The Units of the World According to ;Semicolon
2011
Single-channel video, stereo sound (12-channel sound for the premiere)
25 minutes 54 seconds
In The Units of the World According to ;Semicolon, 12 punctuation marks with names and shapes but no sound appear, such as the :(colon), “ ”(quotatio marks), —(hyphen), ...(ellipsis), and ( )(parenthesis). These punctuation marks each have their own role and position within a sentence, but remaining silent, are given “voices” to represent their functional and fictional characteristics. The entire narrative is conveyed through the polyphonic and unstable voice of the semicolon(;) as the speaker, narrated by foreign language speakers who are unable to fully understand the meaning of the Korean sentences in the script. Towards the end of the piece, all the backgrounds where the 12 punctuation marks appeared are shown sequentially as empty spaces without characters. In contrast, the choir-like sound of all the punctuation marks fills the screen.
“Image, sound, and text are sometimes connected descriptively and other times symbolically; they may also be disconnected. The artist uses the allegory of noise theater as a way to redefine and reconfigure the world, transcending the binary between the immaterial and material, the visible and invisible, and the scientific and artistic realms through listening. The artist demonstrates the arbitrariness of language, a typical medium for listening, through the ‘functional’ narration of foreigners, and gives new meanings and names to the signs used ‘functionally’ in written documents where language is visualized.”
— Excerpts from the exhibition review by Chae Eun-young
(KR)
2011
Single-channel video, stereo sound (12-channel sound for the premiere)
25 minutes 54 seconds
In The Units of the World According to ;Semicolon, 12 punctuation marks with names and shapes but no sound appear, such as the :(colon), “ ”(quotatio marks), —(hyphen), ...(ellipsis), and ( )(parenthesis). These punctuation marks each have their own role and position within a sentence, but remaining silent, are given “voices” to represent their functional and fictional characteristics. The entire narrative is conveyed through the polyphonic and unstable voice of the semicolon(;) as the speaker, narrated by foreign language speakers who are unable to fully understand the meaning of the Korean sentences in the script. Towards the end of the piece, all the backgrounds where the 12 punctuation marks appeared are shown sequentially as empty spaces without characters. In contrast, the choir-like sound of all the punctuation marks fills the screen.
“Image, sound, and text are sometimes connected descriptively and other times symbolically; they may also be disconnected. The artist uses the allegory of noise theater as a way to redefine and reconfigure the world, transcending the binary between the immaterial and material, the visible and invisible, and the scientific and artistic realms through listening. The artist demonstrates the arbitrariness of language, a typical medium for listening, through the ‘functional’ narration of foreigners, and gives new meanings and names to the signs used ‘functionally’ in written documents where language is visualized.”
— Excerpts from the exhibition review by Chae Eun-young
(KR)
#1-4 Video Still (by Sung Taek Lee)
5 min Video Excerpt