Yonghun Kim

"Succession, Yet Creation"

Section MS3, Linn Phyllis Seeger

Keywords: encryption, moving image, landscape

The artefact Najeon Lacquerware is a traditional Korean craft art and cultural heritage. It is decorated with mother-of-pearl and is typically made into items such as cabinets. During the 1960s to the 1980s, material wealth was strongly emphasised as the economy recovered from the Korean War. As a result, the vibrant lacquer cabinet became a symbol of wealth and garnered significant public interest. However, since the 1990s, with the improvement of income levels and the influx of foreign luxury interior products, the public's interest in lacquerware has gradually declined as the trends and preferences have changed. Lacquerware can now be found in the households of grandparents who lived during that period or in historical museums. Under "Multiple, Repetition, and Seriality" themes, the project explores and combines traditional crafts patterns with media art, creating a juxtaposition between the past and the present. The project's objectives are to explore the possibility of developing and continuing mother-of-pearl crafts, increase awareness of the significance of traditional craft art, generate interest and preservation efforts, and ultimately communicate encrypted messages to the audience through abstract digital art. Touch Designer was used as a digital program to realise moving abstract media art outcomes, and projection mapping is used to express digital patterns in novel environments. This allows me to explore the potential for a new form of expression through the lens of creation and succession, transitioning from 2D patterns to 3D, from static images to moving images, and from cross-sections to spatial representations. Three abstract patterns of ridges, trees, and flowers emerged from the surface of the mother-of-pearl closet and were selected and extracted as bitmap images simultaneously. After vectorizing the extracted bit map patterns, each pattern was combined and transformed into an abstract and dynamic landscape, resulting in a moving digital art pattern. Finally, this project implements digital patterning using projection mapping to map new physical spaces and surfaces.