Art Basel Digital Film Program launches with The Ways of Folding Space & Flying

This silent film by South Korean artists Moon Kyungwon and Jeon Joonho explores Taoist concepts in relation to artistic practice. It inaugurates ‘You are in me, I am in you’, a digital film program curated exclusively for Art Basel by Li Zhenhua.

The title, The Ways of Folding Space & Flying originates from the Korean words chukjibeop and bihaengsul. Chukjibeop is the concept of folding space in order to travel a substantial distance in a short amount of time. Bihaengsul is the power to levitate, fly, and travel across time and space. Eastern cultures have long explored these seemingly fantastical ideas within meditative practice. For the artists, the attempt to reach complete emancipation of the mind and body from physical limitations is akin to making groundbreaking art that challenges the status quo.

Curator Li Zhenhua spoke to the artists ahead of the program's launch, and you can watch the film here.

Li Zhenhua: Your work shows tense bodies and lonely spaces—the interaction between humans and machines or artificial intelligence. Is this a possible future?

Moon and Jeon: While the ultimate nature of space and time is governed by the laws of physics, its subjective nature is determined by the brain. The brain is arguably one of the most complex and efficient information processing systems known to mankind.

We recognize and see the world through the brain, the accumulation of our sensory organs, memories, and experiences, and we define humans through these statistics and learning. We wanted to show careful predictions of how human life will change and evolve in the future through information processing by optogenetics, from perceptions and reasons, to communication and artificial intelligence today. Even then, we wanted to ask if art was valid for humans.

LZ: This work was exhibited at the Korean National Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2015. Looking back at the artistic environment of that moment, what is your new understanding and interpretation of your work in reference to the world that is still experiencing the pandemic?

M and J: Some brain scientists said that we are the last generation to experience an inevitable death. They said that there would be an era in which psyches and memories can be replicated to mechanical devices or other brains to live an eternal life. If so, religion, philosophy, and the worldview of human history, which has lived a finite life under the yoke of death, will be completely different in the future. So what’s our future? We look back at the current pandemic situation through the site of the Korean Pavilion at the 2015 Venice Biennale. At that time, the near future we imagined became a cross section of reality today. Abrupt changes to helplessly isolated and limited life and physical space allow us to pursue new values of life. Yet, don’t we continue to appreciate the finite value of life and the awareness of existence?LZ: The world is still in a state of isolation, and there is no telling how much longer it will last. What have you been doing since 2020?

M and J: The works and exhibitions that were being prepared were postponed or stopped, but we’ve continued to reason and prepare for our work in our individual places. It feels like the time last year has disappeared, but this experience of time naturally led to the next project, which is currently undergoing preproduction, filming, and exhibition preparations.

Moon Kyungwon and Jeon Joonho are represented by SCAI The Bathhouse, Tokyo.

More about the film program can be found here.

Look out for Samson Young Muted Situation #5: Muted Chorus (2016), publishing March 12th, and He Xiangyu The Swim (2017), publishing April 9th

Moon Kyungwon and Jeon Joonho
The Ways of Folding Space & Flying
2015
Single-channel HD video with sound
15 minutes 32 seconds
Language:
No spoken words. No subtitles.