November 07, 2012

The Creators Project


The Creators Project is an interactive new media festival sponsored by Intel, which makes stops in a few of the world's signature cities such as New York, Paris, and Beijing. For the Seoul edition of the Creators Project there were art exhibits created using the latest technologies from around the world as well as live music performances by Korean artists. 


The event took place at the Dongdaemun Design Park and Plaza, an architectural oddity constructed on the former site of a baseball stadium built by the Japanese. While construction was underway, some ancient ruins were uncovered and the plaza design was rejigged to incorporate these historical artifacts.


I checked out the exhibits in between music performances. At the Treachery of Sanctuary installation my angelic wings, undetectable to the naked eye, were reflected on the screen as I gracefully waved my arms. As I moved my arms faster and faster, the sound of the wings flapping rose to a dramatic crescendo. Another exhibit used an iPad tablet to detect the movement of people standing in front, and reacted accordingly.  


My favourite piece of digital art was titled The Day of Perpetual Night. Chinese artist Yang Yong Liang masterfully stitched together the natural scenery often depicted in traditional landscape paintings with the cityscape of a modern day supercity such as Shanghai. Waterfalls were flowing and pedestrians were walking around on screen in seamless harmony in the digital collage.


The roster of musicians was well known in Korea, but I had only heard of the girl group 2NE1. Their performance had the most energy and personality that I have seen of any K-pop group. A hip hop artist known as Tiger JK tried to stir up controversy by cursing at the white audience members who kept asking him to dance like the Gangnam phenom Psy. In a profanity laced tirade, Tiger JK exclaimed that he is not some performing monkey for white boys to laugh at.

*****

"Fu** all yall who think Asians are here to make you laugh" - Tiger JK