Kim Ayoung

A sequel to "Porosity Valley, Portable Holes" (2017), this piece expands upon the previous work through a fictionalized depiction of the migration of the migrant/mineral/data cluster known as Petra Genetrix. Juxtaposing refugee migration with digital migration, both of which characterize migration in the 21st century, the work creates a speculative space-time by interrogating the “ways of existence” and the “ways of representation” of the Yemeni refugees who recently arrived in South Korea. Reflected here is the state of affairs in which refugees are treated as a kind of malware or virus that threaten the immune system of the nation state.

Ayoung Kim’s enchanting film Petrogenesis, Petra Genetrix (2019) takes the viewer on a journey through hyperbolic mythology based on a fictional genderless mineral Petra Genetrix. Through this character, Kim explores the Mongolian animist belief that positions land, mother rock, stones, and sacred caves at the center of their universe. By likening rocks and stones as the Earth’s memory storage vessel, the work illuminates the futurist potential of animism: “Quartz can be considered to be a type of natural computer since it absorbs and stores a large amount of energy“. The traditional spirituality oriented towards land or ancient animism reveals the potential equivalence between primeval objects and the futuristic memory sphere.

In the wake of climate change and depletion of natural resources, eco-friendly bio-fuels have become the main energy source. In Busan, Surisol Underwater Lab, which manages biomass fuels, is established. Sohila, a researcher, hears bad news from AI Surisol and goes out to conduct reconnaissance in the waters in question.

No longer ordinary couriers, Ernst Mo and En Storm transport something far more abstract and fundamental – the “time”. Across deserts, cities and different dimensions, they join a multiverse resistance, battling the algorithm seeking to flatten time in favour of productivity. Traversing different calendar mechanics and astronomical technologies, they’re tangled in networks of space and time that contradict and collide with each other.

Ernst Mo works for courier service Delivery Dancer. Every day, she transports an endless stream of parcels, following algorithmically generated routes through a labyrinthine Seoul. After she runs into an alternative version of herself, her reality slowly starts to crack – with all the attendant consequences. In her own unique style, artist Ayoung Kim creates a fascinating and pretty disturbing world.

three-channel video installation that continues the story of Ernst Mo from Delivery Dancer's Sphere

Through the character of quasi-mythical genderless entity Petra Genetrix, this work questions the coming of our future selves, our data-selves, when in need of shelter.