Park Han-sol reports on Korea's financial regulators, along with fintech and insurance. She previously wrote about the art world, from biennales and exhibitions to fairs and auctions, with a focus on Seoul and the figures shaping the scene. Before joining The Korea Times, she spent a year at ABC News' Seoul bureau, contributing to coverage of major Asia-Pacific events.
'The world as a field of data:' Exhibition shows how we live through code
“YOU:R:CODE” (2017) by Bernd Lintermann and Peter Weibel / Courtesy of ZKM Karlsruhe and Jonas Zilius
By Park Han-sol
Visualized code reveals mountains of data behind our digitized daily lives
By Park Han-sol
In today's capitalist and industrial society, digital code consisting of 0s and 1s has largely been interpreted within the realm of technology and economy that remain behind the scenes. But although we do not witness this code directly, it defines such a large part of our daily lives through computers, smartphones, surveillance cameras and even QR code-based entry logs that record our every movement.
So, what would all this computer programming language that shapes the world we live in today look like if we decided to bring it forward to the visual realm, specifically to a museum?
The Nam June Paik Art Center in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, addresses this question at the exhibition, “Open Codes. Networked Commons,” featuring the works of 13 artists and teams that utilize code as a creative artistic material.
The exhibition series started in 2017 at the ZKM Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe in Germany, and has since then been organized and locally developed in India, Spain and China, before finally arriving in Korea this month.
Upon entering the gallery, attendees immediately lock eyes with their reflections in a mirror that is part of the installation, “YOU:R:CODE.” As they head further down the hallway, their bodies begin to be digitally scanned, with their silhouettes soon rendered on LED screens as a collage of social media icons, genetic code and, finally, industrial barcodes. After having their physical bodies fully converted to digital data, they are then ready to enter the world of “Open Codes.”
“The World as a Field of Data” (2018) by Peter Weibel and Christian Lolkes / Courtesy of ZKM Karlsruhe and Uli Deck
In one corner of the main exhibition space, “The World as a Field of Data,” an installation made up of a total of 25 black-and-white screens hanging from the ceiling, represents the raw form of data sets that pervade our everyday lives. The cascading digital information is in fact real-time data fetched right from the internet, and includes those from cryptocurrency networks, sensors and open databases such as Wikipedia.
“You use computers and phones every day and your life is decided based on data, but you never actually see them. You never see what goes on behind the scene,” said Christian Lolkes, curator and artist of the installation. “What you see on the monitors is the unprocessed data, the way it communicates from one computer to the other.”
Another piece, “BITTERCOIN. The Worst Miner Ever,” presents an interesting commentary on the recent craze over mining and earning bitcoins. The two Spanish artists, Cesar Escudero Andaluz and Martin Nadal, purposefully hacked an old calculator, a machine not made for fast calculations, and used it to mine the cryptocurrency, well aware of the fact that computing power is the most important variable in the competition.
Every two minutes, the calculator prints out a nine-centimeter-tall receipt that records all bitcoin transactions. The pile of receipts that will continue growing until the end of the exhibition in October will visualize the amount of physical resources required to mine the digital currency.
“The more the miner tries, the more paper gets printed out, and that process shows the idea of huge resource consumption (that results from) something you cannot touch or feel or see in any way,” Lolkes explained.
“BITTERCOIN. The Worst Miner Ever” (2016) by Cesar Escudero Andaluz and Martin Nadal / Courtesy of ZKM Karlsruhe and Jonas Zilius
One of the key themes of this version of “Open Codes” exhibition at the Nam June Paik Art Center is “Networked Commons,” as hinted by its title: how an art museum can serve as an open network of communal exchange, discussion and education about code for visitors. Therefore, a number of works actively invite museum-goers' participation.
Artist duo Seoul Express's “Hello ( ) World!” piece is inspired by the phrase that is recognized as the most basic, simple syntax of a programming language. By choosing images updated in real time under a total of six themes ― including Instagram, global surveillance camera footage, Google images and world news ― visitors can create their own version of “Hello World!” in the form of a combination of images, instead of via the usual text of a programming language.
Bae In-sook's “Beat Steps” requires visitors' footsteps to be completed. The installation, in the shape of a crosswalk, measures the participants' pace as they walk across the track and transforms the numerical value into a beats-per-minute (BPM) tempo.
From the 100 K-pop dance songs in the database, the piece chooses the one with the BPM that corresponds most strongly to the person's pace and displays it on the monitor. “The idea is that when you listen to the chosen song while you cross the street, it will synchronize with your walking speed,” Bae noted.
“The reason for the museum being a place of exchange is because it reflects the way a lot of software is developed today. There are complete programming languages that are not invented by a single company but that have developed and evolved inside a community via exchange. And it was important to show that in a museum,” Lolkes said.
“(In this way,) you also feel closer to the artworks, because the topic of codes and digital questions is something that is very real and close to us.”
The exhibition runs through Oct. 24 at the Nam June Paik Art Center.