Filmmaker Kim Heecheon is Using Technology to Test the Limits of Reality

For South Korean artist Kim Heecheon, reality is as fallible as perception is flexible; a single moment in time is a frame and memories are simply reconstructed pixels. Kim Heecheon is interested in the processes through which human cognition changes as a result of the invention of new devices and tools. In his moving image practice, he uses GPS, VR, and Face Swap technologies to create borderless realms of existence that question the limits and capabilities of consciousness.

The Serpentine’s Artistic Director Hans Ulrich Obrist spoke to Kim Heecheon in April 2020 on the occasion of his participation in Out of Blueprints, an online exhibition of film from East Asia-based artists, realised in direct response to the closure of Cao Fei’s solo exhibition, Blueprints, at the Serpentine. Out of Blueprints is curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Joseph Constable, with advisors Cao Fei, Yuko Hasegawa, Venus Lau, and Yang Beichen, in collaboration with NOWNESS and K11 Art Foundation.

Deep in the Forking Tanks, 2019, single channel video, HD (16:9), stereo, 43mins. Commissioned and Produced by Art Sonje Center. Supported by Seoul Foundaion for Arts and Culture.

Hans Ulrich Obrist: To begin with the beginning, I wanted to ask you how it all started, because you originally studied architecture. How did the crossover into art happen?

Kim Heecheon: My decision to study architecture was not an intrinsic one, but via a rather spontaneous decision at the moment when I had to choose a career path. In Korean high school, your field of study gets divided into natural sciences and mathematics, liberal arts, and arts and physical education. I was a natural sciences and maths student, and I found out that architecture, a common major that a student of my field chooses, can be studied at an art school. As I was enrolled in an art college, I chose architecture as my major...READ MORE