There was an anxious silence when Y0UNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES (YHCHI) started their second presentation at the Asia Art Archive (AAA) in Hong Kong this past Thursday. Those who came to the first presentation, part of YHCHI’s ongoing residency program at AAA, already knew that something outrageous was about to happen—there’d be no buttoned up keynote presentation or comprehensive artistic explanation here.YHCHI are one of the main contributors to the world of online art (the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art acknowledges them that). In 2007, their solo show, “Black On White, Gray Ascending”, a seven-channel installation, was part of the inaugural opening of The New Museum in New York. So suffice it to say, these guys have some street cred in the art world.
“It is our job to be outrageous” Marc Voge, half of this Seoul-based group, says at the beginning of the AAA presentation. The other half, Young-Hae Chang, remains silent the whole time. She claims to be Heavy Industries’ CEO, while Marc does all the talking. In fact, this model of presentation is another element of their work.An anxious audience has gathered to take part in the presentation. Marc begins by introducing the duo as a pair of lazy artists, claiming that all artists are, in fact, lazy. Then, he runs a web program that comprises their audiovisual work—flash animations of flickering text highly synchronized with background music. At first glance, it seems quite simple, but after a few minutes, the level of engagement the work establishes with viewers reveals the work’s complexity—conversations between the two artists are literally visualized in frenetic rhythm, moving in sync with jazz music the artists composed themselves. Black Monaco font text on a white background (or vice versa), a very dynamic editing pace, and two synthesized voices that read the written text, are the basic components of all their pieces.It is perhaps this simplicity that makes the work so straightforward and gets the audience to engage in their discussions. The stories or conversations that pour forth from the video range from political issues to philosophical ones—in a very simple language they deconstruct the art world, the political world, or simply highlight gender issues. These conversations are recorded by the artists in cafes, on their sofa, or even in bed, and then translated into animated text, which is then read aloud by synthetic voices.Their approach to text makes YHCHI come across as a non-illustrative Barbara Kruger, undressing semiotics by excluding all imagery from their work. The text is the only visual element, and assaults the viewer at the stream-of-consciousness rhythm of a typical brainstorm between the two artists. The raw ideas are immediately digested by the audience in a one-to-one relation, overwhelming with their acute directness.At the end of the animations, Marc doesn’t talk much, claiming that their work as artists is done and it’s now up to the audience to do the talking. "Art is like an assembly line" he says. And in fact, the talk was all done—YHCHI’s description of their work is the work itself, their description of themselves is the art itself, every thought becomes a word, and every word becomes text, and every text becomes an audiovisual work or performance.The typical humor that makes conceptual art more weightless, drives the ideas the duo want to communicate. That element paired with computational media and the free distribution channels of the web makes their work accessible to everyone, everywhere, establishing a global artistic dialogue.Photo courtesy Asia Art Achive
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