Hyung-Gyu Kim - Chromaphone

Hyung-Gyu Kim

Artist’s statement: Culture is a barrier. Traditional tropes, though ceaselessly attractive to the masses, keep us on the surface of perception; Ease of reference does not equal depth of feeling. Our essential selves are much deeper than any particular background, so in order to reach our subterranean identities, we need better tools than easy and obvious touchstones, such as Cadillac cars or Kim Chi. Cultural habits and national boundaries must be superseded entirely in order to grapple directly with the audience’s root feelings and desires. My goal is to fashion painterly images in the mind of the viewer. Like the grammar of language, we automatically “conjugate” what we hear and see into coherent forms and I wish to forge new, hybrid sensations by the same process. Since all experiences are multi-sensorial, Art must be also in order to reach our fundamental selves. Therefore, using sounds and images stripped of context allows my work to engage universally. The gallery, typically considered the final step of the art process, is actually only the beginning: the “art moment” happens as a beautiful reverie that lingers. Personally, I have “seen” sounds and “heard” colors in my life, and these trans- dimensional states have led to an interest in synesthesia and attempts to translate images into sound and vice versa by systematic processes. The Chromaphone creates a virtual synesthetic experience- “seeing” sounds and “hearing” colors- as hybrid events. It is the theoretical opposite of the “color organ” created by Bainbridge Bishop in 1893. Instead of asserting a direct connection between sound and color- this key makes this color- the connections are left up to the audience- perhaps they see a lush tableau or a psychic puzzle. As an installation the connections are determined “democratically”, every interaction is unique and the audience both authors and is literally part of the final result. There are no instructions- simply walking among the piece causes various colors to appear on the central prism and musical notes to ring out simultaneously. The sound is produced by oversized tuning forks arrayed around the prism, inspired by the work of Rudolf Koenig, who invented the first fork. As the audience unintentionally “plays” the Chromaphone, the entire color spectrum and a complete musical chord will be revealed, though their role will be left obscure. Fully immersed in a kaleidoscope of sensation, the boundary between audio and visual is blurred, and a sonic-image is born. Biography: Hyung-Gyu Kim is a multimedia artist who was born in South Korea and is now based in New York City. His early work employed moving images and both 2-D and 3-D animation, while his current work involves interactive sound and image installations that explore the relationship between audio and visual communication. His work has been exhibited in Japan, Korea, and the United States. He earned the “Award of Excellence” at the Asia Digital Arts Awards (2006) and was named a finalist at the ADAA the following year (2007). In 2008, he got his Bachelor’s Degree in Digital Communication Design from Myongji University in South Korea. He is currently working toward his MFA degree in the Computer Art Department at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.