Ossia Organ presents a space that continues to respond even in a world cut off from electricity, after the world’s end. Its walls, composed of substructures supporting an artificial ecology―ventilation ducts, pipes, corrugated tubes, and cables―operate intermittently in response to unknown inputs. Movements of uncertain origin evoke the imagination of spaces beyond the unseen walls, revealing their vitality like a mirage. The term “Ossia,” borrowed from music, refers to a passage that replaces or varies the original phrase. Combined here with “Organ,” referring to an organism, the work points to nonhuman entities that operate by varying the existence of the originals.
The massive structures that fill the nine-meter-high wall transform into an organic field, powered by human bioenergy. When viewers pass through designated areas on the staircase connecting the first and second floors, or when they touch the handrails, sensors and cameras detect these actions and transmit data to Archive_Evaporated Structures, located beneath the stairs. A cabinet filled with tank-like units reminiscent of data-center cooling servers and the discarded skins of electrical cables collects the signals from above like archaeological relics. The gathered data then travels into the unknown space beyond the wall, activating the ventilation ducts (Connection Points 1, 2, 3) and the metal door (Sealed Passage_09). Depending on the visitor’s movement, path, and degree of contact, the images and sounds inside the vents shift, while the heat and vibration behind the metal door continue to change. In this way, Ossia Organ breathes like both an organ and an instrument, drawing its life from the bio-signals―the traces―left behind by humans.
On the second floor above the staircase, veiwers encounter Archive_Sense 73. As part of Ossia Organ, this installation offers the only clue to the organism’s living presence. Objects and documents are scattered out of an overturned drawer, as if left by accident. Among them are incident reports, anatomical diagrams, photographs, and data sheets―old records attempting to analyze an entity called “Artijecta.” Standing before this scene, reminiscent of a forensic site, the viewer faces a world in which humans no longer exist. Here, Park Yena presents objects, once created for human use, that are now animate with self-sustaining vitality through the data left behind by humans in a world where they no longer exist. By revealing the fissures between human and nonhuman, artificial and natural, mechanical and living, the artist lays bare the limits of anthropocentric thought.
