The stories of various beings that are close to us but easily forgotten, can only be heard when we listen carefully. The collected stories of these beings, which the two artists are telling, facing each other like two whispering plates. This resonance either divides or shares space, allowing them to be reborn as mythical entities.
The exhibition is composed as a space of convergence between the sensory worlds, *Umwelten* , of the two artists. The term *Umwelten*, introduced by the biologist Jakob von Uexküll in his book (1934) A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans, refers to the surrounding environments of an individual animal or human. Distinct from the objective world, *Welt*, *Umwelt* represents the subjective sensory world. Here, it can be understood as the unique worldviews created by each artists.
In the 1999 film *Being John Malkovich*, directed by Spike Jonze, the actor John Malkovich appears in the film as himself, John Malkovich. The story begins with the discovery of a tunnel that allows anyone who enters it to experience all the sensations felt by John Malkovich for 15 minutes. Initially, it is only about “feeling” another person’s sensations, but eventually, it is possible to gain the ability to “control” the other person. This raises questions about the boundary of an individual’s *Umwelten*.
Communication from nerve to nerve, mouth to mouth, at a sensory level preceding languages, was an ability human inherited over countless generations from prehistory. However, with the advancement of literature and technologies, it is clear that this is one of the abilities we are losing. Philosopher Byung-Chul Han, in The Crisis of Narration (2023) (originally in German, Die Krise der Narration), paradoxically argues that storytelling in the era of storytelling has lost the impact to trigger a change of society. Linguistic communication flows via electronics, but each person’s dialogue slides past one another without being truly engaged, while machines communication grow more fluent than humans.
The *Umwelten*—the sensory worldviews of the two artists—open up this potential through physical and sensory convergence. The two plates are constantly plating, whispering and waving. And through this entanglement, stories no longer slip away but become links in a narrative weaving, gaining longer timespan of connotation and influence. It is anticipated that this convergence will expand into a meta-sensory experience, becoming part of a larger worldview and marking the emerging journey into a new myth.
KIM Taiyun
About Curator
After his career as a software engineer in the IT industry, he transitioned into the Art+Tech field as a media artist. Since joining Hyundai Motor in 2016, he has managed art partnerships with global cultural institutions, co-curated exhibitions at Hyundai Motorstudios, developed award programs for emerging artists and curators, and led various Art+Tech projects that explore the role of art in corporate environments and the integration of art and technology within the ecosystem.
About Artists
YEOM Inhwa is a media artist and founder of 𝑩𝒊𝑶𝑽𝑬(https://biove.io). She creates “3D performative apparatus-environment” at the intersection of XR and AI technologies, and performing arts. With this media, she creates stages for a diverse range of (non-)human behaviors, reactions and expressions, constructed in the history of cloud computing- and biotech-oriented labor systems, and biocolonialism.
JUENG Hyejin collects the structural characteristics of Asian folktales to create narratives and incorporates them into media based on participatory performance. Her Asian research took place in Shenyang, China, Ansan, Gwangju, Korea, and Matsudo, Japan. In order to media-ize the properties of oral stories, she examines the issues of media visualization and continues her research by focusing on nonverbal voices such as humming and whistling and sounds that convey stories. The stories mainly contain the energy and future mobility of pioneering Asian lands and cultivating places.
Work Description
SAUNA LAB: Flowers in Hot Spring is a series from SAUNA LAB (2024, Daejeon Museum of Art) that envisions a climate research community led by "climate crisis survivors," or (future) elders. Interweaving the hot spring cultures of Daejeon and Hualien, the work stages multicultural survivors and their retrospection on the era of the climate crisis. In its virtual-physical setting, the survivors invite audiences to engage in their discussions about how Asian cities homogenized throughout the era.
Mouth to Mouth, Dancing Trees is a prequel to her previous work, Mouth to Mouth, Magical Flying Carpet (2023), in which the author reconstructed fragments of the Goryoin1 playwright Han Jin2’s writings based on the characteristics of Central Asian folktales. The origin of the forest that serves as the stage for the previous work appears, reminding us of the significance of nature and community, which are the focal points of Taiwanese folktales. Mouth to Mouth series will travel to every corner of Asia, mixing and expanding, and eventually becoming one story that will travel around the world.
1Goryoin: Goryoin(Goryo-saram) refers to Koreans who migrated to the former Soviet Union from the late Joseon Dynasty to the Japanese colonial period. They have a history of being forcibly migrated to Central Asia in 1937.
2Han Jin: (1931-1993) was a Goryoin playwright who spent his entire life writing works containing the history and lives of Goryoin in his mother tongue, which was disappearing.
Supervisor：Ministry of Culture
Organizer ：C-LAB Contemporary Art Platform，Hualien Cultural & Creative Industry Park
Collaborator：National Asian Culture Center