NJP Summer Festival - 21 Rooms

Nam June Paik Art Center is pleased to announce NJP Summer Festival - 21 Rooms for Nam June Paik's 79th birthday. The festival, consisting of an exhibition, performances and public programs, runs for eight weeks from July 20 to September 13, 2011 with twenty works on display on the second floor of the Center and the outdoor stage.

This festival was inspired by Symphony for 20 Rooms, a score composed by Paik in 1961. The term 'score' used by Paik and Fluxus artists referred to instructions of actions to be performed. Paik'sSymphony for 20 Rooms, as a visualization of 'music,' is made up of descriptions of various sound installations and interactions with the audience. Still awaiting a first performance, this piece contains Paik's creative and innovative ideas for music and exhibition, which he was to materialize in his later performances and exhibitions.

As Paik and his Fluxus friends did, the artists in this festival will present 'scores' to engage with the audience. By performing the scores as instructed, the audience will cut through genres and spaces, moving around the 20 rooms (or works), and realize the "unblinded" participation, which is the central tenet of Paik's score.

Through these exciting art experiments made in midsummer, audiences will be given an opportunity to create their own score as in Paik's saying: "The wise will play a wise tune and the foolish a foolish tune."

Exhibition Here the audience is encouraged to experience the artists' works so that they can connect with a new world which has been previously invisible. This sudden encounter with an unexpected world will generate spontaneity and open-mindedness toward the world within them, which are the very foundation of a new artistic sensibility and imagination that Paik intended to restore.

Commissioner Seungtaek Seo selected VjVISUALOOP's Protopixel HARDcade, an interactive video using 8-bit game software, and Bubblyfish's Moori, visual images converted from messages sent by the audience through mobile phones, etc. Both artists bring elements of popular culture to their works to invite the audience's participation, which is also the case with Agi Chen's The KeyFrame that represents cartoon characters in abstract forms.

There will be also a variety of sound installations in this exhibition, one of which is Ujino's Rotators, a performance-cum-installation making use of the musical instruments Ujino transforms everyday objects into. In Bangalore-based artist duo Pors&Rao's object/sound installation, called PYGMIES, small pygmies disappear from wooden panels in response even to a subtle noise, creating a paradoxical situation in which the audience has to keep a careful attitude to watch it. In the room where Seung Young Kim's Wall (2011) is installed, which is made by stacking up five hundred used loudspeakers, you could sit or lie down, hearing various sounds of everyday life. Lee Hwa-Jin+Bahc Mioc's Image Instrument 'shows' inaudible but visible sound and Changsun Koh's sound installation serves as a musical instrument which can be played by five persons at a time. In this way, the whole space composed by these sound exhibits will be changed and completed by the audience's performance.

In addition, this exhibition presents video works such as Richi Owaki's Skinslides which mounts a ritualistic stage with the images of human bodies alluding to those who lost their lives in wartime; Yang Ah Ham's Invisible Clothes to satirize the irrationality of modern society to simply incite human desires; and Yoonseong Chang's Camera Test 5 where images and sounds, unrelated to each other, intersect so that subtle ruptures are caused to the space.

Participants Agi, CHEN, Yang Ah Ham, Bubblyfish, Pors & Rao, Yoonseong Chang, VjVISUALOOP, Lee Hwa-Jin+Bahc Mioc, Changsun Koh, Seung Young Kim, Richi Owaki, Ujino

Performances Ujino, The Rotators, 20 Jul 6:30pm, 23 Jul 6pm Okkyung Lee, Eternal Turning, 20 Jul 6pm, 23 Jul 5pm Heekyung Cho, Wind Dance, 21–22 Jul, 5–6 Aug, 12–13 Aug 4pm Atsuhiro Ito, V.R.S.S. 2011, 29–30 Jul 5pm AKUMANOSHIRUSHI, Carry-In Project, 6 Aug 5pm Hyun-Suk Seo, Desire Paths, 12–13 Aug 7pm

Public Programs Kim Wol-Sik, Kindergarten for Adults, Mon–Fri 2pm, Sat–Sun 2pm / 4pm (21 Jul–10 Sep) Yangachi, Movie, It's round, smooth, truly aristocratic, Mon–Sun 1pm, 3pm (21 Jul–10 Sep) Noridan Dalok, Nam June Paik in Moon World, 10–11 Aug / 17–18 Aug (2 sessions) 10am–5pm Terrace Theater II: Mid Night Terrace Theater for Families, 13 Aug–3 Sep, Every Saturday 8pm–9:30pm

Curator Exhibition / Public Program: Jeong-Hwa Goo Performance: Chaeyoung Lee

Commissioner

Game Section: Seung-Taek Seo Performance: Yasuo Ozawa, Seong Hee Kim Terrace Theater Ⅱ: Seung-Min Song

NJP Summer Festival
21 Rooms