LIM Yonghyun

Lim Yonghyun, based on multi-channeled videos, has worked on projects that utilize various mediums including projection mapping, interactive works, holographic videos, and live performances by taking them as a tool to deliver stories. His major focus lies in ambivalent aspects lurking in the interactions between the violence of the media and individuals and media that consume such media. Such an awareness stems from his previous experiences as a media producer in film and broadcasting. Lim has held seven solo exhibitions and numerous group exhibitions including 20th Ha Jung-woong Young Artists Invitation Exhibition “Light 2020,” Gwangju Museum of Art; Museum of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, Chongqing; Taipei Fine Art Museum; 515 Cave art museum, Dazhou. He also participated in wide-ranging events and residency programs including Gwangju Museum of art International Residency, Beijing; Gwangju Cultural Foundation, Media Art Residency; The Swatch Art Peace Hotel Artist Residency, Shanghai.

Currently, the life we all lead is surrounded by prying eyes. These prying eyes exist everywhere. Although the omniscient viewpoint from satellites overlooking the earth to the mobile phone in our hands are indeed used as surveillance systems for us, we rarely realize this. It may be attributable to the smokescreen systems that have been elaborately designed to convene and activate around us with their familiar or stable appearances. Everyone can expect to be both a principal and a target of surveillance at the same time. However, I believe that it is already an established fact because we have unconsciously provided data that contribute to the perfect surveillance system through our digital footprints and such data are handled in a more delicate digital neural network. Whenever we access non-contact systems such as RFID, NFC and GPS, we provide our digital footprints and are provided with the digital footprints of others. They function as a tool to avoid social risk elements, while manifesting violence by recognizing innocent citizens as a threatening factor as described in Little Brother, a novel by Cory Doctorow. Although we ourselves experience the conflicts that arise from violence and the obsessive protection of surveillance, today we cannot help but accept this surveillance system or even seek it out amidst the pandemic. Under such circumstances, we have become accustomed to this explicit monitoring system to such an extent that we are now reassured by its existence. We now take this situation for granted while experiencing the ambivalent feeling of inconvenience and comfort. Thus, I wonder whether such an ironic state has rendered all of us as characters from the film, The Truman Show. The apparently “sweet” system that is believed to warrant the safety of individuals above all else could evolve into a vast and more robust system through the information acquired from individuals and develop beyond the vantage point of panopticon and synopticon. Sweet Truman invites the viewers to engage with the artwork and juxtaposes the videos by reflecting a society, in which such a monitoring system exists both as a necessary evil and as a familiar and comforting blanket surrounding us, and the individuals who are monitoring or being monitored.