Artist Statement
As a designer, I learned the importance of eco-friendly design through a class called Green Design and became interested in sustainable design for the future. These concerns extend to an understanding of the relationship between the environment and humans and the impact of design.
I am interested in future space design that integrates new technology based on my knowledge of interior design. I researched how immersive technology using user-oriented interaction is incorporated into spatial art and spatial design. In particular, I focused on the integration of virtual spaces with physical spaces and designed objects. The simulation of immersive technology, VR, offers possibilities for new challenges. I study the direction of future space design and how to implement it into virtual reality.
I earned my bachelor’s degree in interior design and I have work experience as an in-house graphic designer. My knowledge and experience in 2 dimensional and 3 dimensional spaces have been expanded to an interest in immersive virtual space design. Moreover, the highly immersive experience designed around the user makes it easier to communicate my thoughts with people.
When working from an aesthetic perspective, I try to communicate with people, focusing on the transfer of feelings and emotions. Even when we use the same language, we cannot always convey those feelings and emotions. I communicate art to people as a language. By utilizing the color, atmosphere, composition, form, texture, and sound of the space as a language, I emphasize the expression of art as a sensory language. Furthermore, it conveys the concept of the work going beyond the visual, by instilling the atmosphere, energy, and aura of the project.
Project 1
Plastic Chaos, 2018-2020, VR and mixed medium
This project started with the story of Won-Hyo, a popular tale of a monk that was wandering in the woods late at night when he stumbled upon a cabin and found something to drink there. However, when he awoke the next day he was shocked to discover that he had not stumbled upon a cabin, but a tomb, and the water he had drunk was filthy and taken from the skull.
This story reminded me of the environmental problems we are facing right now. Just like the monk Won-Hyo did not recognize the true nature of the filthy water by drinking it, people may not be aware of the environmental problems diluted by our desires. This project is about marine contamination caused by plastic trash and climate change. In particular, it deals with the sea salt contaminated by microplastics. Research has shown that microplastics are found in 90% of the salt produced worldwide. It is thought that the average person will consume an entire plastic bottle every month through daily consumption of salt. The plastic waste we throw away pollutes the ocean, but then it eventually comes back and threatens our table.
As spectators arrive in the exhibition space, they encounter a mysterious exhibit made of salt with a VR headset at the center. Upon donning the headset, spectators are transported to a virtual ocean polluted by microplastics. Suddenly, the polluted ocean becomes a human body, brimming with plastic trash before once again becoming the sea. However, this ocean is only a ruined shell of what it once was, ruined by plastic waste, climate change, and coral reef bleaching. Users might interact with the virtual space by pushing or pulling plastic trash or swimming beneath the ocean and exploring. The immersive experience provided by this project would give people time to rethink their daily actions and their effect on the surrounding environment.
Project 2
The Post COVID-19 (Future AR City), 2020, VR, Collaboration with Jeongyeon Koh
Due to global warming, new viruses are constantly being created and threatening us. In particular, the coronavirus that came out in 2020 has affected all of us and forced us to face rapid change. I approached this project from a technical troubleshooting perspective. I imagined what the new normal life in the future will be like using AR technology and then expressed AR technology through VR.
This project is a future design simulation of an AR experience being used to solve a problem, but at the same time, it reflects the times and my memories of COVID-19 in a humorous, dreamy, and surreal way.
