Sleigh Ride Chill, Video still

Kim Heecheon

Sleigh Ride Chill, 2016, Single channel video, full HD, 17 min. 27 sec., Commissioned by SeMA Biennale Mediacity Seoul 2016

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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.

Kim Heecheon

b. 1989. Lives and works in Seoul.
Kim Heecheon was born in 1989 in Gwangju, Korea. He graduated the Korea National University of Arts with a degree in Architecture and has since worked in Seoul. His first solo exhibition, Wall Rally Drill, Common Center, Seoul was held in 2015. He also took part in group exhibitions such as New Skin: Modeling and Attaching, Ilmin Museum of Art, Seoul, 2015 and Asia Art Film & Video Forum, MMCA, Seoul, 2015.

Sleigh Ride Chill, Video still

Sleigh Ride Chill, Video still

Sleigh Ride Chill, Video still

Installation view at SeMA Biennale Mediacity Seoul 2016, Image courtesy of Seoul Museum of Art

Installation view at SeMA Biennale Mediacity Seoul 2016, Image courtesy of Seoul Museum of Art