Earlier this year, I was introduced to the work of Christine Sun Kim at Harvestworks Digital Media Art Center. The organization, which is located in Soho, granted the artist a 2009 Educational Scholarship to further her experiments in "seismic calligraphy," an innovative form of painting that employs sounds waves and physical vibrations. In the above video, for instance, Kim has applied ink to a metal washer and placed it on a sheet of paper that rests atop a subwoofer.* As sound comes through the device (regulated by the artist), the washer dances and skips across the surface in response to the vibrations, leaving behind trails of color. Each piece in this new body of work is thus a product of control as well as chance. This approach to painting reflects, to a degree, the artist's own relationship to sound--Kim has been deaf since infancy.
Born in Orange County, California, Kim received her MFA in Studio Arts from the School of Visual Arts in 2006. Her work has been featured in group shows at The Guild, New York; Takt Kunstprojektraum, Berlin, Germany; Michael Steinberg Fine Art, New York; David Zwirner Gallery, New York; and Studio Place Arts Gallery, Vermont. This year, she participated in the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Swing Space program, a grant that connects artists and arts organizations with vacant commercial space in downtown New York City. Below, Kim answers a few questions about her seismic calligraphy experiments and, near the end, explains the daily role of sweets in her life as an artist.
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Work in progress.
Contemporary Confections: What have you been working on at Harvestworks and Swing Space these past several months?
Christine Sun Kim: I have been working on finding several ways to create visual and tactile, interpretative representations of sound, which my friend coined “seismic calligraphy.” I use my own sources of sounds and transform them from one state of information into another.
With an emergency grant from Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and help from a tutor at Harvestworks, I was able to purchase [new] sound equipment. I had no idea what an amplifier nor subwoofer was, so it was difficult trying to select the right ones for my project. Me and the tutor spent two months researching and buying the appropriate equipment. It has been an amazing experience, because it felt like discovering a completely new realm which had [actually] been right at my fingertips most of my life. After the equipment was set up, I produced experimental physical manifestations with ink, pigment powders, sponges, buttons, alarm bed shakers and video. The whole thing has pushed my relationship with sound to a new level.
Untitled, 2009.
CC: Are your seismic works a shift away from what you were making earlier, at the School of the Visual Arts (SVA), for instance, or do you see them as a continuation?
CSK: A big shift. I struggled with drawing and painting for a long time and felt I hadn’t found my own style nor voice at SVA. I stopped making new art for two years after graduation. I thought I was done with it, but after my first residency in Berlin last year, I had a huge epiphany (and a dream about abandoning my old life, meaning old art) that led me to embrace a medium that’s completely inaccessible: sound. [Because] I was born deaf and I have never developed a relationship with sound, my understanding of it comes from tactile experience and years of speech therapy. The process [of making these works] is slowly becoming synthetic and metaphorical, translating sounds with an ephemeral nature. I translate from movement to sound to visual, or sometimes the other way around. Each step can be either accessible or not, which is relevant to my education and upbringing. I did most of learning through sign language interpreters in classrooms. I speak in my own language, which is naturally accessible to me, and I regularly place my trust into someone in between to properly translate (or filter even) my language into one that is inaccessible to me. In my work, like an interpreter, I restate a substance from a language into another language; a medium to another; movement to sound, sound to visual, and so on.
Work in progress.
CC: Now that you've been experimenting with the seismic pieces for a while, do you look for something in particular to happen when the vibrations begin and color begins to move across the paper? Or do you follow a set process?
CSK: I’m loosely translating by asking myself questions: Which sounds? Which materials? Does it have to leave an imprint? For now, I'm holding onto my paints and ink until I’m ready to go back to them, and investigating plastic lids and pinwheel toys instead. For example, I blow into a microphone and my breath is translated into a sound and the sound becomes physical by “blowing” the pinwheel fans on the top of subwoofers. I use the sound of blowing to actually blow instead of my actual breath. This specific process is ironic, yet scientific because the sound is made out of air vibrating. Another example is I can also “draw” with a microphone upside down on the floor and the sound makes an ink-dipped object move, leaving an imprint, thus I “draw” the imprints. I am still experimenting, but I try to translate my experience through the everyday or ready made objects I find in my neighborhood or during my travels. I I bought the pinwheel toys in Chinatown and I found a bag of plastic lids while hiking in upstate New York. So, my process is to pinpoint a sound and interpret it with the materials I possess.
Untitled, 2009.
With an emergency grant from Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and help from a tutor at Harvestworks, I was able to purchase [new] sound equipment. I had no idea what an amplifier nor subwoofer was, so it was difficult trying to select the right ones for my project. Me and the tutor spent two months researching and buying the appropriate equipment. It has been an amazing experience, because it felt like discovering a completely new realm which had [actually] been right at my fingertips most of my life. After the equipment was set up, I produced experimental physical manifestations with ink, pigment powders, sponges, buttons, alarm bed shakers and video. The whole thing has pushed my relationship with sound to a new level.
Untitled, 2009.CC: Are your seismic works a shift away from what you were making earlier, at the School of the Visual Arts (SVA), for instance, or do you see them as a continuation?
CSK: A big shift. I struggled with drawing and painting for a long time and felt I hadn’t found my own style nor voice at SVA. I stopped making new art for two years after graduation. I thought I was done with it, but after my first residency in Berlin last year, I had a huge epiphany (and a dream about abandoning my old life, meaning old art) that led me to embrace a medium that’s completely inaccessible: sound. [Because] I was born deaf and I have never developed a relationship with sound, my understanding of it comes from tactile experience and years of speech therapy. The process [of making these works] is slowly becoming synthetic and metaphorical, translating sounds with an ephemeral nature. I translate from movement to sound to visual, or sometimes the other way around. Each step can be either accessible or not, which is relevant to my education and upbringing. I did most of learning through sign language interpreters in classrooms. I speak in my own language, which is naturally accessible to me, and I regularly place my trust into someone in between to properly translate (or filter even) my language into one that is inaccessible to me. In my work, like an interpreter, I restate a substance from a language into another language; a medium to another; movement to sound, sound to visual, and so on.
Work in progress.CC: Now that you've been experimenting with the seismic pieces for a while, do you look for something in particular to happen when the vibrations begin and color begins to move across the paper? Or do you follow a set process?
CSK: I’m loosely translating by asking myself questions: Which sounds? Which materials? Does it have to leave an imprint? For now, I'm holding onto my paints and ink until I’m ready to go back to them, and investigating plastic lids and pinwheel toys instead. For example, I blow into a microphone and my breath is translated into a sound and the sound becomes physical by “blowing” the pinwheel fans on the top of subwoofers. I use the sound of blowing to actually blow instead of my actual breath. This specific process is ironic, yet scientific because the sound is made out of air vibrating. Another example is I can also “draw” with a microphone upside down on the floor and the sound makes an ink-dipped object move, leaving an imprint, thus I “draw” the imprints. I am still experimenting, but I try to translate my experience through the everyday or ready made objects I find in my neighborhood or during my travels. I I bought the pinwheel toys in Chinatown and I found a bag of plastic lids while hiking in upstate New York. So, my process is to pinpoint a sound and interpret it with the materials I possess.
Untitled, 2009.CC: What lead you to video record your process?
CSK: I felt that the end result of my seismic paintings did not capture the whole idea of sounds. I realized that the movement of paint or ink is probably more revealing than the final imprint itself. So, I used my digital camera to record the action...My project has a lot of potential directions: filming, performance art and painting. I’m still playing around to see which formula works the best for me.
"The Perfect Storm" (still), 2009.
CC: What do you have planned going forward?
CSK: I have several ideas and projects on the horizon involving inverted subwoofers, sound archaeology, extra pinwheels on speakers, and Zen sand garden with bed shakers. I'm currently looking for a place to exhibit my work. Stay tuned!
Pinwheel experiment in progress.
CC: And now for the million dollar questions: What's your favorite sweet treat? How often do you indulge? Do you have a special place for sweets in New York City?
CSK: I usually don’t like vegan sweets, but I’m hooked on BabyCakes on Broome Street; they use agave nectar as a main substitute. I can’t get enough of their Chocolate Chip Cookies and Vanilla cupcakes. I used to frequent Magnolia Bakery, but just half of a cupcake is enough to make my teeth fall out! I need a glass of milk to wash it down, but unfortunately I’m lactose intolerant. I also like Cupcake Café, because I love their buttery frosting--very delicate. I indulge in them every two weeks or so. Other than those cupcakes, I eat a Nutrageous or Snickers bar almost every day after work.
CC: Have sweets ever played in role in art making for you?
CSK: You know, I go through a lot of ups and downs with my art (artist’s block, opening downers, letters of rejection, etc), so I turn to sweets and wine for therapy.
* See more videos by Christine Sun Kim here.
This interview was conducted via e-mail.
CSK: I felt that the end result of my seismic paintings did not capture the whole idea of sounds. I realized that the movement of paint or ink is probably more revealing than the final imprint itself. So, I used my digital camera to record the action...My project has a lot of potential directions: filming, performance art and painting. I’m still playing around to see which formula works the best for me.
"The Perfect Storm" (still), 2009.CC: What do you have planned going forward?
CSK: I have several ideas and projects on the horizon involving inverted subwoofers, sound archaeology, extra pinwheels on speakers, and Zen sand garden with bed shakers. I'm currently looking for a place to exhibit my work. Stay tuned!
Pinwheel experiment in progress.CC: And now for the million dollar questions: What's your favorite sweet treat? How often do you indulge? Do you have a special place for sweets in New York City?
CSK: I usually don’t like vegan sweets, but I’m hooked on BabyCakes on Broome Street; they use agave nectar as a main substitute. I can’t get enough of their Chocolate Chip Cookies and Vanilla cupcakes. I used to frequent Magnolia Bakery, but just half of a cupcake is enough to make my teeth fall out! I need a glass of milk to wash it down, but unfortunately I’m lactose intolerant. I also like Cupcake Café, because I love their buttery frosting--very delicate. I indulge in them every two weeks or so. Other than those cupcakes, I eat a Nutrageous or Snickers bar almost every day after work.
CC: Have sweets ever played in role in art making for you?
CSK: You know, I go through a lot of ups and downs with my art (artist’s block, opening downers, letters of rejection, etc), so I turn to sweets and wine for therapy.
* See more videos by Christine Sun Kim here.
This interview was conducted via e-mail.
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