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Kim Tae Yeun’s oil and FRP reliefs from 2014, such as <Doing Something, 121×71×26cm>, <Brooding, 223×210×36cm>, <My ... From Myself, 86×96×17.5cm>, were filled with mysterious stains and spots. Moreover, these works show bends, ridges and downward wrinkles which imply the image of some life matter; and yet, the whole is still not revealed. There clearly was an image of some life matter, but not of any particular species.

Then, from last year, the artist has preoccupied himself with growing bacteria in order to observe the time lapse image of microorganism. He shows the structure of life matter forming bacterial group; once he added artificiality to natural life by growing microbic membrane (46×75×20cm) in 5 acrylic tanks – a biological exploration. The thin membrane is formed during the process of establishing boundaries among various organs in life matter or suspension. The artist added three circular tanks or nine 32” monitors to allow living space where microbes and seaweeds were observed; the artist awaits the birth of virtual life from those membranes.

The resources and time that the artist invests in such works is no less than any other special-material works. He also works with microbiologists to get their advice.

Here, one has to wonder why Kim continues with such works of incubating primitive life forms. The primary purpose would be to attempt genetic observation of life image so as to get a glimpse of the secrete of image emergence in nature. To this end, seeing the moment of emergence, where small life forms like bacteria reveal image over time, is about seeing the moment of creation where the artist, as an observer, partakes in the emergence of the image of nature.

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Such attempt was made possible by learning and adopting the methodology of standing culture which allows for artificial intervention. This method of culture leaves culture medium, injected with microbes, unshaken; the medium is mostly left in solid to observe the growth and differentiation of culture. The artist is thus able to observe the process of image creation by natural life form according to his intention; perfect for arbitrary transition for painting purposes.

The present exhibition uses cellulose bacteria to create image. This bacteria consists of microbic membrane from kombucha culture. Microbic membrane forms images fitting containers in which they are grown so that the artist can artificially coordinate the image as

a whole while deliberately inserting various negative spaces in order to attain a desired image of virtual life. Here, the creation of image using bacteria adopts a biological technique which is great as a creative medium if used as a means of pure visual appearance.

Suzanne K. Langer in Problems of Art stated how images of this nature can attain aesthetic semblance and pure poetic quality: Even if not purely visual, an image attains a poetic virtuality as long as it has irresistible connotation which visualness allows. This is clearly not an image of existing matter, but as an artificial product and virtual object which has pure appearance, it is a work of art; for it is wholly creative.1

Langer’s claim anticipates concerns that Kim’s images, as they are scientific products, may lie beyond the boundary of art. What is important is that Kim’s images have ‘irresistible connotation and virtual objecthood’ and as such are the works of art even if they are scientific in nature. This implies that Kim’s adaptation of scientific methodology in life emergence process is not just a byproduct of a scientific experiment. Here, this is just another aspect of our representation of nature.

The author wishes to add another important fact; Kim’s images are not like naturalist illusions and virtual images found in modernist abstraction or pre-modern idealism. This is because his images come from time lapse capturing the moment of image emergence. Here, emergence literally refers to an object’s transition of phase; it is a sudden phase transition which does not allow the intervention of our ideas or intentions. This phenomenon shares the motivation of trans-idea which our agency cannot violate – like virtual reality. As such, Kim’s works are completely different from images or illusions based on modernist idealism. In other words, Kim’s art should be clearly distinguished from the space lapse of George Berkeley (1685-1753) or idealistic virtual space of G. W. F. Hegel (1770-1831).

Kim’s recent works show an intention to transition the mysterious process of time lapse, caused by life emergence, into an image. This can be said to be the first of its kind, beginning from that knock on the boundary between life and image, based on virtual reality and life emergence theory which have come about in the present era. Kim was quick to capture this and he should be praised for achieving the fruits of his experimentation. However, the images and illusion which Kim has produced of the late should be differentiated from surrealism

or other attempts at idealist expression during the last century. This is only possible by perceiving the image caused by life emergence. Thus the artist’s image and illusion should be distinguished from those which were led by the agency of reason. This is also why Kim’s works come across as fresh surprise.

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If images created by life time lapse emergence assume a new significance, that will mean a major revision of the prejudice of the past which understood image in art as being about sensual expression and spatial externalization of ideas. Image from life emergence, on the boundary of virtual life, cannot be approached under those concepts. Here, Kim’s recent images should be understood in a completely new light. The following advances addition discussions on this point.

The essence lies in combing image with illusion based on life emergence. In the west, over 800 years of tradition, running from Renaissance to modernism, began from the maximization of illusion through the strengthening of image to complete elimination of illusion through de-centrification of image; it has been a long journey. The previous century was the last leg of that journey where image was removed to complete that process of reduction.

In this context, the art of the 21st century must address the issue of how to inversely restore the zero-sum of illusion as found in minimalism. To that end, on one hand, we must overcome the simple realism of Newtonian sensualism which has so long dominated our world from pre-modern to modern times; on the other, we must also overcome subjectivity- centrism, based on a theory of ego, which was too fixated on agency and reached its peak in modernism. 21st century thus presents a critical era during which critical realism should be revived. Only then can the virtual realism of today stand firm on that foundation. To this end, post-modern anti-foundationism, which has been recklessly expanding over the last half century, should be put on a new foundation as well. The key is in finding a comprehensive realism which can embrace virtual reality today.

Realizing that the critical issue in this thesis is virtual reality would lead one to the alternative of critical realism. To get this right, holonomic realism, which embraces the holography of Newtonian realism of the previous century and the quantum theory of the present century, should be accepted. This is necessary for appropriate reception of Kim’s virtual image and illusion. In particular, the two aspects should be embraced to accept the hologram implied by Kim’s images based on the time lapse process of bacterial membrane structure and its exterior as well as the subatomic subquantal phase of microscopic cells.

Similar precedents can be found in the physicist Heisenberg’s pioneering work Physics and Philosophy as well as David Bohm’s and B. Hiley’s paper ‘On the Intuitive Understanding of Nonlocality as Implied by Quantum Theory.’2 According to their theoretical physics, our quintessential existence in universe is interconnection among indivisible quantum. Newton’s classical mechanics of independent parts, in this light, is only a coincidence. They conclude that the inter-connected network of particles, derived from the world view of contemporary quantum theory, is the real existence and the essence of image each object externalized. Thus the structure process of seeing the exterior of object and the holographic processes of micro-world residing in the interior are methodologically differentiated. Here, a Copernican understanding is put forward, namely that the latter determines the former. In today’s terms, the virtual existence and virtual reality of the former are real; the external appearance is merely coincidental and nonessential.

Based on this, we return to Kim’s recent works. Here, the visual and extrinsic membrane structure and nonvisual, intrinsic micro- structure are differentiated as coincidence and necessity, respectively. The former is the circular or torn membrane forms in the exterior of Kim’s image. These are without exception external, nonessential and coincidental. These are caused by the network structure of micro- cells, the main body of virtual reality within. This network creates the external image of Kim’s works. If the latter determines the former, time lapse which establishes this process and the exterior of life forms emerging from it would necessarily assume a virtual reality.

Virtual reality creates external image; external image creates and accompanies ever- changing illusion in time lapse. Here, the process of Kim’s life emergence necessarily accompanies virtual image and illusion. This is when hyperimmediacy is caused. The psychologist H. Pribram speaks thus:

The exterior of object is determined through optical information processing; our final perception leads the process. What internally coordinates this external process is brain system. Here, the central nerve system in the brain creates hologram and our eyes perceive the image and illusion of objects in information process. 3

Ultimately, the emergence of Kim’s life image necessarily effects the virtuality of image; illusion is necessarily accompanied in the

process. Here, as micro-structure as virtual reality, through hologram, ultimately determines the form of external structure. Pierre Levy’s claim that virtual reality establishes existence sounds convincing.4

Kim’s recent works form the exterior of membrane structure through hologram caused by bacterial micro-structure; but he was able

to artificially coordinate this because of the virtual reality of internal membrane structure of bacteria. Moreover, the artist’s image could assume pure visual value and aesthetic illusion, after Langer’s thesis, thanks to the authority and power of virtual reality. If his is correct, critical realism is the key to logic and basis of Kim’s bio-image deriving from time lapse process.

1. Suzanne K. Langer, Problems of Art, New York : Charles Scribner’s sons, 1957, p.148

2. W. Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy, London : Allen & Unwin, 1963, p.96

David Bohm and B. Hiley, ‘On the Intuiitive Understanding of Nonlocality as Implied by Quantum Theory’. Foundations of physics, vol. 5, 1975.

3. Earl H. Pribram, ‘Holomomy and Structure in the Organization of Perception’, J. M. Nicholas, ed. Image, Perception, and Knowledge. Dordrecht-Holland : D. Reidel, 1957, p.185

4. Pierre Lévy, Becoming Virtual Reality in the Digital Age, trans. R. Bononno, New York : P. Trade, 1998, pp.15-17

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