Dohahm OH

Dohahm Oh is an artist who has served as a musician, performance planner, and artist across various genres. He has created projects that focused on many different situations and conditions surrounding music. He has planned performances, including Lee Sung Woong, the North Korean Punk Rocker (Art Sonje Center, Seoul, 2012), which started from the question of “what it would be like if a punk rocker exists in North Korea”; Maseok Dongne
Festival MDF (Maseok Furniture Complex, Namyangju, 2013), the rock festival for migrant workers at Maseok Furniture Complex; and Club Vibration (Korea Disability Arts & Culture Center, Seoul, 2019), which was inspired by the way hearing-impaired people listen to music. Since 2020, with Young June
Kim, an application service planner, and Sung Hyeon Kim, an NLP (Natural Language Processing) engineer, he has run Team Neeeds. They have worked on Oracle, the ongoing project synthesizing the scripture using GPT, a writing program by AI.

I once happened on the best way to enjoy listening to music as one with a hearing impairment. It was done by feeling the vibration that flows toward the surface after fixing the mobile phone with the speaker under the bed mattress. While being surprised, I wondered that “What differences would exist between the music that the person feels and what I listen to?” and “What feelings are evoked from the music the person feels?”
While I contemplated what triggers such an attempt, it slowly occurred that it may have stemmed from an instinct for the tactile. I also thought of what it would be if I were able to touch music. I think such a thought derived from my childhood, too. From this, I concaved a tactile speaker that we can touch with our hands or, on occasions, we can mount on.
At the moment, I am reminded of the tactile feel of a rubber tube I embraced in the sea when I was seven. The moments I have long forgotten: the sunshine of the day and the tightness of the tube. The instant I first wished would last forever in my life. When the imagination to touch music led to the memory of the day, I made up my mind that it would be preferable to think of this project from a children’s perspective when I confront difficulties in carrying out this project.
Afterward, I conducted an experiment where I fill out a balloon and attach a small speaker to it to deliver a vibration. Also, I offered an outdoor performance by filling a PVC tube for agriculture out with 10 tonnes of water. However, in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic, a performance involving contacts with many unspecific people is now viewed as dangerous. This led to creating an airball for one person while having difficulties extracting water from a tube. I discover the existence of the equipment that transmits sound to vibration: “Tactile transducer.” I became aware of such equipment by watching the video by a professional racing game streamer introducing a display in which the beating of a car is embodied. I thought that irrespective of technology and the thoughts accidentally gather together and become connected. Something began to be created, but this was only the beginning.
The site for Your Skin Listens. is the center of the hill located in the ACC Hanul Madang. I felt that this idea of installing the work on the hill, which came from Curator Gimo Yi, was somewhat anxious but also attractive. In response to the idea, I intended to create the work with the feel of “suddenly appearing and floating on the hill.” Since the material of the air ball to be used for the project is transparent, I was curious about what the visitors would feel when riding on the object that slightly floats on the hill.
At this point, I contemplated the idea, “How would I put a ball on the hall if I were a child?” While approaching the concept from various perspectives, I let my wife strike a pose of picking and raising a model ball with her fingers and then took pictures. Fond of this idea, I worked on the process of drawing a picture for the expected site for the project and further embodying the idea.
With a collaboration with the structural engineer, I found out the number and the width of the wires necessary for stably standing the ball, and calculated the tensile strength of the screw used for the installation, and exchanged the reports to interlock the screw and the wires. As I progressed, I realized the high social costs and labor pains to embody the mind of children in the real world.
From the way to enjoy listing to music by a person with a hearing impairment, which I happened to find out, to the creation of Your Skin Listens., I needed to resolve a number of questions, although seemingly, it did not take that long. This sometimes served as a driving force to complete the project. I fully appreciate the person who inspired me to start the project and so contribute this work to that person: “I am really grateful to you. I will always do my best”