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Creating a fresh web page, Jun Hyoung San wrote these words at the gateway: “These works with sound remind us of our collective memory in society.” This statement represents the objective behind Jun’s work. Considering perception to be something that comes from memory and recognizing it as a way to create his own real/present images, the artist uses sound as the chief medium for his work. However, in contrast with other sound art, he does not emphasize the aspect of listening with the ears, instead aspiring to create a new chemical space and time with personal memories as the auditory language of sound joins the visual and formative language of installations. Within this space and time, he leads viewers to face his truth. The spaces and times that he creates are internal spaces in which only the artist exists as well as expanded present spaces that belong to their era and society.

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Twenty-one years after the world passed into a second millennium, Jun cuts wood and joins wire as though it were the end of the 19th century. Rendering the devices that he conceives in rigid yet deeply indifferent ways, he rejects slick, stereotyped forms and takes care to avoid leaving any marks of the artificial on the coarse and crude. His greatest talent lies in shutting down the decorative and refined as he tailors his works to the stage that he desires. His answers to my various questions were unique and meaningful responses that I had never heard before.

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an infinitesimal speck, 2021, sound installation, mixed media ; counters 60ea, wood, solenoid, MCU module, 35,000x120x160mm. Courtesy of the artist

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Q.
In your recent work an infinitesimal speck, the viewer’s eye is captured not just by the 60 counters in the foreground but also the long tangle of dangling wires. In it, you’re showing the viewer machines and methods that you’ve devised, and it feels like this nuance of somewhat bluntly addressing the viewer is one of the defining aspects of your work. Could you talk about how this work was designed, and also whether you agree with this take?

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I’m someone who always thinks about what sort of work is really “me” whenever I start a project, and I think the two elements of “devices that make sounds” and “analog sensibility” have a powerful hold on me. To begin with, I don’t use recording or playback devices to create my devices that make sounds, so the machinery ends up being complex. It might be easier and more effective to use a computer, but I create sounds through physical, analog methods. When one uses recorded sound, there needs to be a suitable conceptual or explanatory reason and justification for doing so, and I’ve yet to find any clear basis. The analog aspect does largely reflect my own preferences for artwork, but another reason behind it has to do with the difficulty an artist faces when trying to keep up with the pace of technological development. So rather than trying to chase technology, I made up my mind to go in the other direction. That’s how an infinitesimal speck was produced. I found the clacking sounds of the counters appealing, and I felt like there needed to be regular sounds throughout the exhibition setting. The work is already complex enough with the necessary devices there.

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Q.
You are often associated with “non-musical sounds” and “noise.” I’m curious how you define the sounds produced by the mechanical devices you make, and whether those sounds possess their own authority or if you’re manipulating them to make them clearer.

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Each work’s composition depends on its content, but in most cases the sounds that are produced are created by the mechanical devices themselves. My role is that of directing the constructions and variations of sound under the concept of “production and composition of non-musical sound.” That may be the extent of my involvement as an artist. Of course, when I’m creating my work, I focus on producing it so that the sounds I’d like to come out are made. But I’m definitely not going out of my way to make noises, and I don’t think the machine necessarily has to operate on its own. As I try to design a structure where the machine makes or transforms its sounds, the machine starts to operate, and the sounds become noisier. (In this sense, I may be neither a kinetic artist nor a sound artist.) The non-musical sounds and noises that my machines produce represent me as a non-mainstream artist, and they also function as the sounds of all marginalized beings. I believe that the cries that people try to ignore can come together to create a message, and I try to show with my work how all sorts of values and meanings can arise even within something like noise. So for me, the different sounds that the machines produce and the way in which they exist are a matter of critique and a tool of possibility that brings out a new sort of perceptive expansion.

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a priori bits #3; Radius, 2014, sound installation, mixed media; radio receiver , transmitter, typewriter, coil, motor, speakers , etc.., dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist

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Trap of Balance #1; High-voice, low-voice, 2021, sound installation, mixed media ; motor, sound-ball module, wood, scaffold, lighting, speaker, 5,500x650x3,400mm. Courtesy of the artist

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Q.
In contrast with your solo exhibition Reverberation Time in 2018, the work of the exhibition Theater of Voices in 2021 features relatively monotonous devices. This gave the artwork the sense that it was more powerfully in control of the space. When you work to evoke analog nostalgia, what aspects do you focus on the most? How do you see your work as evolving (or changing)?

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My work has progressed through development stages that have gone by the three project names of “Incomplete Truth,” “Irresistible Perception” and “A Priori Bits.” Reverberation Time was the last part of my “A Priori Bits” project. This project involved many different layers of meaning: (1) the meaning and value of noise and the process of its realization as a medium; (2) the process of existence within social systems through mechanical structures; (3) the process of communication through the relationship between transmitter and receiver, or between listening and the production of sounds that do not function nor hold meaning without a listener; (4) the process of creating music through the narrative structuring of sound; and (5) the process of expanding perception through movements of sound. The project operated in very complex ways— nothing was included without some meaning. In this sense, the peaks and troughs may vary depending on from where the project is viewed. In contrast, something like Theater of Voices, in which I presented my new work Trap of Balance, adopts a simple structure where all of the meanings and functions are compressed into tiny “sound balls.” The aim behind those sound balls is to achieve subjectivity through the movement and temporality of sound, and to lead us to confront the ongoing stimuli and questions within the surrounding environment. In this sense, I’m hoping to evolve this work further into a project titled “Absolute Future and Closed Time.”

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Q.
You produce your mechanical devices that create conceptualized sounds yourself, yet you also try as much as possible to avoid recorded sounds or sounds that conflict with the “present.” What is your reason for this?

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It’s not that I won’t ever use recorded sound in my work. I selectively use methods of producing sounds based on what is needed in terms of the content. However, it is true that I am quite reluctant to use recorded sound. These days, there are all sorts of ways to produce music and sounds on the computer; it’s like anyone can be a musician. Yet I use difficult means of creating sounds. This has to do with the reason I stated earlier: there are so many different sounds in this world, and I’ve yet to find my own justification for conveying something through recorded sounds. Of course, I’m not really sure if every sound in concrete music possesses meaning. Even in the case of music, it’s not as though every note holds meaning. What matters is the meaning created by the composition, which may have ample reason behind its conveyance of emotion. But in the case of my work - which resembles installation art when it is put into place - there are complex layers of interpretation in terms of signs, metaphors, and symbols, and the non-musical sounds and noises that I create hold justification enough for me in relation to the existential sense of “me” within social systems. Also, depending on how sound is used, it can end up limiting one’s imagination with fixed meanings when it is read directly, as if representing some propagandistic message. While I try to use sound in a way that’s suited to the message I want to share, I don’t want it to simply be an auditory experience with a fixed meaning. If my goal is to have noises operate as a medium in my work within the larger category of “non-musical sound,” it ends up a matter of input (x) and output (y), or one of reception and transmission. My work raises issues in a way that positions sound and machinery as if parts of a function with an f (x) relationship and I want the viewer to explore that sound in terms of new meaning (y).

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suspension of disbelief #1; void, 2018, sound installation, mixed media; motor, speakers, AMP, scanner, printer, light sensors, sound module, etc… ,1400x600x1800mm. Courtesy of the artist

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Q.
Beyond the aura of the individual works themselves, it seems like you clearly calculate and predict what sort of interactions your works will have with the space they occupy, with the other artwork, and with time. Because of your robust crafting and staging, it seems like you’re often asked about narrative. How would you express the narrative in your work?

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The narrative in my work is always a big matter to deal with. I have always spent a lot of time trying to locate the “input” in the functional relationship I described before. It’s not always easy to find this, though. If I’m using something like data or a source as an input in my work, I need a clear reason for it to create a message as it joins the machinery. I see this chain of meaning as “narrative,” and it’s a piece of advice I sometimes recall when the reason for that input isn’t clear. But in my work, it’s my personal experiences that come together to form the whole and shape the narrative. My experiences are going to continue into the future. It’s my story, and it’s also our story.

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Q.
As an artist who “expresses the energy movements of the universe in visual and auditory ways,” I’m curious what topics currently interest you and what sort of work you’re planning for the future.

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The current focus in my work is on researching the relationship among sound, space, and time. I’m also experimenting with a “tesseract sequencer,” which involves sequential interactions of dimensions based on the combination of temporal and spatial elements in the relationship between “sound” and “sculpture.” Forms and content based on the movement of sound form new spaces, and structured sounds lead us to imagine “momentary time travel” within our visual and auditory experience. As our artistic imagination combines with the three-dimensional sound information that enters our sensory organs in space, we come to perceive space in unique ways and experience a form of play within random and undefined time. This work is part of the project I referred to before as “Absolute Future and Closed Time,” and I’m planning to continue exploring psychological responses to the relationship between the viewer and their environment through it.

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Q.
How would you describe yourself as an artist?

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Reckless! The more I work, the more unclear I am about what “art” is. But I think the biggest weapon in my artwork is the reckless effort to turn imagination into reality. My work involves creating minimal effects with maximum effort, and while it may appear inefficient, I trust in and enjoy the power of that labor. It’s not that people can’t do this kind of work, it’s that you don’t see it because people don’t see the need to go to such lengths. I think that’s what makes my work unique, and I plan to continue devoting my energy to it.

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※ This content was first published in 『2021 MMCA Goyang Residency Program Catalogue』, and re-published here with the consent of MMCA Goyang.