Sung Hwan Kim - From the Commanding Heights

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)

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
From the Commanding Heights...