Invitation from Mnemosyne :
Something which fills the empty body, flows deep, and reaches a invisible vague space-Aletheia, to gaze the secret of object, and event of stillness
Have you ever been deluded by quiet fall of waterdrops, secret walk of light, wavering of leaves when it meets wind, or empty body of you, anyone, or anything placed in the ruins or emptiness ... any of such small and silent daily things, or illusion of it. When such small things linger, they sometimes hold our hurried steps and stimulate our dull eyes.
Isn't the movement of stillness possessed by the things, or abundant boredom time wraps with layers a soft summons to call isolated body and forgotten senses? At the moment when you are enticed by something, a special relationship between you and the object is formed, and the first memories which have never been recalled will come to you taking off their veils.
The return of Mnemosyne, one of the Titans in the Greek mythology, and goddess of memory the abstract concept of memory is personified, starts here. Contrary to water of Lethe, the river of forgetfulness, water of Mnemosyne has the power of reminding one of everything concealed. As Martin Heidegger said, Isn't Aletheia, which means truth in ancient Greek, so-called A-letheia which recalls what are forgotten? Here the memory is not simply recalling of the time one has passed through in one's life, but may be similar to concentration of thinking on the time-space one has not yet encountered. He also named the situation spigel-spiel(mirror-play) in which the heaven, the earth, the divine, and what will be mortal reflect each other in das Gevierte(the Four-Fold). It too means looking at, or facing each other which recovers forgotten Being.
What is prompted in such a game is a feast of poetic language where there are the expressions of Being and pure answers to them. Being meets with the moment when concealed worlds unveil themselves. Mnemosyne is known to be the mother of nine Muses who give inspiration. Thus, are all the people who live as artists descendents of memory, or small children of the Muses? Around here, it seems proper to recall the alluring and fascinating proclamation Jean-Luc Nancy disclosed in his book 『Les Muses』. He says that the art is trace, vestige, and "unavoidably vague things (...) where there are only proliferation of what are seen, and various flashes of the visible and the emotional ... which cannot be returned to anything ... ," and, in the end, "infinite finitness. " If all the arts can be called as examples of vestiges which reveal the accumulation of memories, they must be gifts from Mnemosyne.
At the empty shell of snail, To encounter Mnemosyne's children-Maybe it was late autumn when I came here that I began to think often of Mnemosyne. A humble and remote island which received silently what were discarded by the metropolitan city in the past. Ironically, the name of the island is NanJi(난지(蘭芝), Orchid and Scent Grass). Over time, the ruins have become the place of cozy living space and clean workplace, and a resting place where fragrant plants grow. And, at a corner of the island, a good studio for artists came into being. The two round settling tanks where dirty water was purified in the past were reborn as two exhibition halls. The space, which keeps the traces of the past, retaining 'Kyeo(켜, time-based layers)' and 'Gyeol(결, space-based textures)' of the past and reminds one of the past, might be the waiting place and platform where artists dream of meeting their 'mothers' again.
Round exhibition halls which were covered with white snow, and in deep hibernation were beautiful because they were humble. One day, the halls were reminiscent of the image of deep and quiet spiral forms like empty shells of snail. I was wondering for a long time, "Isn't an empty shell of snail a secret room or a labyrinth for Mnemosyne, goddess of memory?" Around the time when snow began to melt down in spring light, I happened to meet some friends, resident artists and experienced the enticing moment of glimpsing at the images they created. And, we would invite each other knocking at the snail shells, and were excited in the expectation of making private spaces where Mnemosyne of each of us would stay.
My friends were nice and delicate, and seemed to love the tranquility among occasional wits without reason (or with reason). In a moment, were we attracted to illusory image and compulsion made by Kim Byung-kwan, and did we share the fatal addiction in the prison of jouissance we could not reach? Occasionally, there was happiness of touching what seemed to be the origin of those I could not understand, while I were trembling at the cool sensuality and vague silence images of Suh Dong-wook provide me with. Other times, I, like wounded birds, hided for several days in the deep and faint eyesight by Cha Mihye who caught the silent accident soaked into objects in the empty place. And, while listening to their stories, I also would imagine dancing of bodies which were searching for their memories in the opening of unbarred empty time-space.
Somtimes, watching art pieces, I would guess the time the artists must have spent alone, or deep solitude they fell into to create the pieces. I would imagine the innumerable days filmmakers, with their one-eyed friends (cameras), might have spent watching and waiting for the fluttering of wings of butterflies and whispering of wind for a long time; painters must have spent accumulating layers of tremor and time in numerous strokes of brush like sensitive tentacles; or animators may have wondered strange spaces creating realities in digital spaces where only electronic signals exist. Did ordinary language wander its boundary and slip away from the network of meanings in the 'waiting' of each artist which is not opened or closed? Meanwhile, they, no, we, breathing deep breath, may have come across the moment of A-letheia which makes unlimited differences beyond the visible.
Now, we have been able to fill the empty shells of snail, and invite strange friends in the secret room and labyrinths for Mnemosyne. As the pieces of artists faced one another, my humble idea made the secret piece for the piano by Erik Satie, a French modern composer, into an installation art. The fact that it changed into a joint performance where all the artists would participate in will be a memorable event in the future. Like a Holderlin's poem introduced at the beginning of this writing, 'memory', "a meaningless signal," is waiting for you who will wait for a long time for a flash moment to see the truth. Will you accept 'Her' invitation? Layers of time in empty space pass away. Light enticement, silent tremor, and mellow reverberation, something which fills the empty body, flows deep, and a invisible vague space.
■ CHOIHYOMIN
Event
opening reception: 2013. 4. 10(Wed) 5pm / A dialogue with artist: 4. 20(Sat) 3pm
