Q.E.D., a formal Latin notation used at the end of a proof, is short for quod erat demonstrandum, meaning “which was to be demonstrated.” This notation is nowadays replaced by symbols including an empty square and a filled square. The notation of Q.E.D. at the end of a mathematical proof is meaningful: what has been proven must be shown.

Perspective grants authority to the appropriateness of seeing. The space constructed within a perspective system objectifies the subjective, systemizes the outside world, and rationalizes the realm of celestial truth within the human realm¹⁾ . Literary scholar and media theorist Friedrich Kittler once raised the question of why perspective, which imbued paintings with geometric order and effective illusions, did not dominate images until it did, from a well-defined point in time.²⁾ Varying arguments and historical facts are necessary to answer this question, but the answer boils down to the fact that humans are physical beings with eyes. Because the human eye cannot perfectly follow the geometric order that underlies reality, perspective had to be conceived at some point in history. On one hand, perspective works as a symbolic form, but on the other hand, it does not consider the difference between the physical reality reflected on the retina and the visual reality reflected on the mind.³⁾

〈Times〉, 2019 - 2020, paint on canvas, 139 x 139 cm. Image Provided by MMCA Residency Goyang

Let us turn our gazes for a moment to the picture of the black hole taken by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), the visualization process of which was a physics feat. Using eight radio telescopes spread out across six regions of the globe, the EHT captured radio signals from the black hole at the center of M87, a massive galaxy in the Virgo galaxy cluster. Astronomers successfully visualized the acquired information using computer algorithms. For a very long time, black holes will be represented as blurry orange-colored spherical objects containing a black void. The question of why the radio signals needed to be visualized must be asked. Visible light occupies a tiny portion within the electromagnetic spectrum of wavelengths, which ranges from radio waves to gamma rays. Because the human eye cannot directly observe radio waves, information must be converted into a more accessible form, and this process requires much time and funds. The human eye as we know it has no role in the operation of a telescope that captures radio waves from a black hole 55 million light-years away, a network that connects multiple telescopes, and the algorithm that retraces captured radio waves to visualize the data. Divested of its role as an input device, the human eye serves as an inspection device at best. But even after the eye’s status is demoted, the rule that what is proven must be demonstrated stands.

〈Perpetual Motion〉, 2019 - 2020, paint on canvas, 97 x 194 cm each. (6) (installation: each 1.54x3.88m). Imgae Provided by MMCA Residency Goyang

Rahm Parc has worked in performance art since 〈1st Drawing Exercise 〉(2014). Her compositions vary according to space and environment, but the main idea of Parc’s work has been to create instructions for “drawing practice” and guide participants to form images and sense time and space differently in the process. Parc began to integrate these performance methods into the realm of painting media in the exhibition 《Roll and leaP: 2008–2019》 (2019), and this idea continued in her 2020 solo exhibition, 《Times》. Rahm Parc draws using spreadsheet software, and the resulting design becomes the basis of her painting. Due to the nature of the software, which facilitates automated analysis and computation of data from a table format, the resulting images are rather strict and geometric. Because Parc’s paintings reveal the grid structure particular to the software, the viewer can guess the working logic behind the automated computation. On top of the grid structure, a particular image recalls perpetual motion powered by the exchange of computational results (〈Perpetual Motion〉), and another reconstructs the semiotic order from the sensory dimension (〈Times〉). Two art objects of contrasting sizes, both titled 〈Eye-Finger〉, were exhibited in the two halves of the exhibit space, showing the scale of a changing space and serving to create an imaginary sensory environment. On display in Times were two paintings that were produced following the grid structure of the spreadsheet program, but which showed somewhat arbitrary compositions. The two representationally titled examples seemed to be representational experiments implemented according to a logic presumed in the exhibition (〈Dam〉 and 〈Stairway〉). In 《Times》, painting serves many roles and functions. It is an index, a language as a system of arbitrary rules, and a score that suggests performance. Extending further, it serves as a kind of perspective. In that painting is a visual guideline that leads the viewer to surmise infinity from finiteness, and that it is a process that systemizes, demonstrates, and proves the world, or the time-space, it can work as a kind of perspective.

Rahm Parc offered me several clues and internal rules that explain her work, and the EHT-produced black hole image was one of them. Assuming the eye as an input device, classical perspective constructs the world as a grid, gathers lines to create vanishing points, and completes an illusion. However, in the perspective of 《Times》, vanishing points either do not exist or appear almost nonexistent because they are in perpetual motion. On the automated grid of the spreadsheet program, the perspective of 《Times》 converts vanishing points into movement, then becomes flat and permanent at once. Perhaps this perspective assumes the changed status of the eye, while being conscious of the eye’s persistent intuition, which is not easily expunged. What is proven must still be demonstrated. However, those who experience the performances in 《Times》 will see the world anew, following the permanent vanishing points. The perpetual motion of seeing will be created in the repetition of seeing and seeing again, and in this way, rules can be overturned: what is demonstrated may soon be proven.

1)Erwin Panofsky, 『Perspective as Symbolic Form』, trans. Sim Cheol-min (Seoul: B Books, 2014), 65.
2)Friedrich Kittler, 『Optical Media』, trans. Yoon Won-hwa (Seoul: Hyunsilbook, 2011), 81.
3)Panofsky, 『Perspective as a Symbolic Form』, 13.

※ This content was first published in 『2020 MMCA Residency Goyang: A Collection of Critical Reviews』, and re-published here with the consent of MMCA Goyang Residency

Jaemin Hwang

Art critic who interested in Art as an Old Media or the condition of Art that is reductive to the Old Media. Participated in the editing of 『호버링 텍스트(Hovering Text)』(2019) and Produced online art project 《Painters by Painters ‘18》(2018), which interviewed 20 Korean painting artists.