When we talk about reason and emotions, we often see that our society tends to empower reason. Interestingly, this also applies to art and artists, especially for artists who work with Art & Tech-based or new technology-based art. The audience expects a series of rational and scientific technology rather than delicate and personal emotions. However, when we forget that art is the last bastion of society that allows the expression of highly subjective emotions of individual artists, art loses an important role. Furthermore, the phenomenon in which role inverts between media or technology and the subject of art can be overlooked. Also, if you look at the artist's personal narrative and subjective feelings unfamiliarly, as artists introduce various social issues such as environmental, gender and racial as the subject of their work resulting the understanding and criticism to end only in the general direction(political correctness, etc.). This text focuses on how artist Hyunju Oh's individual narrative and emotional expression harmonize with the 'Audio Drama Installation' and examine the features and significance of the artist and the work that stood out in this process. Moreover, how individual and personal narrative and emotion makes artists’ free speech and expression possible.
Blue Burn, immersive audio drama installation & performance (2022) (Photo: Hyunju Oh)
Artist Hyunju Oh's latest work <Blue Burn> (2022) is an intermedia installation work in which the sound of an audio drama and the performance of the performer are unfolded together in a specific space(the anesthesia and pain treatment room of a university hospital). It consists of 14-channels of sound, 10 lighting channels, 2 videos and an audio drama and performance. Objets, sound, lighting and performer(artist) appear in the installation. Objets such as ward beds, electric wires like exaggerated IV tubes and ropes hanging from the ceiling are implemented as theatrical stage devices. Branches and lights play a specific role in immersing the audience into the situation. In other words, the one-dimensional visual objects appearing in the work of artist Hyunju Oh do not simply ‘reproduce’ the situation, but become a device that guides the artist to the specific story she wants to tell. Installations can be seen into those that depict situations and objects and that show the inner side of the main character, who is the performer and the artist herself. The intentionally staged lighting and the rope installed over the bed lead the main character to an imaginary way to escape to the free and romantic night sky while lying on a cold bed. These objets are important in that they are devices that can display the artist's inner world and imagination in addition to representation and description on the stage where the artist's work is expressed. Because these devices invite us to the world of intimate and subjective experiences that the artist wants to bring out.
The audio drama installation is more indirectly exposed to the audience than direct allegory objets, but they can be seen as more directly involved in calculatively inducing the state of mind. Sound can be divided into two roles: a role that helps people recognize the specific space in which the work unfolds and a role that opens the artist's direct 'inner comprehension'. The artist creates a play that combines elements of material and non-material elements by combining dreams with memories close to trauma formed by specific experiences that she actually experienced. Here, sound, along with lighting, conveys emotion intentionally. When we take the scenario which is composed in six sequences into account, analysis becomes easier. The play starts from a scene in which the performer(artist) hugs the woofer. The sound when the scene is changed and ventilates the space(the sound in a hospital ward, the sound of a cart rolling, the sound of the wind outside the bed, etc.) embodies the world of a one-dimensional physical work space. Meanwhile, the sound effects calculated and intended by the artist evoke the emotional resonance of the audience.
The glass crashed delicately from the speakers located above and behind the performer and the subwoofer is heard.
With a sharp and delicate feeling as if to break. On the one hand, it sounds clear.
Like thorns sprouting from the heart, it breaks and crashes and comes out.
Then, the sound of a whistle along with the sound of glass is heard towards the performer.
At the same time, the yellow light also pours towards the performer.
- From the scenario of <Blue Burn>, Hyunju Oh
As can be seen from expressions such as 'sharp and delicate as if to break', 'On the one hand, it sounds clear', and 'like thorns sprouting from the heart', the sounds are directly related to the feelings of the artist and the audience. It is combined with the movement of the performer and the performer herself(sitting helplessly holding a woofer) and spreads into gradual and multi-layered devices. Going one step further, the line in the play “I came here because I am sick, why do I have to hurt more!” further heighten the dramatic atmosphere.
Blue Burn, immersive audio drama installation & performance (2022) (Photo: Hyunju Oh)
Blue Burn, immersive audio drama installation & performance (2022) (Photo: Hyunju Oh)
It should be noted that the term 'immersive audio drama installation', which refers to the artist's own work, is ultimately a stage for the artist's autobiographical and confessional story and a complex element of devices. The artist also says that her work deals with “coevolved forms of being, time and emotion.” The overall work itself is the result of visually translating the psychological form that resonates in the artist's specific memory space and it can be seen that this work was devised by the artist to attempt empathy and solidarity with others as well as contemporary artistic expression of this experience. Contemporary art has a variety of faces and minds, but ultimately, the form and content are determined in the process of contemplating what kind of story the artist will contain and how to express it. When it contains the artist’s autobiographical monologue, both the artist and the audience can communicate through art over the curtains of superficial creation and appreciation.
<Breath> (2019) can be seen as an important stepping stone to the completion of the current world of artist Hyunju Oh. In the sense that it is a multimedia installation work based on an audio drama, her formal framework was established through this work. This work proceeds with a story in which the protagonist cannot escape out of a space. Interestingly, in a space that induces claustrophobia, the device that allows the audience to recognize the protagonist's 'unable to escape' situation is also the sound. The audience hears every movement of the protagonist in the exhibition space. The virtual space formed in such a 'sound narrative' situation is a metaphor and totality for the psychological/emotional space of the protagonist(artist) and the stage of the work is the artist's extremely inner and confessional psychological space.
DYSTOPIE Sound Art Festival 2020 Berlin-Brazil, Alte Münze, Berlin, Germany, 2020 (Photo: Hyunju Oh)
The realms of emotion and emotion, resonance and empathy are submerged under the surface of society's rational logic. In the art field, I also think that when an artist's individual emotions are too hot or leaping, the institutional system has been somewhat ignorant of it. The areas of interest in art museums and galleries have always been cold and refined works of art, in which the artist's true feelings and stories are hidden. Hyunju Oh's works convey the artist's inner monologue through soundscapes and narratives that are created by combining objets and sounds. It is developing concepts and expanding the world repideatly. The sound planned and calculated by the scenario plays the role in forming the space, while at the same time combining with the objet to give life to the stage. Objects and humans are personified on one stage directed by the artist and the resonance resulting from movement carries the artist's deep feelings along with spatial awareness to the audience. The inner space of pain, darkness, memory and imagination is delivered to the audience. Dreaming of the possibility of a world of communication beyond the wall.
Sook-Hyun Cho (Curator, Art Critic)
Sook-Hyun Cho graduated from Yonsei University with a Master's degree in Visual Communication. She started her career as a reporter for the weekly film magazine FILM 2.0 and the monthly art magazine PUBLIC ART, since then she works as an art critic and exhibition planner. Her books include <Once in My Life, Living as an Artist> (2015) and <Seoul Indie Art Space> (2016). Her curated exhibitions include <Gangwon International Biennale 2018: Dictionary of Evil>, <X-Love> (2019), <Exit passed by the Story> (2020), and <Capricious Volume and Thickness> (2021). Since 2018, she has founded Art Book Press and has been publishing books and art books specializing in contemporary art.