Geumhyung Jeong: Under Construction

In this special presentation, artist Geumhyung Jeong brings her performance practice to the format of an artist talk. Via lecture, images, video clips, and movement demonstrations, Jeong will address her most recent work Under Construction (2024) currently on view in her solo exhibition at the ICA. Self-taught in robotics, the artist has created for this new commission five animatronic bodies incorporating medical model skeletons and her signature DIY hardware and electronics; a video installation space which documents the artist’s thoughtful construction, care, and maintenance of the mechanical bodies; and a live performance programme which culminates in this unique presentation.
 
This lecture format offers an opportunity to understand Jeong’s extraordinary approach to the automaton—a preoccupation of artists for centuries—and a window into the relationship between humans and our non-human interlocutors. Each facet of Jeong’s nimble practice reveals a tender dialogue of movement between the artist and her machines. In her studio in Seoul, she works with the machines to refine their capabilities, test their mechanics, and practice their choreographies. In performances and documentation videos, we can witness the machines—more nuts-and-bolts than AI—haltingly fumble and progress in their actions. They can mimic human motion, do what we cannot, and fail at our most basic gestures. 

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