■ Exhibition Outline

  6 January – 17 April, 2022. 

  UAM(Ulsan Art Museum in Korea)_XR Lab.*(283㎡), the 1st basement floor 

     * XR Lab.: eXtended Reality Laboratory

  

  Directed by Jinsuk Suh, Director of UAM

  Curated by Jeong Seon Huh, Curator of UAM 

  In collaboration with Topos & Aldo Tambellini Art Foundation 

  ※ Additional Events : HMD VR experience(During the exhibition), Performance with Jiny Cha(3 times)

■ Exhibition Introduction

  From the advent of TV and video to today's discussion of artificial intelligence and space travel, accelerating technological advances are raising expectations and concerns about the future of mankind. But the inevitable coalition of capital and technology is advancing day by day, with no room to filter out expectations and concerns. What can art really do in the face of the ever-changing technological change? This exhibition Black and Light; Aldo Tambellini began with these questions.

  Through this exhibition that illuminates the art world of Aldo Tambellini, a pioneer of electro intermedia art, the Ulsan Museum of Art aims to critically illuminate today's technological advances and to approach alternatives and prospects experimentally.

 A 'sweet' spectacle? The pitfalls of pluralism

  The so-called 'immersive media exhibition', which started just a few years ago, is creating a 'flood of colors' at immersive media exhibitions nationwide including Jeju Island. Concerns are growing that these 'spectacle' exhibitions will be perceived as a typical example of contemporary art by the public, who have not been exposed to contemporary art often.

  Although this exhibition mainly consists of immersive media works that reinterpret Tambellini's original work with digital technology, it is different from the recently popular 'spectacle' immersive media exhibitions.

Through multi-genre convergence relationships such as visual encounters "black" and "light,"(the core concepts of Tambellini’s art world) and performances. Black and Light; Aldo Tambellini will provide an opportunity for philosophical thinking to explore the essence of events in multiple layers without being deceived by the superficial phenomena of the ‘spectacle’ mass media age. 

  In fact, Felix Guattari, who asserted the inevitability of social practice through art, predicted that the digital revolution(‘post-media’ era) would end the ‘spectacle’ mass media era after the advent of the Internet. Guattari expected that digital technology would not be reserved for artists and the special class, but would become a universal technology that the public could use together, which would lead to democratization of artistic creation and enjoyment. But his expectations were dashed.

  The era of totalitarianism has passed and the era of pluralism has arrived, but the temptation of the “sweet” spectacle is still not over. The exposure of numerous images and information reinforces the social structure environment that can be easily infected by the logic of capital markets, consumption strategies, and even the dominant ideology.

Let's go back to the 'substance'. 

Tambellini, who was a poet before being an artist, invites us to penetrate the essence beyond the phenomenon through the poetic encounter of 'black' and 'light', the polarized forces of nature. Tambellini, who regards “the beginning of everything” as “black” and “the source of energy” as “light,” induces insight into the origin of the universe or the origin of life through exhibitions.

  This raises socio-political issues such as the 'Black Matters', social alienation of minorities, and racial conflict in the United States, as well as the black-and-white ideological confrontation that prevailed in the 1960s. The original musical effect, like the sound of a bombing heard on the battlefield, lets us experience a mixture of poetic narratives reminiscent of riots, conflicts, feuds, and reconciliation. I fall into the illusion of hearing the voice of Martin Luther King from somewhere. It stimulates our senses as if opening a burning wound, and pops up various social issues in the air of the exhibition hall. . . “Black is actually the beginning of everything, which the art concept is not.”.

■ XR Lab

XR Lab(eXtended Reality Lab) is a dedicated center for immersive media art experiences created using the latest digital technologies such as virtual reality(VR), augmented reality(AR), and mixed reality(MR).

  XR Lab is an experimental art platform that prepares for the future of Ulsan and the new technological society of the 21st century through collaboration of various intellectuals such as artists, engineers, and scholars beyond the white cube fence of the 20th century formalist modernism museum that aims for the purity of art. The XR Lab will conduct cross-disciplinary research on Ulsan’s industrial technology, history, ecology, and cultural discourse, as well as multidisciplinary exchanges such as science, physics, and philosophy centering on art media, and as a regional art museum, will be displayed.

■ Author information

  Italian-American Aldo Tambellini, born in New York in 1930, was a pioneer in media expansion in the 1960s and was one of the first artists to use video and television as art media. Tambellini's retrospective exhibition held at Tate Modern in 2012 was a re-creation of his early works in an immersive media environment.

 In particular, Tambellini was an innovative experimental artist of the time who created an immersive media theater in the 1960s style and presented an exhibition as a holistic art combined with poetic performance. It is very meaningful in the history of media art to open the 21st century immersive media exhibition that he left behind as his last work at the Ulsan Museum of Art on the 1st anniversary of Tambellini's death.

■ exhibition composition

  The exhibition is held not only in the XR Lab on the first basement floor of the museum, but also in the entire space on the first basement floor. At the XR Lab(eXtended Reality Lab), Tambellini's We Are Natives of the Digital Age(2020) will be exhibited. This immersive media work features a fusion of music, dance, video, and poetry soundtracks, including the original 'Black TV' screened on an old CRT TV, 'Lumagram' projection, and music, dance, video, and poetry soundtracks. you will appreciate At the entrance of the exhibition room, you can see the archive space where you can see the world of Tambellini's work, and in the lobby you can enjoy the 'Black' film series through a cube-type TV and in the learning room can experience the immersive contents, wearing HMD(Head Mounted Device).

※ performance time: to be announced later
   Curator : Jeong Seon HUH (P. +82. 52. 229. 8441)