RGB highway

As an entity and the world, between finitude and infinitude

There is no limitation to the ways of accepting reality. However, its forms can be classified according to the conditions of the time. Especially, depending on how the relationship between the subject and the group, or the individual and society, is posited or approached, the individual subject's life, and further, the characteristics of the world driven by these lives, manifest different features. These manifestations, in turn, determine individual lives, and likewise individual lives, in turn, influence the organization of the community. The dynamics of this relationship may remain sufficiently controllable by the subject's decisions, or they may become uncontrollable according to their will.

The world thus encountered typically plays the role of forming the identity of an individual as a whole and as a significant support for its formation. The driving force that advances such identity formation and its basis is inevitably finitude because existence is what becomes the cornerstone of this process. If the premise that this structure implies is the entirety and the part, the part and the entirety, it is the inevitable construction and collapse of different worlds constantly manifesting as both. The progression process of this sequence is named "영겁회귀(永劫回歸)” meaning the eternal repetition of the same thing. Through this metaphysical model, the subject gains absolute liberty in determining their actions. Amidst the infinite expanse where one can only continue to return, finite existence is endowed with the opportunity of choice.

The relationship between the infinite world and the finite self is reciprocal. Depending on the establishment of this relationship, the self as a human, subject, identity, a part of the whole, and its status can become finite but eternal, limited yet infinite, contingent but ultimately free. However, when we turn back to the dimension of reality, the situation changes. The romantic reality where everything is expected to function towards a harmonious end does not exist. Especially the status of individuals within the layers of society, where individuals, including the parties involved, are deployed, or eradicated for the sake of the hierarchy and its goals, is a scattered reality.

At this point, the choices bifurcate into whether to confront the true reality through macroscopic awakening or remain as microscopic phenomena within the reality. Kim Heejae seeks to re-assess the concepts of a community and various social customs through "RGB Highway" (2023, BOAN 1942), while maintaining this situation as a default. Here, the community the artist focuses on refers to individuals, the minimum units constituting society as a whole, or intermediate groups or communities organised between them. Strictly speaking, Kim Heejae's interest lies in the boundaries of belonging, or the perspectives of the parties involved in this conceptual fence, and in seeking ways to liberate them.

The title of the exhibition, "RGB Highway," is also the name of the project planned to unravel the complex requirements of human groupings within society that she views, aiming for a more multifaceted understanding. This project will be completed as a trilogy, including the presently exhibited "Howling" (2023) and "Death Match" (2023), with the addition of the third unreleased work. The first part, "Howling" (2023), centres on the acknowledgment of hybridity resulting from the mixture between alien elements due to the self-maintaining nature of hierarchies inevitably leading to the marginalisation of those who cannot be socially independent, aiming to create a narrative of overcoming through recognition of this heterogeneity. In the second part, "Death Match" (2023), she seeks a dialectical methodology that can transcend such situations through speculative science fiction, exploring the possibility of overcoming death and rebirth in the process of karma, as a means to remedy such situations.

Such aesthetic attempts may eventually result in the intertwining of red, green, and blue colours in the spectrum of the display, becoming white after all, and perhaps disappearing. However, even setting aside such an outcome, Kim Heejae continues to dream of revised changes necessary for existence, towards the existence that races towards disappearance, for the sake of existence, and by existence. Her proposition of difference rather than deviation is nothing but an attempt to seek an alternative of solidarity that complements and supports each other, ultimately aiming for salvation.

Jintaek Jang/ Independent Curator

(Translated by Daehwi Kim)