Chromaphone II

source: hyunggyukim

Chromaphone II is based on sound/color associations from across the globe. This project replaces the Western color wheel and musical scale with the five traditional colors of Korea and the Korean pentatonic scale(Hwang, Tae, Joong, Im, Nam). Each of the five wall-mounted tubes reflects a corresponding “Korean” shade throughout the surrounding space, creating a unique composition. Western audiences will be immersed in an alternate palette of colors and sounds from the Far East. The resulting abstract, image-song will momentarily erase the barrier of culture, replacing one form of cultural synesthesia with another.
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source: hyunggyukim

Culture is a barrier. Though ceaselessly attractive to the masses, cultural tropes keep us on the surface of perception; ease of reference does not equal depth of feeling. Our essential selves are much deeper than any cultural background, so in order to reach our subterranean identities, we need better tools than obvious touchstones, such as McDonald’s or Kim chi. Instead or mixing and matching pop culture references to create “meta-pop,” I want to supersede these arbitrary boundaries entirely and grapple directly with the audience’s root feelings and desires through raw sensation and the obliteration of context. My goal is to fashion painterly images in the mind of the viewer, with their memories and expectations acting as the paint.
Like the grammar of language, my work employs video, sculpture, sound, and electronic components as necessary to forge new, hybrid memories and perhaps fundamentally reexamine ones thought long dead. Synesthesia, the phenomenon of one sense crossing the boundary of a modality into another sense, is one area of exploration. I wish to form a lush and unexpected tableau in the participants’ heads by subverting their most “natural” associations of artistic composition. The idea of “hearing colors” or “seeing sounds” as valid concepts makes it possible to translate colors into sound and vice versa by systematic processes, similar to creating a new language. The “art moment” happens as a beautifully unexpected reverie expressed in this new tongue.
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source: hyunggyukim

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 received his MFA degree in the Computer Art Department at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.