The following study analyzes ironic sites of overlaps and divisions among various roles that are assumed on a daily basis and explores self as an instance of such sites from an arts-perspective concerning self-manifestation and rearranging the ordinar...
The following study analyzes ironic sites of overlaps and divisions among various roles that are assumed on a daily basis and explores self as an instance of such sites from an arts-perspective concerning self-manifestation and rearranging the ordinary. A finite individual inevitably faces contradictions and conflicts in the course of undertaking various roles on a daily basis. This study incorporates a work of self-manifestation into real life, and therefore seeks the capacity of art to induce future-oriented changes by focusing on ironies and the possibilities of undertaking and performing multiple roles that overcome a set of prescribed binaries.
I first became interested in performance of multiple roles as I realized how I was performing multiple roles that contradicted each other. My changing roles overlapped every instance and every place, resulting in a multifarious positionality that put me on the spot. In uncertainty and deference, I came to critically reflect on such circumstances, which enabled me to incorporate them into my own practice of signifying performance of multiple roles.
The ironies created in terms of “simultaneous performance and conflict,” “intentional failure and repetition,” “loose disguise and deception” in my work constantly elide the viewer’s sense of judgment. Performing multiple roles that contradict one another suggests a complex set of circumstances that requires overcoming binaries, and along with them various possibilities that may arise from performing such roles. Repetition of acts to a point of ambiguity is a method that seeks one’s inner possibilities while avoiding purposiveness, outright resistance, or imposing a clear set of directives. Although such acts may be provisional, it certainly brings to light the situation in which confusion takes place by making unavailable the idea of definite choice. Such a method suggests that the roles ascribed to individuals are not isolated, and at the same time are not fixed or unchanging. Rather, they change, and are constantly in transit.
When Try Gets Erased is a work of performing multiple roles that contradict each other. The ambiguity created by such performance elides judgment by strategically exposing double-sidedness. Round on Campus with Saccharin Ball features repetitive swinging of a ball made out of saccharin, which is a form of intended failure where something is ceaselessly tried with no avail. The work tries to intervene indirectly in reality through an irony that the true substance is revealed only when nothing substantial is going on. #gallerytourproject utilizes the role of artist, which isn’t clearly distinguished from that of a viewer, to take down boundaries between the two, where the artist pretends to be both the artist and the viewer. The work is a playful testimony to the role-switching among people as the artist performs the role of artist and the role of viewer—two roles that contradict one another—in a single image. Dripping- You’d Better Not Cry seeks to overcome the binary of defiance or submission to patriarchy in South Korea and represent multifarious and subtle aspects of masculinity.
These performances that are based on personal experiences are self-reflective and at the same time self-representative, which accompany a type of asynchronous response. In South Korea, where forms of binary thought are deeply in place and not much diversity is being tolerated, these works seek to secure diversity by discovering and intervening in life experiences. By materializing them—where various forms of overlap occur—in the form of art, I attempt to emphasize the potential of art for reconfiguring the ordinary and performing the irony.