biography
Jaehun Park is a digital-sculptor, animator, and simulator. He utilizes three-dimensional computer graphic animation to reveal fabricated reality in the virtual space. His work was influenced by this money-driven odd psychological infrastructure and mass-produced objects. In his animation, he deeply reflects on ordinary objects and space related to the ritual structure of post-capitalism and consumerism.
Jaehun Park’s virtual works deal with current problematic events on Earth by zooming in on cleverly chosen metaphors and objects. In his simulated video works, he translates physical substance using 3D scanning technology into virtual substance, such as polygon structures and point cloud systems (a set of data points in space). He uses hyper-realistic 3D rendering to stage mass-produced objects – as vessels of capitalistic ideology – in an abandoned digital space or to situate them in ‘ritualistic’ installations depicting impossible natural phenomena.
The different kinds of staged objects depict dark Korean histories, but also violent histories of the entire human race. Moreover, these by-products of a hyper-capitalistic, machine-driven civilization and symbols of war unfold in a virtual hellscape – a place inhabited by ready-made 3D digital objects as well as instruments of torture and tortured humans. A seemingly unreal landscape; perhaps closer to the reality of our time than we wish to believe.
Park doesn’t shy away from anything in his work. With his simulation algorithms, manipulated and staged virtual landscapes, and installations, he reveals the tip of the real world – oversaturated by hideous and glorious moments of capitalism. Desire, vanity, guilt, irrationality, and indebtedness become resources in the ‘ritual’ space of capitalism. The concept of hell doesn’t manifest itself after death, but here in this hellish reality.
Jaehun Park (1986, South Korea) lives and works in Amsterdam and Seoul. Graduated from the Department of Painting (BFA, MFA) at Seoul National University and Master Artistic Research at the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague. Recent exhibitions include Topographic Atlas, JAN Museum, Amstelveen (2022), Art and Peace: Let us begin again from zero o’clock, Ulsan Art Museum, Ulsan (2022), Alternative Space Loop Seoul (2021), Sign Project Space Groningen (2021), Photo Basel (2021), Unseen Amsterdam (2021), Project Space 1646 The Hague (2019), and Artspace O Seoul (2016). His work is part of several collections including Amstelveen Municipal Art Collection, Normec, The Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture, Korea Institute for Advanced Study and the Seoul National University Health Service Center.
