The second project of the 2018 Random Access Project, The Door into Summer, presents a new work of the same title by Moojin Brothers. Moojin Brothers highlight the new and unfamiliar aspects in our lives. The reconstruct the lives of
ordinary people in various artistic ways and capture various artistic meanings.
I AM SHORT. I CANNOT DO ANYTHING. NO, NO… I JUST DO NOT WANT TO. I CAN NOT. RIGHT. I DO NOT WANT TO DO ANYTHING RIGHT NOW. THAT… I AM JUST DOING IT.
There is a boy who says he can’t do anything because he is not tall in the middle of the summer, a season of growth. People around him do not understand him and even think he is pathetic. And they push him to do anything because they think there is no time to waste. One day, the boy’s parents tell an unexpected story to Moojin Brothers. In fact, the boy has been doing 4000 jump ropes every morning at 6 a.m. in a park near his house by himself. Moojin Brothers portrays the moment the boy is desperately running, as if shouting regardless of the sweltering heat of the summer; the boy may have a hard time passing through a phase of a hard life and of hopeless despair within his own logic, even if what he is doing seems ‘useless.’
In The Door into Summer, the boy, whose face is rarely seen, is doing jump rope in his sportswear without wearing a school uniform and a badge. The work shows a juxtaposition of the intense heat of the ground and of the earth expressed in graphics in which the ground on which the boy is standing is cracked. The exhibition space in a grid pattern made of white tiles seems to represent social perceptions and standards. Within these criteria, the boy is probably asked to play certain roles required at his age such as studying and learning skills, and the earth becomes an object of analysis by being split, divided and measured accurately. As this white grid-patterned space gradually becomes broken and taken off, the images seen from the cracks begin to shine and a cheerful and energetic sound of ‘tak tak tak’ like a burst of space is heard under the burning sun. Visitors are invited to walk through the space reflecting an image of a well-ordered world and to watch the videos of the earth and the boy who concentrates on his own duty of jump roping, surrounded by the lights the cracks emit. The Door into Summer offers an opportunity to ruminate on what the real values we need to pursue are at our own place beyond the perceptions and criteria of the world through the boy’s seemingly futile action of doing jump rope at his own pace and place.
Artists
Moojin Brothers is a media artist group consisting of Jung Moojin, Jung Hyoyoung and Jung Youngdon. Moojin Brothers sheds light on new and unfamiliar points of our life by capturing strange and extraordinary senses and images from the people around them. They derive a diversity of artistic meanings from the lives of ordinary people, such as workers, artists and young people, and reconstruct them in various artistic ways. Furthermore, the group develops mythical and legendary stories hidden deep in our life, a historical exploration of time and space as well as a reinterpretation of classical texts into visual language.
2018 Random Access Project
Nam June Paik Art Center presents the Random Access Project aimed at introducing promising artists who share Nam June Paik’s experimental artistic spirit and understanding trends of contemporary media art with the object of fulfilling Paik’s wish to make the Nam June Paik Art Center a space for young artists. The project will be presented in a new format different from previous group exhibitions in 2010 and 2015. This year, random accesses to young artists are available in multiple places of the Nam June Paik Art Center, including the mezzanine and Eum Space. The title of this project comes from Paik’s work Random Access that he showcased in his first solo exhibition entitled Exposition of Music―Electronic Television (1963). In this work, the tapes of the audio cassette exposed outside of the case are attached to the wall randomly and visitors can use and handle the metal head to make sound. The 2018 Random Access Project begins its experimental journey of locating the coordinates of life with visitors through works by young artists based on such keywords as spontaneity, indeterminacy, interaction and participation like Nam June Paik’s Random Access.
