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Covering things Korean in London and beyond since 2006

Sung Hwan Kim: From the Commanding Heights, at Wilkinson Gallery

An unusual exhibition coming up at Wilkinson Gallery in Vyner Street.

Sung Hwan Kim: From the Commanding Heights

Wilkinson Gallery Project Space | 50-58 Vyner Street | London E2 9DQ
22 November 2007 to 13 January 2008

From the Commanding heights

FROM THE COMMANDING HEIGHTS OF
THE EARLIEST NATURAL FORTIFICATION
TO THE ARCHITECTONIC INNOVATIONS
OF THE WATCH TOWER
THE DEVELOPMENT OF OBSERVATION BALLOONS
SATELLITES
SURVEILLANCE
THERE HAS BEEN NO END
TO THE ENLARGEMENT
OF FIELD OF PERCEPTION
WHETHER I KNOW YOU
OR NOT
MATTERS LESS
THAN
HOW YOU APPEAR
TO THE OBJECTIVE EYE (PARANOIA)

Things are not more exciting than they are, but they are often told otherwise through exaggeration, deletion, intonation and rhythm, texture of voice, and a usage of span of time. Through this process, plain phenomena might turn into fairy tales, myths, magic, lies, propaganda, history, or sometimes, fact.

In From the Commanding Heights…, a tale of love (between an actress and a president from a past, once inhabited by a living generation of now) is told through text, film/video, and music (in collaboration with David Michael DiGregorio, a.k.a. dogr). The music itself is made with layered voice, ocarina, delay, a sampling keyboard, harmonica, kazoo, pump organ, guitar, mallets, stretched membranous materials, jae-gum (Korean cymbals) and pang-eul (Korean bells). Through this process, a vocalist might turn into a character in the story telling process; the story might turn into music in turn.

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