Reality Errors

Artists: American Artist, Cao Fei, eobchae, Hyesoo Park, Jung Seung, Matthieu Cherubini, Sejin Kim, Sookyun Yang, Wesley Goatley, Yunchul Kim

Curator Kwonjin Cho

Nam June Paik Art Center presents Reality Errors from September 24, 2020 to January 31, 2021. Through the works of contemporary artists, the exhibition speculates on the near future where the pace of technological advancement would outstrip human comprehension, seeking ways to coexist with diverse alterities such as machines.

The title Reality Errors is a layered reference; while instantiating the lived experience of our future wherein a wide range of alterities would become part of our daily interaction, it also aspires to the vision of embracing the extraordinary. Humanity’s pursuit of technological advancement envisions utopia as its objective, but also momentum. Dreams of such futures, however, tend to remain abstract and ambiguous despite their emphasis on the magnitude and speed of success, effect, or intelligence as shown in expressions like “faster,” “smarter,” and more “powerful” or “convenient.” The process of technological development must progress apace with axiological shifts and ethical inquiries as it undergoes a complex matrix of phases, but such values are oft cast aside or omitted.

The artists participating in this exhibition turn their eyes to issues of responsibility and will—values we should have repeatedly face in our daily lives as a teleological accompaniment, yet were lost in our oscillation between obligations and negligence. They intuit that the resultant errors, mistakes, and follies will bring the same problems from past and present back to life, summoning them to reflect new situations and exacerbated challenges. In capturing omens of an anxious future, the artists remind us that the inevitability of unjust consequences will first befall the subaltern, and expose the uncanny truths before our eyes to lift the veil of complacency.

Reality Errors grounds its departure point in pursuits of future coexistence through the inquiries the artists pose, illuminating the ethical and social issues that we have left behind in the throes of technological advancement. The quest to feel out a new future that instantiates these inquiries will extend our purview to what lies beyond reality—in the realm of the extraordinary.

Organized and Hosted by Nam June Paik Art Center