Future Beauty

There is a continued rumbling followed by a dissonant chime as I walk through the double door entrance at the 7th floor Sullivan Galleries (33 S. State Street). At the end of the entrance hallway is an open door to black. Intrigued by the invitation of an open door to darkness, I step through and become viewer and witness to an ambitious 2-panel (each screen is 15 feet wide) installation of the short-film, El Fin Del Mundo (2012) with direction by Moon Kyongwon and Jeon Joonho. The viewer is invited to sit on a single bench to view 13 minutes and 35 seconds of high definition video in a dark room. Both panels of projected video are angled as if opening up to the benched viewer and in doing so, suggest a scale and the subject matter of what is to come. The panel on the left follows a male character inside of his artist studio as he continues to work on his art even through a catastrophe while the panel on the right follows a female character who is a descendent of those who survived the collapse (on the left panel) and her enlightenment of the concept of aesthetic sense after a catastrophe.

The video sets the stage for the gallery-wide project in the form of exhibition, spearheaded by Korean artists Moon Kyongwon and Jeon Joonho. As I emerge from the first screening room, I emerge into a lightened space as a result of the Sullivan Gallery windows which illuminate the title of the exhibition-- News From Nowhere: Chicago Laboratory (September 21 - December 21). Initially presented in project form at Documenta (13) in Kassel, Germany, the exhibition is a grouping of ongoing collaborations and research to address the possibility of art existing in the lives of those surviving in a post-apocalyptic world and in doing so, the work becomes a viable discourse for rumination on the present.

With darkness there is light, and as a viewer makes his or her way through the entire exhibition space, one notices a black patterning on the floor that suggests a web-like form and continues throughout the gallery, weaving its way through pedestals and paneling. The pattern is illuminated by precise gallery lighting (laboratory aesthetic), wall-embedded LED monitor screens (laboratory and touch-screen reminders), but most importantly, the exterior sun. The windows lining the gallery are utilized as a mediator for information that can be found in the accompanying book published by the News From Nowhere team. The sun, as an energy and life-source, provides a somber reminder of the present and future as a viewer weaves in and out of the interconnected galleries. There is warmth and light on the outside, as well as large signs of civilization from the view of surrounding towers and outside sounds proliferating inward to the space. As a mediator between the lab and this exterior, white text applied to the windows’ glass are illuminated as demonstrations and additional information to be consulted as necessary.

The work featured by architect and designer, Toyo Ito provides a functional and applied solution by featuring a diorama and working examples (documentary photography, demonstrative video, research, blueprint) for his 2011 project Home-For-All. Through various examples with accompanying interviews as wall text, a viewer learns of the project’s creation of communal spaces that were built for the towns washed away by the March 11, 2011 tsunami in Japan. It is with this particular demonstration that the exhibition suggests and reveals fundamental problems and solutions towards existing contemporary and modernist architecture.

Behind Home-For-All is the central section of the laboratory that is focused on object/tool and system design. On display are the garments featured in both the first film and concluding film that suggest functional use and protection against possible threats to human life. Suspended on human forms by steel cables are the creations of Korean and NYC-based fashion designer Kuho Jung. The forms are clothed in peculiar, uniforms of silicone and a cellulose-blend fiber. A series of 3 garments (a base layer, mid layer, and shell) hover above 5 illuminating hexagonal floor lights. The display follows an odd aesthetic between both fashion commodity and research/lab accoutrements that are found outside of a gallery setting and laboratorial procedures. The display borrows aesthetics from science fiction films, and alludes to the garment’s inclusion in the featured films. This presentation strategy offers a desirable aesthetic for a future of which might require a closet of HAZMAT suits. Kosuke Tsumura is another designer whose prototype suits are demonstrated through embedded video panels as well as an unnerving pedestal installation. Contrasting the suspended illuminated garments of Kuho Jung, Tsumura’s suit lies on a pedestal at the size of the human being whose presence is suggested through the pedestal elongated hexagonal shape. Much like Kuho Jung, Tsumura’s design focuses in on the thematics of uncertainty within the context of the Chicago Lab but its display is much more aligned and focused when the viewer notices the pedestal shape is actually that of a coffin.

Another contributor to the project is Takram design engineering, whose Chicago effort involves a presentation of its Shenhu Hydrolemic System as integrated in the exhibition’s first film, El Fin del Mundo. Responding to the fundamentals of human survival that are food, water, and shelter (clothing/housing), Takram demonstrates their sophisticated solution as set on multi-leveled pedestals shaped as hexagons (following Kuho Jung’s uniform design). From the design firm’s web site, “...Afflicted by manmade causes, the rising sea level, radioactive emissions and release of hazardous materials into the environment, art and culture cease to exist. This provides an opportunity to re-evaluate what constitutes art, design, culture and the quality of life itself when all prejudices and preconceptions vanish. With this premise, takram was tasked to design a water bottle, as water is an essential item for survival.” The resulting artificial organs are demonstrated through a projection in an adjacent section of the gallery to reveal both interior and exterior bodily applications for the human user. There are “nasal cavity inserts”, a “renal fecular dehydrator”, a “urine concentrator”, and other devices concentrated in a sleek, weather (suggestion disaster-proof) briefcase at the center. This is where the laboratory finds itself lost between art and functional design. It is one part to expand and reach for all possibilities, it is another to totally disregard the material usage of these objects. While each artificial organ is life-sustaining, the materials used are still made from a culture of resource-extraction and oil-dependency. It is difficult to imagine a functioning artificial organ made of an organic or perhaps genetically-imbued material in preparation for a collapse situation. Both options give rise to a breadth of human-centric moral, ethical, spiritual, and scientific concerns.

After the laboratory inner workings of the exhibition that display these possible solutions for suggested collapse scenarios, the viewer is reminded of the collaborators, researchers, and artists who are continuously working through the existence aesthetics and life during a time in human history where both feel strenuous and at times, futile. The white text provides a space for constant visitation and rest from the exhibition’s necessary interior world.

A window example:

Guest: Do you think that religion will appear? What do you think is the ideal form of religion?
Misan, Korean Seon (Ch’an/Zen) monk: Every religion came about to fulfill a level of consciousness in people. People will probably continue to need religion, as human beings have a desire for safety and a way to contend with fear of the larger, unknown world. I think religion and mankind will have no choice but to coexist in some way. in the future, I think religion will play a role in allowing people to have an awakened consciousness. Mankind is continuously being enlightened. Consequently even if mankind comes to the precipice of the end of the world, the consciousness of survivors will be heightened and they’ll be able to see a new dimension. meditation will play an important role in that as well. 
Guest: That is one of the more hopeful stories that we’ve heard in our interviews.
Misan: If the religion of the future has something to teach people, perhaps it’s the ability to let go of thoughts. A religion arising from ruins should probably not be one with a big, fat brain but a warm heart.
Guest: If this were to be the case, what would the most important values be?
Misan: I think Einstein’s concept is more realistic than yours. Specifically, I’m talking about his belief that the world as we know it will come to an end within four years after honeybees disappear. Whether it’s 100 or 1,000 years later, religion will be useful in a practical way when it understands the essence of life and shows people who the most vital phenomena evolve. 

As a viewer approaches the north wall of the Sullivan Galleries, they travel further away from the initial film and approach the laboratory’s accompanying texts in a circular table as an offering for viewers to actively pursue the exhibition’s limited (yet thorough) amount of information by way of a circular table that suggests communal use, contemplation, and reflection. There is a large, unutilized gap of empty gallery space on the east side of this part of the gallery where lights are not lit. The space is ominous and it’s emptiness is heightened when the audio from the room behind the space makes its way into the main exhibition space. AVYAKTA is the name of the concluding short film that follows the aftermath of the (first film’s) female character’s actions. There are consequences in this future where the corporation-based country known as “TEMPUS” sends a male protagonist to travel back in time to prevent any sequence of events that could have led to the destruction of the corporate power and the rise of perceiving aesthetics in the future. The film utilizes the same 2-panel, 15-foot wide installation method as El Fin Del Mundo. The audio channels are even more nuanced, one on each side of the darkened room. This is the part in the exhibition when News From Nowhere’s strategy as laboratory, an experiment, as well as art rises to culmination and are thoroughly tested at the literal end of the exhibition.

News from Nowhere: Chicago Laboratory asks potent and sobering questions about the existence of art and life today, yesterday, and tomorrow. Through the use of a nuanced, webbed layout with the contrasting suggestion of a linear sequence, (beginning, middle, and end), the exhibition demands a rigorous ground for testing the strength and limitations of art and problem-solving in present-day reality (Toyo Ito’s HOME-FOR-ALL project) but also suggests room for a wide breadth of possibilities. Whether or not these possibilities will have to come to fruition is for the viewer to decide, perhaps in the Sullivan Galleries laboratory, or even in their own.