Jeju Museum of Modern Art/Dancing Garden Blissful Garden Exhibition Written by curator Gil-soon Han > Review

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Media art refers to artworks that are created by incorporating media technologies, such as television, radio, computer, and the Internet, into conventional art domains such as fine art or sculpture.

Combining scientific technologies and art together, media art covers such a wide range of artistic disciplines as visual images, sound, and performance art. Indeed, media art can be referred to as total work of art. At a glance, media art could be understood simply as a form of art in which artworks are created by combining visual and auditory expressions, or fine art and music, or visualized images and sound. But there is more to it. Although it appears as an artistic expression created by putting sorts of conventional art genres together, media art takes a different modality of art from that of the conventional art by having the interactive characteristic of media and the relationship with emerging technologies. The characteristics as total artwork, emerging technologies, changing environment, and the demand from the general public to cope with the changing environment are interlocked in media art.

In media art, shapes can be easily modified and restored. Hence, media art approaches openly to viewers. Artists, their artworks, and viewers feel and perceive with each other through a new method of communication rather than in a conventional way. In conventional art, viewers put themselves into artworks trying to understand them. But in media art, artworks react to the stimuli that viewers initiate.

Paik, Nam June (1932-2006), who is known as the founder of video art, altered old television sets into two-way video devices, which facilitated the development of video technology and eventually opened the door to the video era. Likewise, the criteria to appraise media art are formed within the relationship of art with technologies. Media art is art and at the same time, it is technology. Therefore, media art pieces cannot be evaluated by applying the criteria to value art. As such, media art is interlinked with the essential changes of art. Hence, media art can be viewed as a meaningful watershed in art history with a suggestion to a new domain of art, which is essentially different from the conventional art forms.

In such a context, Shim, Young-Churl's media art specifically suggests a possibility to a new domain of art while communicating in relationships by incorporating science and technology into art, which is done differently from the conventional styles. In this exhibition, the Jeju Museum of Contemporary Art presents Shim's 30 years' work of media art. The special exhibition, "Blissful Garden, will be an opportunity to shed light on what media art signifies in the field of contemporary art.

Shim became interested in various new media and art genres, such as hologram, video, installation, light art, and kinetic art, while she was studying at the Otis Parsons Art Institute, UCLA and the Golden State University, USA in 1988. They became the source and the foundation of Shim's artworks. She focused on learning the methods to convey a message in artworks using media during her study in the USA. At that time, she realized that the meaning of art is "a mental force with a purpose of communication." In 1989, she returned to Korea and had a solo exhibition, "Jesus Love You" in Gallery Dongsung Art Center, Seoul. Shim's artworks in those days were experimental pieces applying the characteristics of various media to communications.

In the exhibition series, "Electronic Garden, at the Daejeon Expo 1993, Shim introduced media art pieces using a touch screen technology for the first time in Korea. Viewers responded with a keen interest to art combined with a new technology and were actively interactive with the exhibiting artworks. Throughout the 1990s, a touch screen-based media art became a central motif for Shim's artworks. However, the 1990 was a very difficult time for her. Divorced as a Christian, she sought a life in seclusion. But she never gave up her strong sense of artistic vocation. Shim's artworks of those days well express the process of how she overcame the pains and despair and sublimated them into art.

Shim has presented a series of media art exhibitions: "Electronic Garden" in the 1990s, "Monumental Garden" and "Secret Garden" in the 2000s, and "Matrix Garden" in the 2010s. We can see that her art world continuously adapts to changes. Shim's garden series, which began in earnest since the 1990s, are based on the Christian faith. Adopting various electronic media, she tries to communicate with viewers. Her artworks have suggested a new concept of the aesthetics while presenting a diversity of visual pleasures as well. Shim's pioneering attempts in media art have certainly played an important role in Korea's contemporary art.

In this special exhibition, Shim's garden series will be recomposed and displayed in three exhibition halls located at the main building of the Jeju Museum of Contemporary Art. They are: "Matrix Garden

I - Flight", "Matrix Garden II - Flower of Light," "Electronic Garden, "Monumental Garden," and "Secret Garden" in addition to artworks of pre-90s that convey religious messages.

The Special Exhibition Hall exhibits the "Matrix Garden I - Flight" series. It becomes a virtual space for infinite reproduction created by combinations of vertical and horizontal axes. Stainless steel beads as a main motif, they are hanged down in clusters from a large plate that's positioned in the ceiling. Then a one to two minute video is projected repeatedly onto white sheets of cloth hanging down near the clusters. Glittering stars appear on the viewers' silhouettes. The stainless steel beads are carefully refined and expressed in minimalism. Images of viewers are projected on the beads, repeating the cycle of reproduction and disappearing infinitely. The "Matrix Garden" lets people recognize themselves anew. Each one of the beads represents a pixel that has its own sound and emotions as well as a microcosm with its own world. In the "Matrix Garden," Shim reveals that the life of human beings can be expanded infinitely to a deeper and more profound dimension, beyond the space between the realistic and virtual realms.

In the 1st Temporary Exhibition Hall, Shim's artworks in the "Matrix Garden II - Flower of Light" series is displayed. A waterfall is created using seven-meter string beads hanging down from the ceiling.

Spiky and tentacle-like optical fibers emit light alternating flamboyant and transparent rays in order to induce 'spiritual purification. It seems that Shim's “Matrix Garden II” series is a monumental symbol that represents her mental state as being at the zenith of sublimating all her pains. She also installed a series of hologram artworks on the floor. The holograms appear as viewers shine a flashlight on them.

They appear in a different shape along the movement of viewers' flashlights. Viewers can enjoy finding new shapes each time by moving around and shining light on the holograms. While interacting with viewers, the artist is looking for a new meaning from various scenes.

The third exhibition hall is set in the 2nd Temporary Exhibition Hall. With the resonating sounds of nature and life, the series of "Electronic Garden," Monumental Garden,""Secret Garden, and the works of pre-90s that relay religious messages are recomposed in conjunction. With the Garden of Eden, where the story of Adam and Eve comes from, and the spring of energy where eternal life breathes, and through the shining altar by holy effulgence, it seems that the artist wants us to see and feel the ever-expanding movement towards and beyond the universe, the exploration of the unexplored through the dynamic cycle of nature and human beings, and the inexhaustible energy for growth.

The materials used for these series are natural materials such as water, soil, wood, stone, and grass, as well as inorganic or processed materials such as iron, stainless steel, glass, and fiber reinforced plastics (FRP). The artist also used materials produced from cutting-edge technologies like video, hologram, optical fiber, neon, plasma, and so on. Shim, Young-Churl is a multi-sensuous artist. She does sculpture, multi-dimensional work, installation art, relief art, as well as performance art. She breathes life into the materials and presents her sensuous media art series in her gardens.

In the special exhibition, "Blissful Garden, nature and technology are combined in the form of media art. With the unconventional and flamboyant colors and light, the artist shows a new style of formativeness and various communication methods of media art. Shim listened to the sound of her soul resonating from her prayers and indulged her passion to sublimate it into art. As a delicate, highly sensible, and creative artist, her life and soul are revealed in every corner of the exhibition halls. She prays when she is in despair, pain, and love. Shim's art world reveals her life but not as whom she is now. Rather, it is who she was when she was in pain and despair in a form of a message-delivering love that she learned through prayers. Reflecting the spirit of the times, Shim continues to re-discover methods of expression and materials. She uses them to create warm media art pieces where human beings and art are in good harmony, and where humanism proliferates. They are the real world. She created them to give us the opportunity to see the secret state of enlightenment in the real world.

The painful and despairing times are now in her artworks. With her artistic imagination, Shim shows a cosmic fantasy and tells a full and powerful message of love through intercommunications among people, nature, and God.

Shim, Young-Churl embraces media in her art beyond the boundary of genre. She even uses performance art for her media art. The topics such as religion, universe, life, and the environment which she incorporate in her art may seem big and abstract; but with a careful observation, one would easily notice how she did not miss petty and every day events like her mother's love and hobby raising orchids. Shim's mother is always at the center of such memories and her mother's love is the source of her memories. They are all expressed in her artworks delicately and genuinely. With her long devotion, Shim has given warmth and breath to media that are easily seen as something merely mechanical and artificial. As a result of her unyielding and pioneering spirit and avant-garde efforts, Shim's artistic caliber and her artworks will become more increasingly and positively influential in our time.

This special exhibition is a great opportunity to meet Shim, Young-Churl and appreciate her artworks.

I feel very grateful because I can see the bright future of Korea's contemporary art through this exhibition. Viewers, the artist, and her artworks are all blessed in the "Blissful

Garden." I hope that every one of us can enjoy fully the "Blissful Garden."