Ahn Sungseok: For Everything’s Tranquility

The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA; Acting Director Park Jongdal) presents MMCA Cheongju Project 2023 Ahn Sungseok: For Everything’s Tranquility. Running from September 1, 2023 to February 25, 2024 at MMCA Cheongju Art Storage Center (hereafter the MMCA Cheongju).

MMCA Cheongju Project is a series of regular exhibitions that transcend the boundaries of the conventional exhibition hall, expanding themes of “city” and “everyday spaces” into outdoor and public settings. By hosting exhibitions produced “on-site” in a dynamic setting, the project aims to promote active communication between artworks and viewers.

MMCA has selected Ahn Sungseok (1985-) for this year and this exhibition, under the theme of “Non-human and Virtual Cities,” aims to explore the city that has expanded into virtual spaces due to technological advancements and the possibility that humans and non-human beings can coexist and unite in it.

Ahn Sungseok, who works across the virtual and the real utilizing various mediums such as photography, games, and VR, installations etc., presents the virtual city of the 2085 created by mechanical devices such as game programming and 3D modeling on the façade and lobby of the museum. The year 2085 marks the 100th anniversary of the author’s birth and is an arbitrary year chosen by the author to depict a point in the near future.

The enormous 91-meter-wide image, There’s no such thing as Destiny in the Morning*, installed on the façade of MMCA Cheongju shows the future landscape built by the artist’s imagination. It depicts the future urban landscape filled with water due to climate crisis, which is a consequence of indiscriminate technological innovation and development based on anthropocentrism.

Chong Hyon-jong, The Morning, Whisper of Splendor (2008), Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd.

In the museum lobby, visitors encounter a total of four artworks, including a game-type simulator, installation, and interactive videos. The large-scale installation piece, Border Connection – Causality Interpreter is an unidentified object from the future, transforming the lobby into an unfamiliar futuristic landscape. The game-type work, The Autonomy’s Driving connected to a large screen, allows viewers to look around the city submerged in water by manipulating the steering wheel and pedal of the simulator. Above Below (2012) is an interactive video work produced by the artist in 2012. He made this work by measuring the tobacco factory, reborn as an art storage center and 3D modeling and game programming. Memory Dark Adaptation (2023) is a work that envisions the area surrounding MMCA Cheongju, in the year 2063, when the Earth is shrouded in darkness. By involving viewers in virtual spaces, the artist evokes reality, encourages shifts in perception, and suggests moving towards a community that cooperates and solidifies to create a better world.

With the development of the latest information technologies, cities have expanded into the digital realm and become smarter entities. However, simultaneously, more frequent droughts and floods, the endangerment of millions of species, and the Earth has been devastated to an irreversible level. It is time for tighter empathy and solidarity to overcome these shared trials than ever. It is our hope this exhibition will serve as an opportunity to imagine the city of the future and to find ways to practice what and how we can do for the hopeful futures. For everything to be tranquility on a future day.