FROM THE COMMANDING HEIGHTS...: Sung Hwan Kim

22 November 2007 - 13 January 2008 Gallery

FROM THE COMMANDING HEIGHTS OF

THE EARLIEST NATURAL FORTIFICATION

TO THE ARCHITECTONIC INNOVATIONS

OF THE WATCH TOWER

THE DEVELOPMENT OF OBSERVATION BALLOONS SATELLITES

SURVEILLANCE

THERE HAS BEEN NO END

TO THE ENLARGEMENT

OF FIELD OF PERCEPTION

WHETHER I KNOW YOU

OR NOT

MATTERS LESS

THAN

HOW YOU APPEAR

TO THE OBJECTIVE EYE (PARANOIA)

 

Things are not more exciting than they are, but they are often told otherwise through exaggeration, deletion, intonation and rhythm, texture of voice, and a usage of span of time. Through this process, plain phenomena might turn into fairy tales, myths, magic, lies, propaganda, history, or sometimes, fact.

 

In From the Commanding Heights…, a tale of love (between an actress and a president from a past, once inhabited by a living generation of now) is told through text, film/video, and music (in collaboration with David Michael DiGregorio, a.k.a. dogr). The music itself is made with layered voice, ocarina, delay, a sampling keyboard, harmonica, kazoo, pump organ, guitar, mallets, stretched membranous materials, jae-gum (Korean cymbals) and pang-eul (Korean bells). Through this process, a vocalist might turn into a character in the story telling process; the story might turn into music in turn.