Venue COMO (Exit gate no.4 of Euljiro subway station SKT-tower,
                           Exit gate no.3 of Tanbang subway station Daejeon SKT Dunsan Office)
Time 8:30a.m~7:00p.m, closed on weekends and national holidays
Entrance Free
Organized by Art Center Nabi, SK Telecom
Artist Jihyun Yoon
Curator Art Center Nabi Creative Team Youkyung Ko, Soo Kang
Video Editing Scully Ahn
Video Screening Youngho Lee



This July, Jihyun Yoon presents a 3D graphic space made by a game program called CAVE (1991) at COMO. In this ambivalent space, there appear things that have existed but not existed in the same time and place such as a Greek vessel, a round plate, and elephant from Salvador Dali’s painting dangling elongated legs, a modern car, and a native with a knife on his waist, etc. are floating around. Images of real space in real-time appear in void, projected on objects or somewhere on the floor. Instead of using high technology to maximize the reality of the virtual reality, the artist used old fashioned program to accentuate clear division between the virtual and real world.

By the end of 1980s, Started by Jaron Lanier, an American computer scientist, the concept of virtual reality was achieved with various electromechanical interfaces stimulating human senses (sight, audio, tactile) to maximize the experience as real as possible. Meanwhile, an internet virtual space such as “Second Life”, role playing game worlds, or personal communicational worlds reached through portable means of media such as cell phones which could also be regarded as virtual reality, in a degree of attention absorption or sense of reality it gives. 
This kind of virtual reality is not about experience related to sensual reality but about experiences related to daily life, and communication that creates more immersion and the sense of reality. It is no longer a “real-like space that is actually virtual” but a component of a real world, a “real virtual”. Today we are living with this “real virtual” world, which provides continual experiences of daily life and reality, where the boundaries of ‘real’ and ‘virtual’ are now blurred.
We are living in those two worlds interchangeably that there is not much distinction left and confusion pervades if certain information you know from a conversation with was from a face-to-face conversation with a friend, twitter, heard from another friend, through facebook or what not. We are living in a world in which the difference between reality and virtual reality is not so distinct. When the wall between reality and virtual reality breaks down, and a new “real world” is built, in what way should we perceive this new reality?

In this work, by inserting images of reality onto a screen that obviously seems virtual and making us face virtual images of surreal figures and things, the artist makes us to notice the world of data, where algorithms and database information could control everything, even reality.
This media artist Jihyun Yoon, who raised attention about information exposure by facebook and other internet webs related issues, is throwing out several questions by showing these insights about virtual reality. Are we immersed in virtual reality too much? Or if that virtual reality is an actual reality shouldn’t we need more precision in perceiving it? In this world full of virtual information spaces, coming in and out interchangeably in our daily lives, which reality is really what we are looking for?
Thinking about these questions thrown at us, we hope our answers is not of simple conforming attitude to the new reality that we have to face everyday but to have more lively and critical opinion about it.  


 

〈Disorientation 1〉, 2012, 53,000 x 1,000 mm, 3ds max, maya, python, panda3D



〈Disorientation 2〉, 2012, 5,300 x 3,200mm Single Channel Video Installation (Real Time) 


 
〈Disorientation 3〉, 2012, 30,300x 1,280mm, Pillar(4ea) 1,024x6,144mm, 3ds max, maya, python, panda3D



 

  Nowadays, 3 inch personal machines seem to do a job of showing virtual reality. We even put on protective film on those small screens and scan on to enter that virtual space.
  On this exhibition, when the virtual reality had to be built, the CAVE system was used and clustered many objects in that virtual reality. Then you have to find your own face. What is it that we are looking for in this virtual space? Friends? Your ex boyfriends or girlfriends? Game items?

- Jihyun Yoon Artist Note

〈Artist Profile〉

  Jihyun Yoon
  Born in 1977, Jihyun Yoon studied fine arts in Hongik University and MA Art&Technology in SAIC (School of the Art Institute of Chicago). His major solo exhibition includes 《The Logger》 (Dukwon gallery, Seoul, 2008), 《Gravitational Pull》 (Gallery X, Chicago, 2004), 《Attraction of Gravity: sponsored by the Korean Ministry of Culture and Tourism》 (Art Space Hue, Seoul). He also participated in group exhibitions over 20 times.