Other New Museum Thoughts: Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries

by Art Fag City on February 18, 2008 · 4 comments


Heavy Industries, New Museum
Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, To view this video click here.

Three times now I’ve tried to view in its entirety Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries’ text based videos, In Black on White, Gray Ascending, (2007) at the New Museum and failed. Displayed on 7 screens, each 11:36 in length, the piece tells a story of conspiracy, abduction, and perhaps political assassination, all to the tune of some jazzy music you probably heard a few years ago at a bar in Soho. It’s a lively installation, and from what I’ve seen, a very good one, but it’s housed in a narrow glass room that makes almost impossible to stick around for the full hour plus worth of viewing material. Of course, in some ways, the space makes a lot sense for the piece; right next to the cafeteria, visitors can eat their sandwiches while watching the movie. The plan would have been perfect, were it not for the fact that the glass separating the two spaces provides a very effective sound barrier, so visitors don’t really experience the video installation while eating their lunch. Perhaps at some point we’ll see In Black on White, Gray Ascending appear online, and will be able to watch it that way.  Then I can complain about why it’s not the same experience, and how the overly large time investment required for a piece on the Internet deters possible viewers.

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  • http://matadata.com trip

    Then I can complain about why it’s not the same experience, and how the overly large time investment required for a piece on the Internet deters possible viewers.

    So true, so true. Thing is, the browser invites changing the channel so much more than the remote.

    Anyways, I don’t think that the point is to “read” the entire thing. I think that what is fascinating about the piece is how it operates and works in fragments. Our mediated reality is already highly fragmented, so, nothing new here, right? Besides, I think that if you were allowed to stand further back there would be no way to read even one fragment: you would just scan left and right and lose your thread. I don’t know how intentional this is, but I think that the cramped reading reflects that fragmentary-yet-narrow nature of our mediascape.

    I must say I didn’t have an hour to give the piece, but I was satisfied with the way it was presented, and I was surprised of how well the work made the leap from browser to physical space. I was a little bit perplexed about the part where there is talk about “Besame Mucho” and then, in an unrelated part, the cocktail party version of “Besame Mucho” was the soundtrack. It seems that the single online pieces have a much tighter integration with the sound. But then again, maybe I needed to watch for an hour and I missed something because I failed to do so. Hell, people need to catch trains.

    c.

  • http://matadata.com trip

    Then I can complain about why it’s not the same experience, and how the overly large time investment required for a piece on the Internet deters possible viewers.

    So true, so true. Thing is, the browser invites changing the channel so much more than the remote.

    Anyways, I don’t think that the point is to “read” the entire thing. I think that what is fascinating about the piece is how it operates and works in fragments. Our mediated reality is already highly fragmented, so, nothing new here, right? Besides, I think that if you were allowed to stand further back there would be no way to read even one fragment: you would just scan left and right and lose your thread. I don’t know how intentional this is, but I think that the cramped reading reflects that fragmentary-yet-narrow nature of our mediascape.

    I must say I didn’t have an hour to give the piece, but I was satisfied with the way it was presented, and I was surprised of how well the work made the leap from browser to physical space. I was a little bit perplexed about the part where there is talk about “Besame Mucho” and then, in an unrelated part, the cocktail party version of “Besame Mucho” was the soundtrack. It seems that the single online pieces have a much tighter integration with the sound. But then again, maybe I needed to watch for an hour and I missed something because I failed to do so. Hell, people need to catch trains.

    c.

  • http://drankpee.com/drankblog DRANKPEE

    without casting aspersions; putting their work on a wall is just this side of gross for my taste. their web work is so fricking appropriate…an all to complicated world of internet sound text and movement was simplified into some amazing work that one could resize, restart, and send along to others. cunnilingus in north korea.

  • http://drankpee.com/drankblog DRANKPEE

    without casting aspersions; putting their work on a wall is just this side of gross for my taste. their web work is so fricking appropriate…an all to complicated world of internet sound text and movement was simplified into some amazing work that one could resize, restart, and send along to others. cunnilingus in north korea.

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