The Hayward Gallery will present Double Poser, the first UK exhibition of South Korean artist and filmmaker Heecheon Kim in the gallery’s HENI Project Space.
Developed in collaboration with Seoul’s Art Sonje Center, Heecheon Kim: Double Poser is a free exhibition and will include a new moving image commission alongside an existing video work, Deep in the Forking Tanks (2019).
Heecheon Kim was recently awarded the 2023 Hermès Foundation Missulsang Art Prize, which cemented his status as one of the leading emerging artistic voices in Korea. Kim’s practice explores how technology affects our perception of society, culture and the world at large. His work often conflates virtual and physical realms, considering how our bodies, memories, emotions, identities, physical experiences and, particularly, the banality of daily life are constructed and represented in digital space.
In his video works, Kim manipulates both filmed and found footage in ways that challenge our habitual manner of processing visual and sensory information, using technology such as GPS, augmented reality, virtual reality and face-swap applications. Additionally, in an effort to destabilise conventional storytelling, Kim deploys techniques of looping and repetition to create ambiguous and, at times, decidedly nonsensical narratives.
For his new commission at the Hayward Gallery, Kim reinterprets components from his previous work Cutter III (2023), which was originally created for his exhibition Game Society at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul. This new project takes inspiration from the brutalist architecture of the Hayward Gallery and brings together elements of computer-generated imagery, video game aesthetics and skateboarding culture. The work is created using a “game engine” which is a software platform for developing video games. Taking real-world locations as found objects and placing them in speculative scenarios, this video also draws on Kim’s background in architecture.
Deep in the Forking Tanks (2019), explores the ways in which bodily senses can be transformed by technologies. The 43 minute video was inspired by the experience of being immersed in a sensory deprivation tank and scuba diving in underwater caves. Much like the sensation of being submerged in total darkness, the work’s structure is designed to create a disorienting effect, leading viewers through different stages of altered perception, from confusion to acute awareness. This is achieved through the overlaying of images and sounds to blend the boundaries between the real world and the realm of perception.
Heecheon Kim says: “I am honoured to have the chance to introduce my recent video pieces at the Hayward Gallery. Living and working in Seoul, I am very much looking forward to knowing about the new audiences in London and having conversations with them.”
Yung Ma, Senior Curator of the Hayward Gallery, says: “Heecheon Kim has created worlds that reflect how the reality of our mundane existence is mirrored in the digital sphere. His works are expressions of an absurdist viewpoint that embraces yet questions our obsession and trust in advanced technologies.”
The Hayward Gallery from 1 December 2023 to 7 January 2024. Admission: Free,
