works made since 2023. “CutterIII” and “Double Poser” are autoplay games created with the Unity game engine. Rather than replaying prerecorded footage, the works are rendered in real time through input values, allowing Kim to examine the changing experience of time and space in an increasingly data-driven world.

The new work “Lemon” develops from a mole that appeared as an Easter egg in both games. Kim imagines that the animal has dug a tunnel connecting their separate worlds and moves secretly between them.

Within the fictional game “ButterIII,” the mole becomes both a double agent travelling between digital environments and a figure attempting to escape systems governed by technology. It also unsettles the fixed versions of identity constructed through data and technological interfaces.

“Cured,” a new multichannel video produced with generative artificial intelligence, considers how an emerging image ecosystem may alter human perception. The work addresses a technological environment in which systems record, model and predict users while the interfaces shaping those experiences become increasingly difficult to perceive.

The photographic work “.dng” consists of more than 100 images selected from 5,841 photographs taken by Kim with a mobile phone. Rather than following a single subject, the series records the passage of personal time through accidental and discontinuous moments.

The exhibition connects artificial museum architecture with the digital environments of Kim’s works. It considers how people perceive themselves when virtuality functions as one layer of reality and the boundary between technologically mediated experience and direct experience becomes less distinct.

“Kim Heecheon: Moles” is installed in Galleries 1 and 2 and the Multipurpose Hall on the basement level of Seo-Seoul Museum of Art. Admission is free, and docent tours are offered daily at 2 p.m.

SayArt.net
Maria Kim sayart2022@gmail.com