An interactive work that mimics the use of social media while introducing to a Western audience the culturally specific Asian concept of 'Jeong'.

 

'No Losers'

 

'No Losers' is an interactive public art piece that re-draws the boundaries between private and public space while encouraging audiences to express their creativity in a public space. As part of Kim's MFA thesis, the work reflects on how technology enables us to do our own creating and how we expect to be part of the process, but also in control of it, an experience that seemed familiar to the participants.

The work also intended to introduce a broader audience to a culturally specific emotion called Jeong. 

 

Jeong is difficult to define, and it may even be impossible to translate the word directly into English or any other language. One Korean-English dictionary defines jeong as “feeling, love, sentiment, passion, human nature, sympathy, heart.” Despite the breadth of this definition, the word seems to include even more, basic feelings such as attachment, bond, and affection. Unlike other emotions, such as depression, anger, and anxiety, jeong does not have clearly marked definitional boundaries even in the Korean language; it is ambiguous and amorphous."

 

The interaction with the work began with scratching off the ink that completely covered the surface of a 2' x 12' panel mounted on a wall. As one brave participant started to scratch off the surface, many others joined in and quickly scratched off the rest of the panel. The process slowly revealed hidden messages and graffiti under the ink, while at the same time leaving creative traces of images as the participants scratched off bits of ink from the surface.

 

No Losers was a physical act of creation. What was uncovered beneath the ink is not as important as the action of uncovering itself. It is an allusion to how we connect to the Internet or social media such as Facebook or Instagram, merely to glance through the most recently uploaded photos or the news feeds of others. How we instantly respond to them by clicking 'like,' for example, has the same lever of surface gratification that comes from instantly revealing something 'new' under the surface of the ink. As the title of the work suggest, in this experience there are no losers. The experience is meant to be fun and pleasurable. But if this positive experience with others can turn into a fond memory for someone later on, then it has contributed to an encounter with the experience of Jeong.

Camella D. Kim (South Korea) explores a wide range of media and often combine traditional and contemporary methods of fabrication and techniques to manifest her interest in language and define what it means to communicate in the digital age.

Kim immigrated from South Korea to Toronto, Canada in 1999. She double majored in Media, Information & Technoculture and Visual Arts. She completed her MFA in Media Arts at University of California, Los Angeles.