Exhibition: Ka Hee Jeong, Feat. Reece Cox - Project Inspired by Dystonia

PROGRAM:

• JAN 17 - LIVE PERFORMANCE AT VORSPIEL OPENING, ACUD MACHT NEU
• JAN 18, 9 PM - LIVE PERFORMANCE, MEINBLAU PROJEKTRAUM
• FEB 1, 6 PM - TALK AND LIVE PERFORMANCE, MEINBLAU PROJEKTRAUM

In cooperation with the Movement Disorders and Body Control Group of the Movement Disorders and

Neuromodulation Unit, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin and Meinblau e.V. 

Supported by VolkswagenStiftung
Part of the official program of Vorspiel / transmediale & CTM 

Artists Ka Hee Jeong and Reece Cox were invited to engage with studies conducted by the Movement Disorders

and Body Control Group of Dr. Christos Ganos to respond to neurological research of dystonia, a complex

movement disorder. Beginning from this common point, Jeong and Cox produced discrete works using time-

based media focusing on corporeal experience and research processes.

Jeong’s piece, Oceanic Feeling, is a video and environmental installation. Jeong approaches the research at

Charité with a focus on corporeal experience, or more specifically, the sensation of a body that acts against

itself as in the case of dystonia. In Jeong’s video, a section of digitally rendered ocean floats in abyssal black

space. A sparse, emotive soundscape grows in intensity as Jeong delivers a monologue of fear and anxiety

induced by one’s own body, “I turn my head repeatedly. Eventually, my head will spiral out of my shoulders.”

While the intensity of the video rises and falls, the room is heated and cooled, heightening awareness of the

viewer’s own body. Jeong complements Oceanic Feeling with an additional video work, which portrays the god

Pan as the bearer of panic, and further artifacts that document the natural distortions of materials through

time.

Cox’s work, Variable Synthetics, takes an altogether different approach, drawing from the research process in

order to produce a piece of original music. The research carried out at the Movement Disorders and Body Control Group

produced an enormous amount of data in the form of long spreadsheets filled with numbers. While scientists examine the data in hopes of discovering novel truths, Cox instrumentalizes this process to new dramatized and speculative ends. Cox invents means of transposing the data, rendering them into a musical score. Using synthetic sounds and room recordings taken during select experiments, the resulting composition is a colorful, experimental sound piece riddled with psychoacoustic phenomena, elevating the subjective nature of the work from its status as empirical data.