Artists V

Landscape: microscopic cosmos and horizontal point of view

My work develops around two forces of ongoing interest. On the one hand it starts with grinding solid steel and thus giving shape to a vertical form (or object). On the other hand, my interest is born from the concern over the trace of this process the powder of steel that has been accumulated on the ground during this process.

The crossing point of this interest is a space where a verticality (world of objects) meets a horizontal world of non-objects. This passage also implies a process of transformation from an objective world of objects into a subjective realm of imagination, or in other words, from reality to the imaginary.

The layer of steel powder sitting on the ground, pushed around sometimes by my footsteps and sometimes by the movement of the floor sweeper, eventually takes the form of hills of various heights (never very high!). These in turn have induced me to surrender my everyday perspective by inviting me to lower the level of my eye-line to the horizon of the floor, and thus is born a world where the horizontal gaze reigns. The CC camera, substituting my eyes, is set up with a horizontal angle. Its monitor transmits a landscape, calm and mysterious. It is unlikely (although there is no absolute guarantee) this landscape would exist anywhere in this world except in the imaginary; for instance that intangible space inside myself, a micro cosmos built by, perhaps, that same stuff which dreams are made of.

These landscapes illuminate a clear contrast to the activity in reality, where in order to grind the solid pole of steel, oxygen masks have to be worn; the mechanical noise of the grinder tolerated; and intense physical labour continuously offered ...

Source: Foundation Gwangju Biennale