at Our Friendly Neighbours, Korean Cultural Centre, London, UK, 8 SEP - 5 NOV, 2022
at Hacking the Gravity, Commde Design Centre, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand, 29 OCT - 18 NOV, 2022
at Hacking the Gravity, Commde Design Centre, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand, 29 OCT - 18 NOV, 2022
at MMCA Cheongju Rooftop Project 2024, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, Cheongju, Korea, 13 SEP - 31 DEC, 2024
at BY ART MATTERS, Hangzhou, China, 2025 (upcoming)
Wandering Sun, 2024.
Single channel video installation, Unreal Engine 5, AI algorithm, NASA Earth observation data, 4 x 17m 2.6pt, 04'15"
Highly advanced AI technology is creating incredibly realistic images that are consumed through various multimedia environments. I wonder which sunrise remains the most beautiful in the hearts of those who have seen it in real life, in movies, or experienced it in a game. Korean landscape painting has a different context from Western landscape painting. It's based on a different worldview. Understanding landscapes depends on how we perceive nature, the universe, and technology. In "Wandering Sun," the sunrise over the sea actually emerges from the floor of the exhibition space. The entire space turns red due to light reflection, transforming the natural sunrise phenomenon into a spatial transformation within the exhibition hall. This aims to deliver a synesthetic and holistic experience of sound and light.
Above all, I wanted to talk about the epistemological crisis caused by AI. We are entering an era where science and technology artificially control our senses more precisely. We may be trapped in our own senses, including sight. We must stay awake. The sun rising from the floor moves slowly clockwise, following the frame of the previous video. Despite being an impossible phenomenon in real landscapes, it looks very realistic. This is because phenomena like changing clouds and light reflection are simulated so realistically by advanced AI technology. Are we living in a 'Truman Show' that has been created? "The Truman Show," released in 1998, is about a TV show that broadcasts the entire life of a man who doesn't know he's living in a studio designed to look like reality to the whole world. We were the viewers observing the protagonist in the movie, but now, is AI in a position to observe us? AI is like a giant mirror. It collects my information and shows me based on that data. However, the way the real world sees me may be different. But AI eliminates this difference and shows only the image of myself that I want to see. It may feel good, but it detaches from the complexity and authenticity of the real world, makes everyone dependent on their own fantasy world, and ultimately distorts our understanding of the world, putting us at risk of further disconnecting communication with others. Through this virtual sunrise video that slowly flows clockwise along the frame of the video, I wanted to poetically show the wandering crisis of humanity.
Sun, Manufactured Nature
Juyong Park (Ph.D in Theoretical Physics, Professor of Culture Technology at KAIST)
Humans cannot escape Nature. In a physicist’s terms, Nature is the space-time continuum, an all-encompassing template, where all our experiences take place. The inevitability of Nature breeds familiarity; Even when we are engulfed with a sense of awe and admiration at the sight of exceptional natural beauty, we expect Nature to be what it has always been.
In Jinjoon Lee’s creation Wandering Sun, we are presented with a strikingly beautiful ‘natural’ scenery of the sun doing its celestial navigation. The reflections and refractions of the sunlight shone on the clouds and the ocean surface are also undeniably real.
Humans cannot escape Nature. In a physicist’s terms, Nature is the space-time continuum, an all-encompassing template, where all our experiences take place. The inevitability of Nature breeds familiarity; Even when we are engulfed with a sense of awe and admiration at the sight of exceptional natural beauty, we expect Nature to be what it has always been.
In Jinjoon Lee’s creation Wandering Sun, we are presented with a strikingly beautiful ‘natural’ scenery of the sun doing its celestial navigation. The reflections and refractions of the sunlight shone on the clouds and the ocean surface are also undeniably real.
But in time we discover that the natural here is not a true Nature; the Sun, that almighty source of energy, the singular natural thing that allows us to see and feel the natural world, ambles along the boundary of the screen—a wholly unnatural manner of movement— belying its true mode of birth in the hands of a human creator.
Wandering Sun thus shows distinct identities depending on the two timescales we allow it: In one, a short timescale, the scenery resides as a hyper-realistic ‘snapshot’, and in the other, a long extended one, it that teaches us that its ‘natural’ beauty is but a human creation.
This unsettling paradox is a stark reminder that Nature and technology are seamless conjoined in our times, challenging our conception of what it means to be ‘natural’ or ‘artificial’. It is now improbable that we could even return to the simpler times they could be easily told apart—we have no choice, against our longing for the comfort of the familiar, but to recalibrate our understanding of natural beauty.
Is this a price we pay for daring to manipulate Nature when we are merely one of its creatures? Or is it a reward that lies just beyond the horizon of Wandering Sun for daring to create a new Nature?
Wandering Sun, 2022 (KCCUK ver.)
Wandering Sun, 2022.
Single channel video installation, Unreal Engine 5, AI algorithm, NASA Earth observation data, 3 x 5.5m 2.6pt, 03'09"
Wandering Sun, 2022.
Single channel video installation, Unreal Engine 5, AI algorithm, NASA Earth observation data, 3 x 5.5m 2.6pt, 03'09"
Jinjoon Lee’s Wandering Sun continues the artist’s exploration of liminal spaces and fur-ther questions how we can explore the relationship between natural and artificial through visual art. The scenery intersects two distinct identities that resides as a hyper-realistic ‘snapshot’, and in the other that indicates that its ‘natural’ beauty is but a human cre- ation. This unsettling paradox is a stark reminder that nature and technology are seamless conjoined in our times, challenging our conception of what it means to be ‘natural’ or ‘artificial’.
Wandering Sun, 2024 (MMCA Cheongju ver.)
Wandering Sun, 2024.
Single channel video installation, Unreal Engine 5, AI algorithm, NASA Earth observation data, 4 x 17m 2.6pt, 04'15"
Wandering Sun, 2024.
Single channel video installation, Unreal Engine 5, AI algorithm, NASA Earth observation data, 4 x 17m 2.6pt, 04'15"
The new version, installed MMCA Cheongju, features a large 4-meter-high by 17-meter-long video panel that turns the walls and floor of museum's lobby red as the sun rises. Especially in this version, using the coordinates of Masan, his hometown, as the observation point, Lee integrates six types of data collected over a 30-year period, including sulfur dioxide concentrations. By reflecting the effects of air pollution on sunlight scattering and cloud formation, the work paradoxically presents a landscape that is both realistic and intensely poetic.
Artist Jinjoon Lee
Art Director Sun Kim
Technician Sungback Kim
Producer Doyo Choi
Support
Korean Cultural Centre UK (KCCUK)
Art Center Nabi
National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea