Sung Hwan Kim, From the Commanding Heights ... , 2007, Installation view.

Sung Hwan Kim, From the Commanding Heights ... , 2007, Installation view.

Sung Hwan Kim, From the Commanding Heights ... , 2007, Installation view.

Sung Hwan Kim, Sung Hwan Kim and a lady from the sea, 2005, Single Channel Video, 13min, Color & Sound, Image by Paul Perry.

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Project Space
Sung Hwan Kim, From the Commanding Heights of the Earliest Natural Fortification to the Architectonic Innovations of the Watch Tower the Development of Observation Balloons Satellites Surveillance there has been no End to the Enlargement of Field of Perception Whether I Know You or not Matters Less than How You Appear to the Objective Eye (Paranoia)
November 22, 2007-
January 13, 2008

Things are not more exciting than they are, but they are often told otherwise through exaggeration, deletion, intonation and rhythm, texture of voice, and a usage of span of time. Through this process, plain phenomena might turn into fairy tales, myths, magic, lies, propaganda, history, or sometimes, fact.

In From the Commanding Heights … , a tale of love (between an actress and a president from a past, once inhabited by a living generation of now) is told through text, film/video, and music (in collaboration with David Michael DiGregorio, a.k.a. dogr). The music itself is made with layered voice, ocarina, delay, a sampling keyboard, harmonica, kazoo, pump organ, guitar, mallets, stretched membranous materials, jae-gum (Korean cymbals) and pang-eul (Korean bells). Through this process, a vocalist might turn into a character in the story telling process; the story might turn into music in turn.

Sung Hwan Kim (b. 1975, Seoul, Korea) is currently based in New York City who experiments with narrative formats using video and performance, as well as installation. Collecting and collaging encounters, images, sounds, and objects from his changing domiciles of Seoul, Amsterdam and New York he portrays his world with lyric complexity. Previously a resident of the Netherlands, Kim spent two years as fellow at the Rijksakademie in 2004/2005.

He previously worked and lived in the Netherlands over a period of four years. In 2007, he won both the 2nd prize of the prestigious Dutch award the Prix de Rome and the Korean award Hermes Korea Missulsang (Hermes Korea Prize for Contemporary Art).

In his practice, Sung Hwan Kim integrates video and performance art, taking on the role of director, editor, performer, composer, narrator and poet. By approaching his own work from all production angles, his pieces are infused with his own highly subjective vision. His videos and performances seldom tell a linear story. His dream-like films depart from a straight-forward story, the scenes shift almost illogically with strong cuts, whilst maintaining an overall narrative and aesthetic coherence.

Sung Hwan Kim, From the Commanding Heights ... , 2007, Installation view.