작업 소개

57STUDIO는 국립현대미술관의 전시 프로그램인 ‘젊은모색2019’ 전시의 미디어 콘텐츠로 아티스트 인터뷰 시리즈를 기획 및 제작하였습니다. 이번 전시의 부제인 ‘액체 유리 바다’는 서로 다른 주제와 매체를 각자의 개성으로 다루는 참여 작가 9명에게서 발견한 공통의 키워드에서 출발하였습니다. 인터뷰 시리즈는 각 작가의 작품 세계와 전시 취지를 효과적으로 전달하기 위해 제작되었으며, 작가들의 창작 과정, 작업에 대한 생각, 그리고 전시에 대한 개인적인 관점을 담아 관람객들이 전시에 대한 이해와 몰입도를 높일 수 있도록 구성되었습니다.

장서영 작가는 영상과 조각, 설치를 주로 다루는 작가입니다. 특히 장서영 작가는 신체 내부와 그리고 시간이라는 두 가지 주제에 관심이 많은데요. 이번 전시에서는 유전자라고 하는 우리 몸에 가장 작지만 또 가장 큰 정보를 담고 있는 부분에 주목하고 있습니다. 4개의 영상과 여섯 개의 조각을 통해서 마치 각자 독립적이지만 하나의 작품처럼 구성된 장서영 작가의 작품세계를 만나보실 수 있습니다.

– 최희승 큐레이터

57STUDIO planned and produced an artist interview series as part of the media content for the Young Korean Artists2019, a program by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. The exhibition’s subtitle, Liquid, Glass, Sea, was inspired by a common keyword discovered across the nine participating artists, who each approach different themes and media with their own unique perspectives. The interview series was created to effectively communicate each artist’s artistic world and the exhibition’s intent. It captures the artists’ creative processes, their thoughts on their work, and their personal views on the exhibition, helping viewers deepen their understanding and engagement with the exhibition.

Jang Seo young is an artist who primarily works with video, sculpture, and installation. She has a particular interest in two themes: the inner body and time. In this exhibition, she focuses on genes, which contain both the smallest and most significant information about our bodies. Through four videos and six sculptures, Jang Seo-young presents a body of work that, while seemingly independent, comes together as a cohesive artistic universe.

– Choi Heeseung (Curator)

Hello, my name is Chang Seo Young.
I work with video and three-dimensional work. I mainly create videos where a figure repeats specific actions, combined with linguistic elements like narration and subtitles. My “three-dimensional” work are connected with the contents of these videos. What happens inside the screen is organically connected to the outside, to the situation in the three-dimensional space. I attempt to create situations where the viewer can experience the space and exhibition as a whole.

I am interested in the sense of existence in my work. By that, I don’t mean clear, bold outlines, or something absolute or unshakable. Instead, I’m more interested in how things seem present but aren’t, depending on how they’re observed and in what context. I’m interested in such faint sense of existence, or conversely, existence that can be exaggerated.

These days, I’m inspired by the subjects of time and body, specifically, how the body is experienced through time. I’m interested in how the body takes on a sense of existence, expanding or contracting through the passage of time, or what happens to the body in time. Some aspect of interpreting the body can be seen from an external sense. In my work, though, “body” refers to the organs, the essential elements that keep one alive. So the body in my work is something that grows obsolete, and I keep this context in mind for both body and time.

The video in the exhibition space keeps playing in a loop. Time keeps flowing within the loop, but ultimately the same thing repeats itself perpetually and infinitely. To the subjects and figures within the video, it’s like the inescapable fetters of time. This is similar to my awareness of the “body.” I’ve only been given one body that I can’t escape. There is no other possibility than this one body. So I made a link between the inescapability of the body and the image of the cycling loops in my work.

Smartphones are designed so that their curves, surface, and textures resemble human skin. At a glance, there seems to be no resemblance there, between the smooth surface of the phone and human skin. But apparently, the tactile experience of the device is meant to conjure up the experience of human contact.

Through the screen, particularly a smartphone screen, people can appropriate others’ experience as their own, even when they’ve never experienced it themselves. The rapid expansion of experience has naturally expanded the visual field. Such expansion has also covered other sensations, like virtual massage, ASMR, and mukbang content, making it impossible to distinguish whether whose body it is, experiencing all this. The body of others, channeled through the screen, is no longer really theirs nor mine. It’s somewhere between ours and a third party’s, falling halfway between that gap.

I’m fascinated by the various forms of flipping ideas, such as how, depending on the perspective, the inside and outside, and upside and down are flipped, or how important things become something trivial and the trivial becomes important. My works in this exhibition also present many situations where the negative and positive are flipped.

The video shows images of lumps approaching. Although they are definitely embossed inwards, the lighting makes them look like they’re bulging, going back and forth between positive and negative. Perception can thus change recognition. What is captured is a frozen moment of the sculpture melting away.

This is because the sculpture is stationary, just like the way time flows in the looped video, but cannot actually escape beyond that video because of the set loop. The time where the sculpture is placed may be stationary, but time itself continues to flow, creating a strange sense of flipped temporality. A part stands still while the other part flows, and vice versa. My work are an exploration of such elements.