"빽빽한 숲은 공간을 교란하며 길게 목을 빼 죽음과 뒤엉킨다. / 바람도 멈춘 창백한 구역. / 오래된 풀들이 베어나간 자리에 더 짙은 녹음이 빛을 발하면 / 생명을 가진 모든 것들은 소리 없이 탄식한다. / 숲은 힘없이 굳건한 자기 이미지를 무너뜨린다. / 훼손당한 녹색 / 볼 수 없는 눈 / 무언가를 추가해 되돌아오는 짙은 풍경."

생명과 안식과 쉼으로 대표되는 녹색은 가장 자연스러운 색, 자연을 닮고 모방한 색, 자연과 동일시되는 색이다. 오늘날 녹색이 인간에게 쾌적한 느낌을 주는 것은 그것이 자연 그 자체이기 때문이 아니라 이미 문명 속에 포섭된 자연, 곧 문명화된 자연이기 때문이다. 『녹색 에코』展은 자본이 제공하는 나무, 숲의 이미지를 우리에게 주어진 가장 자연스러운 환경으로 설정하고 이 인공화원에서 시대의 자화상을 구현하려는 구상이다. 녹색은 우리가 태어나 맞부딪힌 운명의 세계처럼 처음부터 우리에게 주어진 세계, 우리 삶에 피부처럼 들러붙은 가장 자연스러운 자본시스템을 은유하며 유토피아적 이미지와 이상화된 삶을 대리한다.

이런 녹색이 에코를 가지고 있다면 어떤 소리일까? 에코는 메아리로 단순 반복의 울림이다. 하지만 에코가 말하는 자의 입에서 떠나 공기를 휘게 하고 무언가에 부딪혀 다시 발화자에게 돌아오는 변형된 소리라면 어떨까? 포착되지 않던 수많은 것들과 합쳐진 소리이며 왜곡되고 더럽혀진 전혀 다른 소리라면? 들을만한 소리로만 구성되길 원하는 우리 삶의 하울링이라면? 증폭되어 되돌아오는 불쾌한 하울링이 음향시스템에 구성적인 것처럼 삶에서 우리가 제거한 것들의 이야기는 우리 삶에 구성적일 것이다.

녹색이 자연을 넘어서는 시점의 풍경, 인공지능이 인간을 넘어서는 질적 도약의 시점인 특이점처럼 가장 자연스러운 스펙터클인 '녹색 자연'이 '자연'을 초월하는 지점의 풍경을 상상해본다. 눈앞에 엄연히 존재하고 있는 현실의 숲에서 그 붕괴를 암시하는 흐느적거리는 현상을 목도하는 것, 그럴듯하게 봉합한 현실의 풍경이 균열하는 이런 순간에 대한 관찰은 전혀 다른 논리의 다양성이 넘실거리는 세계에 대한 발견일 것이다. ■ 이샛별


An echo is a reverberation. An echo is a sound wave that returns with sufficient amplitude and definite delay in time resulting from reflection. It is generated only by someone's action and it comes back to the speaker after being reflected off something. If there is no speaker, there is no reverberation. An echo is a sound that cannot exist autonomously. Then, is an echo a non-subjective sound? Is it merely an isolated reverberation that faintly repeats the speaker's words?

Echo, a mountain nymph in Greek mythology who fell in love with Narcissus but roused the anger of a goddess and was punished to exist only in her voice, is a bodiless voice that continues to wander. The story of Echo, falling in love with a man who was fascinated by his own reflection and eternally shut up in a prison which was himself, and losing her own body, is quite ironic. Narcissus fell in love with himself and thus could not accept love from another person. Echo, in her desperation, lost her physical body through which she could prove her existence and was left as a voice that wanders forever.

If we see echo as merely a reverberation, it is just a simple repetition of sound that comes back to us. However, what if we say it is a transformed sound that leaves the mouth of the speaker, bends the air, and returns to the speaker after being reflected off something? What if we say it is a sound newly created through reverberation, which returns in a separate bandwidth? What if the sound of repeating the words of others was the only autonomous action of Echo, the nymph who intrudes into and contaminates the voice of the speaker and returns a sound that has not been explained? What if it is a sound combined with countless things that have not been captured by our eyes or ears from where the speech was made, added with things other than what the subject uttered, distorted, tainted and transformed to the degree of making it impossible to recognize the original source? What if we consider it as the reverberation of the voices of those who have disappeared without their own shares and also after-effects of an event? What if it is the howling of our lives which we want to consist of hearable sounds? What would it be like, if the space itself plays the role of amplifying certain bandwidths of sounds that we blurt out? Howling, the sound that continues to be added unnecessarily to the complete sound with a clear meaning, and the sound that changes the input in the input/output system due to the output, is a feedback. It is an endless loop of input and output of something added and distorted to the original sound on its return.

The color green is added to the echo that is transformed and returns. Considered the most natural color, green was once seen negatively as a color that imitated nature, but today, it represents an idealized life beyond nature. It's been a long time since green became the trend and most favored alternative. The color requires more and more capital and the price for maintaining it continues to weigh on us. Our words, actions and thoughts do not stay stagnant. They have echoes that will come back to us, and the feedbacks, which eternally alter our words, actions, and thoughts, will be repeated endlessly.

What is the echo of the color green? If green comes back as an echo, which color, shape and sound will it assume? Fresh and vivid green, which is like a zombie that does not realize its own death and repeats to rise from its grave, reveals itself in a huge, terrifying form ceaselessly adding numerous different things to itself. If we lift its thin skin, there should be bright red lumps of death made of flesh filled with pus, sticky blood and frayed muscles. In a world where only those adapted to neoliberalism survive, it is attempted to present the echoes of genuine desire, the stories of things removed for the color green to stay green, to our dreadful inertia of trying to make life tolerable while not changing anything fundamental. The exhibition focuses on showing hollow people who create green howling, or the color green that comes back to us as an echo. Just as the unpleasant howling that is amplified and returns is constructive to the sound system, the stories of things that we removed from life are constructive to our lives. What is important definitely comes back, no matter how hard you try to conceal, hide or deny it. What you have suppressed not to see may not show, but it has not disappeared. It ultimately returns to your life. ■ LI Setbyul

전시제목이샛별: 녹색에코 Green Echo

전시기간2018.10.26(금) - 2018.11.12(월)

참여작가 이샛별

초대일시2018년 10월26일 금요일 05:00pm

관람시간11:30am - 06:30pm

휴관일월요일 휴관

장르회화

관람료무료

장소아트비트 갤러리 ARTBIT GALLERY (서울 종로구 율곡로3길 74-13 (화동) )

후원문화체육관광부_서울특별시_서울문화재단

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