I am a subjective scientist. I explore forms, images, and the anatomy of the body, considering the body not only as a form of mind and will, but also as confinement of energy and perspectives toward the world. I delve into the subject matter by freely leaping across boundaries from Human Anatomy to Architecture, from Pop Culture to High Art, and from Science to Art, not limited by the confines set by these fields of study. While I hybridize various fields, from visual research and extracted patterns, a mutated creature begins to evolve into a tangible form that is the visualization of my reality, vision, and philosophy.
Since my college years in Korea, I have been committed to exploring movement in virtual space and real space fantasizing about someday creating a man made out of non-degradable and modular inorganic materials. I utilize various interactive and time-based media such as the Internet, software programs, 3D games, and animations, as well as drawings and sculpture to find more active ways to communicate with viewers.
Meanwhile, studying cultural body images in the United States and Korea, I noticed that certain visual elements tend to change their meanings and contexts when globalized. Languages and images are intricately interlinked to each other formulating their meanings and contexts in the local communities. I explore tensions between universal values of cultural body images that have potentials to be globalized and local values that are not readable outside of their cultures and languages.
In Fall 2009, I entered the interdisciplinary PhD program in Media, Art, and Text to scholarly develop innovative theories and practice of New Media Art. In my ongoing dissertation project, “Anatomy-based Realistic Facial Animation and Its Application to Art,” I aim to create an anatomy-based facial modeling and animation system, and real-time control of it, that enable real-time communication of emotional status. The project incorporates interdisciplinary methodologies and theories of Art, Engineering, Psychology, and Cultural Studies, and explores unique exhibitions of its data. Textual, visual, and multimedia resources of facial and facial expression theories and projects from various fields are collected and analyzed with methodologies from social science and engineering.
I construct my Art through conceptualizing the body not only in relation to anatomy, but also in connection with culture, environment, and social structure. I synthesize seemingly unrelated concepts blurring the boundaries of theoretic logic institutionalized by academia using the various techniques of visualization, to materialize my hybridized mind and thoughts.
Written in 2008, revised in 2013.