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< BAE JUNGWAN - "Mary had a little Lamb" Sound, Memory, Light >

2008. 4. 10 - 2008. 8. 17
gramophone from Chamsori Gramophone Museum

< BAE JUNGWAN - "Mary had a little Lamb" Sound, Memory, Light > is Jung Wan Bae's second exhibition of installation art where he blends the architecture and the art together to evoke a theatrical stage. The use of light and sound calls forth the hidden memories of the reverse side of the conscience. In Memory of the Future, his exhibition which won him the place of "Artist of Tomorrow" in Sungkok Art Museum in 2007, had been his first treatment of combining these two elements. Jung Wan Bae was born in 1974 and graduated from MIT with a degree in engineering, then obtained a masters degree in architecture in Columbia University. In 2002 he established the Friih Design, and he taught in Andong National University as an instructor. Currently, he teaches as an adjunct professor in the architectural engineering department of Yonsei University and works as a design consultant in Jina Architects.

By using Thomas Edison's invention as the source of inspiration, with the support of the Chamsori Gramophone museum, he placed 26 phonographs with historical value within his installation of light and sound, divided into 5 spaces. It was in November 1877 that Edison first applied to the Patent Office on his new invention in America. The same year, in August, Edison and his friends had the first trial in the history of recording, and the song of their choice was none other than Mary Had a Little Lamb. Thenceforth, this invention - in the history of mankind as well as in the life of mankind - served as a springboard for technology.

Jung Wan Bae, as an architect, interpreted the history of phonograph, the continuity of sound and light, the recording technology in the form of a spiral, and other elements of technological module into a single visual narration. And these factors are visualized within the afore mentioned 5 spaces. In the first space with a subheading, "Why does the lamb love Mary so?", there are 4 phonographs enveloped in paper, colored with spray, placed strategically with equal distance between each other. In the second space, "Birth of a Sound", small turning square metal plates form an enormous wall. The third space, "The spiral turn", consists of 16 phonographs which are surrounded by 6-sided, transparent, and monumental structures, located to form a spiral. In "Dream/Like Life itself ", the fourth, is a long hallway that leads the viewer through the vertical waves that form a gentle slope, like music. The final space, "The Black Swan" is suggestive of the incipient model of phonograph where the form of the speaker was like the neck of a swan. Moreover, the fifth subheading is a reminder to the Swan Lake by Peter Tchaikovsky which had been performed for the first time in the same year as the invention of Edison. This final space is a superposition of sound and light, and in the midst, translucent screens traverse the space with a resemblance to swans swimming across the surface of the water.

This installation, in some ways like the stage of a theatre, and like an architectural structure in other ways, successfully melts various discourses into one mold. Not only is his space the stage for the story of Mary and her lamb and for the allegory of the swan, but it is also a narrative of the motive of technological development that lead to the invention of phonograph in relation to life of mankind. Furthermore, holding the spiral as a foundation to the architectural theme, it carries ideas of different dimensions: recording and memory. The 5 spaces are primarily categorized into "the memory of form", "the memory of sound", "the memory of history", "the memory of unconsciousness", and "the projection of memory (into the future)", but they may further be subdivided. The spiral is the form of the outer space and also the form that concerns the birth of life. More than anything, the cochlear duct and the disk for recording sounds are examples of typical systems in life that possess such a shape. Why should they be spiral? This may very easily lead to discussions concerning the artistic, scientific, or philosophical values, but at the same time, this enigmatic form may provoke an abstract sensation.

Through the use of the phonograph, Jung Wan Bae's installation, Marry Had a Little Lamb - Sound, Memory, Light, composes a narration that unites the architecture, music, science, and philosophy: a rare case of interdisciplinary art. Comparable to the stage production of Robert Wilson, known as the father of the contemporary theater, Jung Wan Bae's exhibition provides an equally unconventional visual experience to the viewer.