Junghun Kim

0.01 ☓ 100, The Vertex of the Vanishing Point 

Multi-channel Installation,  4k video, 2019

This work has found its life during the residency Nightshift at the Scottish Sculpture Workshop, in Scotland, U.K. (2018). The program addressed mostly environmental issues to help the development of ecological consciousness. The vertex of vanishing points aims to question our perception of nature, giving a peculiar vision of an ecosystem. During the residency, I explored many forests and mountains around Lumsden to check how nature was destroyed or designed for human survival. Along my tours I get into a tunning tree trunk, cut a long time ago. I recognized the tree as a piece of remarkable evidence to study resonances between the macro and microcosmos. Its inner structure was comparable to the earth’s inner core. It was the center of gravity for the most incredible life forms, a source of philosophical and scientific knowledge. I moved the tree into my studio to study it and to finalize various experiments.  

Among different tests of temperature, I underwent the tree to the temperature of 25º. The tree colors changed, and countless insects were generated in it. The insects were RedSpider Mites. The deadwood was breading and protecting the spiders during the winter season, highlighting the strong interconnection between death and living life in the natural world. 

Filming the red spider mites, various behaviors emerged. I found some ironically related to the human’s greed for power. Growing up, the spiders were all climbing towards the highest point, as if governed by “an algorithms of the vertex”. The video, presented as a multiple video installation of 4 channels, inquires the differences and interconnections between human and natural life.