Thursday 13 March 2014

Pak Sheung Chuen & Kohei Yoshiyuki

As I have been looking at ways to develop my work in the dark space. I have decided to start looking more into the ways which I could light the room, or using minimal lighting. I am also interested in the experience of the viewer.
I remember going to the Liverpool biennial in 2012 and seeing the work of Pak Sheung Chuen. The work was set in a completely darkened room, and you could only see the content of the room by the flash of your camera going off, revealing a room filled with framed photographs on flowered wallpaper. The whole time you were in the room, a recording of the Muezzin was playing. When you look at the pictures in the room, thry are nothing particularly special, they just resemble typical holiday snapshots. It was for me, the explaination of the piece which really made it come to life. Chuen went on a holiday to Malaysia and the whole time he was there he wore a blindfold, relying on his other senses to take over and experience another country in a whole different way, he took numerous photographs to view when he came back from his visit, so is the experience the viewer has when walking into the exhibition directly related to his time in Malaysia, with the viewer also being 'blind' and not being able to view properly what was in the room until they walk out of it. Also is the viewer's experience also more relevant than the images shown in the darkened room.















I also remember seeing the work of Kohei Yoshiyuki's "Park" series, which was also shown in the Liverpool Biennial. It is also shown in a darkened room, and as you are entering you are given a torch to view the images of people having "relations" with one and other which Yoshiyuki took around several parks in Tokyo. 















The experience of the viewer in both of the above pieces are key to the work. Maybe because of the involvement they have with the work i.e. walking around Pak Sheung Chuen's exhibition with a camera and Kohei Yoshiyuki's with a torch.
This is definitely something that I could try out with my exhibition piece before the end of the year show on how to develop the viewer experience.

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