As one of the pioneering artists in the Media Art scene, Herman Kolgen displays his profound reflexion on the dynamics of the human-nature relationship in the post-pandemic era through the lens of Media Art.
The exhibition consisting of eight artworks, ranging from his new commissioned works to mega-scale versions of his representative pieces, encourages the audience to be aware of hidden aspects that will shape the post-pandemic reality: Humanity and the artificial, Humanity and nature, and Humanity in a new societal landscape.
In collaboration with New York-based bio artist Tal Danino, Korean producer DooEun Choi and curator Jay Bang, Herman Kolgen explores an interweave of technological insight and social implication in the global pandemic with his artistic inspiration. Kolgen recontextualizes the swarming nature of Proteus Mirabilis bacteria that drives infection and transmission with the swarming intelligence algorithm and outbreak pattern of the Covid 19 pandemic.
OKULAR (2021) by Herman KolgenELEKTRA
OKULAR, Herman Kolgen, 2021
Okular, an extension of Retina, proposes to explore what remains of our corneal imprints, our crystalline traces and our tissue phantoms inscribed on our membrane.
OKULAR (2021) by Herman KolgenELEKTRA
Using microscopic explorations, it dives into the very heart of this living barrier where matter comes to light; where solid and liquid textures pass through the transparency prism. Like a micro film, Okular reveals the indelible distortions of optics that extrapolated reality sends back to us.
The dimension of nuclear waste is truly mind-bogging. Human-created nuclear waste is incredibly harmful to hundreds of thousands of years. We have to imagine that the impact of our activities stretches far into a nonhuman future. Focusing on nuclear aesthetics from the atomic sublime to radioactive divinity, Aftershock offers a poetic take on the consequences of several brutal topological shocks.
URBAN WIND, Herman Kolgen, 2010
Urban Wind is an installation from Herman Kolgen’s Wind fields series. The devices rely on the dynamic characteristics of the wind, the air flux. Wind sensors are installed in strategic points of the city like intersections, bridges, tunnels, parks, rooftops.
The velocity and direction of the wind will be analyzed and then transmit by Wi-Fi to a group of accordions that will emit a euphonic soundscape. The public can hear the pulmonary dynamics of the city through the bellows of each accordion.
RETINA (2019) by Herman KolgenELEKTRA
RETINA, Herman Kolgen, 2019
Using our iris, traces of light are transmitted to our brain, where they are potentially encoded in our memory. We depend on light to interpret fragments of our world at every moment - how many images have our visual perception registered, processed, and compiled throughout our lives?
RETINA (2019) by Herman KolgenELEKTRA
Kolgen explores the coexistence of the human and its intermediate territories - a double relationship that interrogates real, intimate, and exterior - in all of its fragility, permeability, and indeterminacy.
Kolgen explores the coexistence of the human and its intermediate territories - a double relationship that interrogates real, intimate, and exterior - in all of its fragility, permeability, and indeterminacy.
LifeFORM illustrates the question of how human beings caught between the infinitely large and the infinitely small remain connected to everything.
Based on this observation and the chain reactions taking its leitmotif from the viral transcription of COVID-19, it explores the “humble position” we occupy between the visible and the invisible, defined by our interdependence on all forms of life. Subject to both biological and genetic random mutations, to temporal and geographical conditions, our species has no choice to transform and innovate.
SEISMIK MESH TERRITORY (2021) by Herman KolgenELEKTRA
Seismik Mesh Territory, Herman Kolgen, 2021
A dramatic descent underground beneath the rubble, seismik invites us to take a multi-sensory leap into the unknown, where sedimentary friction, magnetic waves, rumbling water, abstraction, and motifs clash and collide against a backdrop of visual and sonic dislocations.
SEISMIK MESH TERRITORY (2021) by Herman KolgenELEKTRA
Stretched out and adapted to an extensive media façade on an overwhelming scale offers a magnificent spectacle.
ISOTOPP, Herman Kolgen, 2018
Based on a collaboration with the researchers Jean-Charles Tomas and Tomas Roger, Kolgen has conceived a system linked to an Interpretation of the GANIL research activities for visual and sound performance and installation.
The GANIL proceeds to study this phenomenon by colliding nuclei at very high speed. Sensors record the effects of this bombardment, which are studied in detail by the researchers, to then create a visual and sound dynamic substance.
Jay Bang: Curator - Paradise Art Space (KR)
Key Contributors (for Bakterium):
DooEun Choi: Producer
Tal Danino: Artist
Partner:
With the generous support of the Quebec Government Office in Seoul