NFT ENERGY
The Virtuality of Photography
Photography is the art of capturing reality through the eye of a needle (lens) and recording that moment in time. With the advancement of technology, photography is moving beyond the surface of paper and into the digital space where it is fused with the virtual, especially with advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and the emergence of technologies such as virtual reality (VR), NFTs, and metaverses. This presents new challenges and opportunities for understanding and experiencing the images of the future.
As a result, photographic images are becoming increasingly important. Virtual worlds are created using photographs taken in the real world as materials, and these photographs contain temporal information that is critical to understanding virtual images. By focusing on the temporality of photographs, we want to talk about the temporality of virtual space.
The passage of time as experienced in virtual reality is different from the real world. In a photograph, time is unchanging and stays in a frozen moment. This means that we can visually observe an image frozen in time, and that moment gives us a glimpse of the time and space we will encounter in the future. It can give us a chance to reflect on the eternal meaning of our finite lives or the meaning of life.
From this perspective, as the lines between the real and the virtual blur, it is important to broaden our understanding through photographic images. It is an important key to exploring the intersection of art and technology, the real and the virtual. Understanding and adapting to technical imagery has become more of a necessity than a choice. This is because phenomena like NFTs and metaverses are redefining the value and meaning of images.
Advances in technology have made AI photographic images so realistic and sophisticated that they're almost indistinguishable from real photographs. These AI images are based on real photographs, but leverage the computational power of computers to enhance fine detail and expressiveness. By experiencing both AI photographic images and traditionally photographed images on screen, "The Virtuality of Photography" asks questions about the nature of what we see. It asks us to consider what we see and how we see it. We will revisit reality through photography and, in the process, gain new perceptions.
(Jonghyun AN)
Alsoguppyme
(Singapore)
Alsoguppyme, originally a painter, is now a design practitioner. Her art focuses on monsters, mirroring our innermost fears and desires. These creatures, reflecting society's unspoken whispers, gain a new dimension through AI technology. Alsoguppyme uses this technology to add fresh perspectives to these age-old expressions. In everyday life, she finds joy in simple things like Marmite on toast, embodying her belief in the blend of classic and modern, both in life and art.
Artem Humilevskyi
(Ukraine)
Artem Humilevskyi 🇺🇦Ukraine photography, b. 1986
In recent years, he has participated in more than 60 solo and group exhibitions around the world.
-Awards
2023 - Second place Rovinj Photo Days Award Croatia
2023 - Short-List Photometria Awards Greece
2023 - BarTur Photo Award London
2023 - Short-List Vincent Van Gogh Award Niderlands
2023 - Second place NidaOFF Lithuania
2022 - Winner Global Peace Photo Award Austria
2022 - Short-List Pinchuk Art Prize Ukraine
2022 - Short-List GUP New Talent Niderlands
2021 - Short-List NidaOFF Lithuania
- Works in Gallery/Museum
Grynyov Art Foundation Collection – Kyiv, Ukraine
Museum of Kharkiv School of Photography Collection – Kharkiv, Ukraine
Ukrainian House – Kyiv, Ukraine
The Odesa National Fine Arts Museum – Odesa, Ukraine
BENGT TIBERT
(Poland)
Bengt Tibert is an Artist and Creative Director based in Warsaw, Poland, working with photography, video and AI. Master of Art Degree at the Academy of Fine Arts Warsaw Faculty of Graphic Design 2003.
My creative process involves finding the peculiar within the mundane aspects of daily life. I take ordinary elements and exaggerate them to tell a comedic tale, evoke discomfort, or create visually striking narratives.
I have the great honor of being a member of Fellowship, a group comprising the world's foremost artists and AI creators. My works have been exhibited in galleries worldwide, including New York, Paris, Seoul, Toronto and Tallinn. Videos from the “Heat” series are featured in the collections of Claire Silver and Rudy Adler.
My works have been published on various platforms, such as Red-Eye, Promptforum and Ainterestingaf, the book 'Prompt AI – The Advent Of Generative Art In Photography,' Prompt Magazine, and will soon appear in the upcoming book 'Spells, Volume 1 – Pioneers'.
(Korea)
Koo Bohnchang attended Yonsei University majoring in Business Administration and later studied photography in Hamburg, Germany. He was a professor at Kaywon School of Art and Design, Chung Ang University, Seoul Institute of the Arts and a visiting professor in London Saint Martin School.
His works have been exhibited in over 30 solo exhibitions including Samsung Rodin Gallery, Seoul (2001), Peabody Essex Museum, Massachusetts (2002), Camera Obscura, Paris (2004), Kukje Gallery, Seoul and Kahitsukan Kyoto Museum of Contemporary Art (2006), Goeun Museum of Photography, Busan (2007), Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia (2010) and many.
His collections are at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Fine art, Houston, Kahitsukan Kyoto Museum of Contemporary Art, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea, Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul and publications are ‘Deep Breath in Silence’, ‘Revealed Personas’, ‘Vessels for the Heart’, 'How to Capture the Touching Moment' in Korea and ‘Hysteric Nine’, ‘Vessel’, ‘Everyday Treasures’ in Japan.
(Canada)
Erin McGean, also known as LifeWithArt, is a Toronto-based collage artist with a background in Fine Art and Education. With over 15 years of experience as a practicing artist, Erin's work has garnered recognition and is featured in various publications and art collections, both public and corporate. Her artistic journey has been shaped by a commitment to exploring the interplay between visual culture, personal identity, and the influence of past ideologies on our present and future.
Through her creative process, Erin delves into the complexities of visual culture, using vintage images as a canvas for her artistic expression. By recontextualizing these images in her collages, she invites viewers to reflect on their personal connections to the past and challenges prevailing narratives. The techniques of juxtaposition and layering are central to her artistic practice, revealing the intricate interplay between history, memory, and self-discovery. Erin's collages serve as visual meditations, inspiring contemplation of personal identities and the legacies we inherit, prompting critical examination and fostering a deeper understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
With her thought-provoking work, Erin sheds light on the enduring impact of visual culture and our place within the evolving narrative of human history. Her art encourages introspection and invites viewers to reimagine future paths shaped by the influences of the past. Through her artistic exploration, Erin inspires personal growth and deeper insights, illuminating the transformative power of art. By fostering dialogue and reflection, she sparks a profound connection between art, personal identity, and our shared human experience.
Lee, Gapcheol
(Korea)
Lee Gapcheol his career as a documentary photographer in 1984 with Yankees in the Streets, documenting the daily lives of people living alongside American soldiers in light of social phenomena. Soon after, in 1990, he released No Man's Land, which captured the chaotic period of the 80s, characterized by dictatorship and compressed growth, from a subjective point of view. Lee's gaze is deeply attached to Korean life, and his photographic style is firmly established. He made waves in the photography world in 2002 when he presented a documentary photography exhibition titled "Collision and Reaction" at the Kumho Art Museum. Lee's unique expression of shakiness, unstable compositions, out-of-focus blurs, and grainy graininess caused by strong contrasts are techniques that are rarely found in straight photography. These elements, though unintentional, inevitably became part of his own photographic language. 'Collision and Rebound' is a visual exploration of the traditional Korean way of life that is often ignored by modern Koreans.
Lee's landscapes depict Korean nature as a fundamental element that has shaped Korean sentiment since the release of Collision and Rebound, with nature as the subject. '氣', released in 2004, reflects the artist's worldview, in which he believes that it is not only people but also animals and plants, mountains and seas, sky and earth, wind and clouds that emanate vital energy. Perhaps the energy of life is not only visible on the outside, but can be felt in all life and matter that he encounters in the world. As a selected artist for the 2018 Gangwon International Biennale, the artist has been praised for his work that most clearly reveals the life and emotions of Koreans and the Korean land, and his series, "Red Mud River Mountain," which he prepared for 15 years after the announcement of "Ki," has been called a myth-busting work. It is expected to be left as a representative work of his life.
Niceaunties
(Singapore)
Niceaunties was created in 2023 by a Singaporean artist whose art series, "niceaunties," is inspired by her 11 aunties, her mother and her late grandmother. Her unique perspective on the endearing and sometimes absurd behavior of "aunties" showcases the auntie culture that is prevalent in Asian communities worldwide. Through her use of digital media and AI, Niceaunties empowers women by imagining an alternate reality where aunties can pursue their passions freely.
Mirage Bureau
(Brazil)
Mirage Bureau is consistently captivated by the extremes in their many forms and thresholds. As he navigates these boundaries, he discovers the poetry in his work. Abstract markers that are pillars of his creations stretch from the ethical limits of societal life to the constraints of human existence and the mysteries of death. The artist sparks dominant collective agreements while aiming to unveil existential closeness in his creative proposal. He contemplates the borders of time, language, desire, memory, and life. Mirage Bureau has been passionately engaged in producing art using artificial intelligence since October 2022.
JeongMee Yoon
(Korea)
Born in Seoul, South Korea in 1969, she majored in painting at Seoul National University, Seoul, photography design at Hongik University, Seoul, and studied at the School of Visual Arts, New York, USA.
As a winner of the Daum Prize in 2006, she held a successful solo exhibition at Kumho Museum of Art in South Korea, and ‘The Pink and Blue Project‘ book was published by the Parkgeonhi Foundation (Seoul, South Korea) in 2007, and 'Animal Companions' book was published by IANN publisher (Seoul, South Korea) in 2015. In 2011, She won the first Prize at The Sovereign Asian Art Prize, Hong Kong with ‘The Pink & Blue Project II’, and the Ilwoo Photography Award in Seoul, South Korea, in 2018. ‘The Pink & Blue Project’ book was published by Hatje Cantz publisher in Germany in 2018.
Yoon’s works have been illuminated not only by numerous group exhibitions at museums in Europe, USA, Asia, but also by high-profile solo exhibitions of The Pink & Blue Project showed at Gallery Inn in Seoul, South Korea, Jenkins Johnson Gallery in New York, San Francisco, and La Caja Blanca Gallery in Spain. Her works has also been collected by enterprises and both prominent museums around the world.
Through the classification of objects and colors in her photographs, Yoon creates a visual aesthetic that examines modern consumer culture in her ongoing work 'Pink and Blue Project', offering a sociological document about material possessions and peoples' connections to them. Yoon's projects, 'It Will Be a Better Day' and 'Animal Companions' are also ongoing.
Her work had been featured in LIFE Magazine cover (2007), New York Times (2008), National Geographic (2017). Her works are the collections of Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Santa Barbara Museum or Art, and Philadelphia Museum of Art etc.
Simon Lavi
(France)
"Simon Raion's photographs seduce the viewers' gaze while, at the same time, distancing us (even as the figures in the frame fluctuate between succumbing to and fighting against the frame). Raion offers us oddly stagnant scenes that appear to be overcrowded sweatshops, or isolation wards, or shantytowns, or cluttered dorm rooms, or questionable massage parlors, or industrial wastes. But we have the uncomfortable sensation that we are being confronted by the ubiquitous but unseen Other in a Sartrean universe which is our own. An Other who refuses to be color-coded into gender-specific hues or interactions. How many pink-garbed people can pile into a pink car going nowhere, in images that partake equally of Edward Hopper, Hieronymus Bosch and Marx (Brothers)." Dr. Linda C. Ehrlich
Yeondoo Jung
(Korea)
Yeondoo Jung (b. 1969, Jinju, Korea) lives and works in Seoul. Jung concentrates on photography, video, and installation works where subjects participate, performance occurs in both direct and indirect ways, and fiction and reality form an affectionate understanding of human lives. Material for Jung’s work comes from the everyday lives of people, and as he shares his intention with those involved, he plays with the boundary of visual art and performance. Some of the representative works are Evergreen Tower (2001), Bewitched (2001-), Documentary Nostalgia (2007), Cinemagician (2010), Blind Perspective (2014). Jung has been making a series of multi-channel video works documenting the personal perspectives of the people who had experienced particular socio-political incidents in recent Asian histories, such as A Girl in Tall shoes (2018), Classic and New (2018), Noise Quartet (2019). He showed at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea in 2020, Seoul Museum of Art in 2019, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo in 2019, MAC/VAL France in 2018, Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe in 2018.
Yongsuk Kang
(Korea)
Kang Yongsuk (1958-) graduated from Chung-Ang University's Department of Photography and Graduate School and Ohio University (OU) Graduate School in the United States, and has been a professor at Paekche Insititute of the Arts since 1993.
In 1999, he exhibited "From Maehyang-ri" in Seoul and Busan, and in 2003, he had an invitational exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. In 2000, he exhibited "Dongducheon Commemorative Portraits and From Maehyangri" at SK Photo Gallery, in 2009, "Korean War Monument" at Museum Hanmi, Seoul, Korea, and in 2016, "Protecting Busan" at Goeun Museum of Photography, Busan, Korea.
In 2010, He won the Dong Gang Photography Award at Dong Gang Museum of Photography. His works are in the collections of National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, Seoul Museum of Art, Dong Gang Museum of Photography, and Museum Hanmi.
The Virtuality of Photography
Exhibition Period : April 2 (Tue) - May 25 (Sat), 2024 (Closed on Sundays and Mondays)
Location : Space 55 (9-3, Jeungsan-ro 19-gil, Eunpyeong-gu, Seoul)
Opening Hours : 12:00 a.m. ~ 6:00 p.m.
Artistic Director AN Jonghyun