Nam June Paik Art Center

NJP Summer Festival - 21 Rooms

20 July-13 September 2011

Nam June Paik Art Center
85 Sanggal-dong Giheung-gu,
Yongin-si Gyeonggi-do,
446-905 Korea
www.njpartcenter.kr

Nam June Paik Art Center is pleased to announce NJP Summer Festival - 21 Rooms for Nam June Paik's 79th birthday. The festival, consisting of an exhibition, performances and public programs, runs for eight weeks from July 20 to September 13, 2011 with twenty works on display on the second floor of the Center and the outdoor stage.

This festival was inspired by Symphony for 20 Rooms, a score composed by Paik in 1961. The term 'score' used by Paik and Fluxus artists referred to instructions of actions to be performed. Paik's Symphony for 20 Rooms, as a visualization of 'music,' is made up of descriptions of various sound installations and interactions with the audience. Still awaiting a first performance, this piece contains Paik's creative and innovative ideas for music and exhibition, which he was to materialize in his later performances and exhibitions.

As Paik and his Fluxus friends did, the artists in this festival will present 'scores' to engage with the audience. By performing the scores as instructed, the audience will cut through genres and spaces, moving around the 20 rooms (or works), and realize the "unblinded" participation, which is the central tenet of Paik's score.

Through these exciting art experiments made in midsummer, audiences will be given an opportunity to create their own score as in Paik's saying: "The wise will play a wise tune and the foolish a foolish tune."

Exhibition
Here the audience is encouraged to experience the artists' works so that they can connect with a new world which has been previously invisible. This sudden encounter with an unexpected world will generate spontaneity and open-mindedness toward the world within them, which are the very foundation of a new artistic sensibility and imagination that Paik intended to restore.

Commissioner Seungtaek Seo selected VjVISUALOOP's Protopixel HARDcade, an interactive video using 8-bit game software, and Bubblyfish's Moori, visual images converted from messages sent by the audience through mobile phones, etc. Both artists bring elements of popular culture to their works to invite the audience's participation, which is also the case with Agi Chen's The KeyFrame that represents cartoon characters in abstract forms.

There will be also a variety of sound installations in this exhibition, one of which is Ujino's Rotators, a performance-cum-installation making use of the musical instruments Ujino transforms everyday objects into. In Bangalore-based artist duo Pors&Rao's object/sound installation, called PYGMIES, small pygmies disappear from wooden panels in response even to a subtle noise, creating a paradoxical situation in which the audience has to keep a careful attitude to watch it. In the room where Seung Young Kim's Wall (2011) is installed, which is made by stacking up five hundred used loudspeakers, you could sit or lie down, hearing various sounds of everyday life. Lee Hwa-Jin+Bahc Mioc's Image Instrument 'shows' inaudible but visible sound and Changsun Koh's sound installation serves as a musical instrument which can be played by five persons at a time. In this way, the whole space composed by these sound exhibits will be changed and completed by the audience's performance.

In addition, this exhibition presents video works such as Richi Owaki's Skinslides which mounts a ritualistic stage with the images of human bodies alluding to those who lost their lives in wartime; Yang Ah Ham's Invisible Clothes to satirize the irrationality of modern society to simply incite human desires; and Yoonseong Chang's Camera Test 5 where images and sounds, unrelated to each other, intersect so that subtle ruptures are caused to the space.

Participants
Agi, CHEN, Yang Ah Ham, Bubblyfish, Pors & Rao, Yoonseong Chang, VjVISUALOOP, Lee Hwa-Jin+Bahc Mioc, Changsun Koh, Seung Young Kim, Richi Owaki, Ujino

Performances
Ujino, The Rotators, 20 Jul 6:30pm, 23 Jul 6pm
Okkyung Lee, Eternal Turning, 20 Jul 6pm, 23 Jul 5pm
Heekyung Cho, Wind Dance, 21-22 Jul, 5-6 Aug, 12-13 Aug 4pm
Atsuhiro Ito, V.R.S.S. 2011, 29-30 Jul 5pm
AKUMANOSHIRUSHI, Carry-In Project, 6 Aug 5pm
Hyun-Suk Seo, Desire Paths, 12-13 Aug 7pm

Public Programs
Kim Wol-Sik, Kindergarten for Adults, Mon-Fri 2pm, Sat-Sun 2pm / 4pm (21 Jul-10 Sep)
Yangachi, Movie, It's round, smooth, truly aristocratic, Mon-Sun 1pm, 3pm (21 Jul-10 Sep)
Noridan Dalok, Nam June Paik in Moon World, 10-11 Aug / 17-18 Aug (2 sessions) 10am-5pm
Terrace Theater II: Mid Night Terrace Theater for Families, 13 Aug-3 Sep, Every Saturday 8pm-9:30pm

Curator
Exhibition / Public Program: Jeong-Hwa Goo
Performance: Chaeyoung Lee

Commissioner
Game Section: Seung-Taek Seo
Performance: Yasuo Ozawa, Seong Hee Kim
Terrace Theater: Seung-Min Song

Nam June Paik Art Center
The Nam June Paik Art Center is located in Yongin, a city on the outskirts of Seoul. It is supported by the Gyeonggi Cultural Foundation and Gyeonggi Province. In October 2008 the Festival Now Jump opened the Center to the public. Under the current director, Manu Park, it aspires to reactivate the experimental and interventionist spirit of contemporary art practices beyond any kinds of artistic medium specificities in order to become a locus where aesthetic, political and social potentialities contribute to questioning and redefining the relationships between art, philosophy, media and life.

Contact Information

For press enquiries contact: press@njpartcenter.kr tel. +82 31 201 8554 fax. +82 31 201 8530