A Media Dummy: Air, Earth, Fire, and Water, 2023
TaeHwan Jeon's multimedia installation A Media Dummy: Air, Earth, Fire, and Water is part of the artist's ongoing exploration of hypothetical thinking and his critical inquiry of the social potential of techno-utopias. Loosely based on Donna Haraway's concept of Speculative Fabulations, TaeHwan follows the call to identify blind spots between science and fiction and to develop a practice of world-making. What future scenarios are possible? Which ways of interacting together will we take from the present and which will we not? And most importantly , how are they mediated? At a time when the parallel realities of digital space and their anonymity are increasingly becoming reality, and thus mockery, betrayal and exaggeration are degenerating into common manners, TaeHwan makes a case for a (self-)reflexive approach to our superficial media production, especially regarding the relation between fact and fiction. None of the videos shown actually exist online, but the (ironic?) influences of the internet are obvious: temporary death, permanent despair, great love with great failure, heartbreaking tragedies and success on thin ice.
Moreover, TaeHwan's installation continues an investigation of the screen as a form of expression and artistic medium. It is screens that act as a link – or translators – between the digital and physical worlds. Screens – so-called Liquid Cristal Displays – are what give the numerical and immaterial an amorphous presence in the world of the physical, making them supposedly tangible mediators in our society.
Selma Meuli (translation P23)
Multi-channel video installation, loop