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Geumhyung Jeong, Under Construction [work in process]. Photo by Kanghyuk Lee, 2023.
Book tickets
Geumhyung Jeong: Under Construction
Korean artist and choreographer Geumhyung Jeong performs live at the ICA within her solo exhibition, Under Construction. For this newly commissioned installation, Jeong, who is self-taught in robotics, has created multiple full-body animatronic figures incorporating medical model skeletons for the first time, along with her signature DIY hardware and electronics. At key points in the run of the exhibition, ICA audiences are invited to witness the intimate choreography between the artist and her mechanical collaborators. Jeong manipulates and responds to the machine bodies through a conversation of movements initiated by remote control, physical touch, and mechaniszed gestures. Please join us for this series of live events that bridge the divide between object and performer.
Performance is an integral part of Jeong’s practice as a whole and this project in particular, which is the culmination of years of construction, care, and maintenance of the artist’s mechanical bodies. Jeong will demonstrate for audiences the character of these bodies: each unique in their stage of completion, behaviours, and capabilities familiar to and beyond the constraints of the human body. Through a tender yet uncanny dialogue of movement, we watch the machines—more nuts-and-bolts than AI—haltingly fumble and progress in their actions. Impeccably self-possessed as a performer, Jeong enacts a measured exchange with the machines that is both deliberate and unpredictably responsive. We might recognise in this slow and direct dance, and the affinity and discord between Jeong and the mechanical figures, our relationship to the machines or objects in our own lives.
Korean artist and choreographer Geumhyung Jeong performs live at the ICA within her solo exhibition, Under Construction. For this newly commissioned installation, Jeong, who is self-taught in robotics, has created multiple full-body animatronic figures incorporating medical model skeletons for the first time, along with her signature DIY hardware and electronics. At key points in the run of the exhibition, ICA audiences are invited to witness the intimate choreography between the artist and her mechanical collaborators. Jeong manipulates and responds to the machine bodies through a conversation of movements initiated by remote control, physical touch, and mechaniszed gestures. Please join us for this series of live events that bridge the divide between object and performer.
Performance is an integral part of Jeong’s practice as a whole and this project in particular, which is the culmination of years of construction, care, and maintenance of the artist’s mechanical bodies. Jeong will demonstrate for audiences the character of these bodies: each unique in their stage of completion, behaviours, and capabilities familiar to and beyond the constraints of the human body. Through a tender yet uncanny dialogue of movement, we watch the machines—more nuts-and-bolts than AI—haltingly fumble and progress in their actions. Impeccably self-possessed as a performer, Jeong enacts a measured exchange with the machines that is both deliberate and unpredictably responsive. We might recognise in this slow and direct dance, and the affinity and discord between Jeong and the mechanical figures, our relationship to the machines or objects in our own lives.
Geumhyung Jeong (b. 1980 in Seoul, South Korea) lives and works in Seoul, South Korea. Jeong has participated in performing arts festivals internationally and her solo exhibitions in international contemporary art institutions include: Upgrade in Progress, FMAV Fondazione Modena Arti Visive, Modena (2020); Homemade RC Toy, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel (2019); Private Collection: Unperformed Objects, Delfina Foundation, London (2017); Tate Live: Geumhyung Jeong, Tate Modern, London (2017); Private Collection, Atelier Hermès, Seoul (2016).
She has also participated in numerous group exhibitions including: The Milk of Dreams, The 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, Venice (2022); Copenhagen – Red Light Green Light (In the Realm of the Senses), Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (2022); Immortality, The 5th Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art, Ekaterinburg (2019); APT9 The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial, Brisbane (2018); ANTI, AB6 The 6th Athens Biennale, Athens(2018); The Public Body 02, Artspace, Sydney (2017); The Promise of Total Automation, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2016); Surround Audience: New Museum Triennial 2015, New Museum, New York (2015); The Beast and the Sovereign, MACBA Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Barcelona (2015); East Asia Feminism: FANTasia, Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul (2015); Gesture, WKV Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart (2014); Burning Down the House, The 10th Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju (2014).
In 2016 Jeong was the winner of the Hermès Foundation Missulsang Award and in 2014 of Zürcher Theater Spektakel Kantonalbank Acknowledgment Prize. In 2009 she won the Excellence Award for Alternative Vision at the Seoul New Media Art Festival and in 2007 Dokkebi Award at the Chuncheon International Mime Festival.
She has also participated in numerous group exhibitions including: The Milk of Dreams, The 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, Venice (2022); Copenhagen – Red Light Green Light (In the Realm of the Senses), Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (2022); Immortality, The 5th Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art, Ekaterinburg (2019); APT9 The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial, Brisbane (2018); ANTI, AB6 The 6th Athens Biennale, Athens(2018); The Public Body 02, Artspace, Sydney (2017); The Promise of Total Automation, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2016); Surround Audience: New Museum Triennial 2015, New Museum, New York (2015); The Beast and the Sovereign, MACBA Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Barcelona (2015); East Asia Feminism: FANTasia, Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul (2015); Gesture, WKV Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart (2014); Burning Down the House, The 10th Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju (2014).
In 2016 Jeong was the winner of the Hermès Foundation Missulsang Award and in 2014 of Zürcher Theater Spektakel Kantonalbank Acknowledgment Prize. In 2009 she won the Excellence Award for Alternative Vision at the Seoul New Media Art Festival and in 2007 Dokkebi Award at the Chuncheon International Mime Festival.
Book tickets
07:00 pm
Tue, 08 Oct 2024
Lower Gallery
07:00 pm
Wed, 09 Oct 2024
Lower Gallery
07:00 pm
Wed, 13 Nov 2024
Lower Gallery
£15 full price / £12.50 concession
Performance dates:
7pm, Tuesday, 8 October 2024
7pm, Wednesday, 9 october 2024
7pm, Wednesday, 13 November 2024
Performances last roughly one hour.
Leading up to the performances, the gallery space will function as Jeong’s workshop as she fixes and maintains her mechanical bodies in preparation for the performances. Audiences are invited to witness this process.
The gallery will close at 6:15 to allow for final set up and reopen at 7pm for the start of the performance.
No late admittance.
● The event has mixed seating including on the floor and seats without backs
● If you require a high-backed chair, please email access@ica.art in advance
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no. 236848.