Like all great science fiction, the work of acclaimed South Korean video artist Ayoung Kim serves as a warning against the hubris of man. Kim––who is the subject of tonight’s Modern Mondays screening at the Museum of Modern Art––brings this classic struggle to modern-day Asia by creating narratives in which the spiritual realm conflicts with bureaucracies intent on consolidating power through technology and xenophobia.
Kim’s Petrogenesis, Petra Genetrix (2019-21) and Porosity Valley 2: Tricksters’ Plot (2019) both begin with a fictional myth about the creation of the universe––that humankind was birthed from stone. Petrogenesis, Petra Genetrix is a mockumentary in which Kim interviews the residents of a rural Mongolian community on this supposed origin story and other spiritual beliefs that center the power of the natural world. This conceit continues in Porosity Valley 2, where an anthropomorphized mineral called Petra Genetrix is subjected to the dehumanizing bureaucracy of a technocratic government that has classed them as a dangerous migrant. Though supernatural in scope, Porosity Valley 2’s narrative reflects a contemporary struggle in South Korea: the xenophobic policies of the Korean government against Yemeni asylum seekers on Jeju Island. In both of Kim’s videos, the democratic order of the state is superseded by a more mystic, ancient code of law that transcends the division sowed by national borders, time, and space.
This program also includes the American premiere of the video Delivery Dancer’s Sphere (2022). It is a kinetic, video game-inspired romp through the Seoul of a not-so-distant future that follows a specialized delivery driver who races through the city on dangerous tasks, aided by her employers’ hyper-surveillance and sophisticated technology, which allows drivers to travel at the speed of light. Like Petrogenesis and Porosity Valley, the video leans into the tension between the laws of nature and the laws of man, illustrating society’s fruitless attempts to transcend the limitations imposed by time and space for the sake of economic progress. Kim is crafting sci-fi parables of impressive scope and nuance––a warning call against a totalitarian world divorced from the natural world.
An Evening with Ayoung Kim takes place tonight, April 22, at the Museum of Modern Art as part of “Modern Mondays.”
