Kim Heecheon

The video Sleigh Ride Chill, continuing from the artist’s 2015 trilogy, represents the contemporary city of Seoul, its inhabitants, and the investigation of their world. Three different stories crisscross and chase one another while the camera navigates downtown Seoul: 1) One who lost one’s laptop and had all of their private information leaked on the internet; 2) One who streams online while playing a famous game from the recent past; 3) A broadcasting system that covers the stories of Korea’s new “suicide club.” All of these intertwined stories reveal an aspect of contemporary Korean society. The video also suggests familiar digital technologies such as VR or Face Swap and interface applications as a useful instrument for understanding Korea. One technological facet of the “K-future”—represented by online dots and a mass of dots which directly go (back) into the real world, or the co-existence of the two worlds—indicates not only the face of contemporary Seoul but also that of the future human world. That future will turn out to be quite different from the amusing one that we now imagine through VR and Face Swap.