SPACE July 2023 (No. 668)
Exhibition view of ‘Watch and chill 3.0: Streaming Suspense’/ Image courtesy of MMCA
‘Watch and Chill 3.0: Streaming Suspense’ took place simultaneously at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA), Seoul, and across online platforms. The exhibition serves as the final installment of the ‘Watch and Chill’ series, following ‘Watch and Chill: Streaming Art to Your Homes’ and ‘Watch and Chill 2.0: Streaming Senses’, in collaboration with museums in Oceania and the Americas.
For this exhibition, entitled ‘suspense’, FHHH FRIENDS (co-principals, Yoon Hanjin, Han Seungjae, Han Yangkyu) crafted a suitably suspenseful exhibition design. Upon entering the exhibition, visitors are greeted by a dark corridor instead of the anticipated wall of artwork. The corridor, composed of familiar materials, evokes a sense of strangeness and unease, reminiscent of a dimly lit hallway in an apartment building. In the online exhibition, this sense of unfamiliarity or menace is replaced by a notification window that communicates in a constant stream with its users. With only one possible response, it feels as if a living entity is guiding us insistently through this online space, blurring the line between the real and the virtual.
The ‘suspense’ theme of the five subthemes also revolves around distorting and destabilising the familiar present. For instance, Nic Hamilton’s Rider 1 (Darq Windows) (2020) portrays an ideal cosy home suddenly engulfed by swirling smoke, transforming it into a ominous entity that deviates from our expectations. The exhibition also features 28 other media works that challenge reality by breaking down boundaries and creating a realm that is yet to materialise. The offline exhibition will be open until July 23, while the online exhibition will continue to be available until Apr. 7, 2024.
You can see more information on the SPACE No. 668 (July 2023).
37