Sound
carved flag
2021
<carved flag>
<carved flag> is the first layer of archiving for a performance that is yet to come—a preliminary record toward a secondary, performative outcome. Movements that originate within the body travel outward through the hands, transforming into external events. These gestures are documented using a combination of visual scores and gayageum playing techniques. The records take the shape of flags, inspired by the iconography and immediacy of Asafo flags.
Through an interactive website, audience members select a flag image of their choice, which is then physically mailed to their homes. In this process—where the foundational archive of a work enters the private space of the audience—the boundaries and roles between artwork and viewer begin to shift. The project becomes an inquiry into the relational reconstitution of artistic material and its recipient.
Jo approaches the gayageum not through conventional pitch-based tuning, but through a deep focus on techniques—the embodied ways of engaging the instrument. The gayageum becomes a miniature stage, the hand’s motion its choreography. The drawn score becomes yet another intimate stage where the performance unfolds.
This is a collaborative work between Seonah Jo, who traces and documents the playing techniques of the gayageum, and Daeun Jang, who records and interprets bodily movements. Together, they explore how thought transforms into motion, into events, and back into somatic sensation. They ask: Where does human movement emerge from in contemporary life?
Jo records specific sites of playing on the gayageum and passes them on to Jang, who receives these markings without additional context. Jang interprets them through gesture, symbol, or language—translating technique into visual flags. These flags, while visually legible and symbolically rich in the style of Asafo flags, conceal the performative codes they contain. To the viewer, they may appear as simple fragments of cloth—holding hidden meanings only accessible to those who know how to read them.
☞ video
☞ sound
Planning | Jang Daeun, Jo Seon Ah
Flag | Jang Daeun
Sound | Jo Seon Ah
Web production | Kim Byeong Seok
Photo | Soma Kim
Support | Arts Council Korea
<carved flag> is the first layer of archiving for a performance that is yet to come—a preliminary record toward a secondary, performative outcome. Movements that originate within the body travel outward through the hands, transforming into external events. These gestures are documented using a combination of visual scores and gayageum playing techniques. The records take the shape of flags, inspired by the iconography and immediacy of Asafo flags.
Through an interactive website, audience members select a flag image of their choice, which is then physically mailed to their homes. In this process—where the foundational archive of a work enters the private space of the audience—the boundaries and roles between artwork and viewer begin to shift. The project becomes an inquiry into the relational reconstitution of artistic material and its recipient.
Jo approaches the gayageum not through conventional pitch-based tuning, but through a deep focus on techniques—the embodied ways of engaging the instrument. The gayageum becomes a miniature stage, the hand’s motion its choreography. The drawn score becomes yet another intimate stage where the performance unfolds.
This is a collaborative work between Seonah Jo, who traces and documents the playing techniques of the gayageum, and Daeun Jang, who records and interprets bodily movements. Together, they explore how thought transforms into motion, into events, and back into somatic sensation. They ask: Where does human movement emerge from in contemporary life?
Jo records specific sites of playing on the gayageum and passes them on to Jang, who receives these markings without additional context. Jang interprets them through gesture, symbol, or language—translating technique into visual flags. These flags, while visually legible and symbolically rich in the style of Asafo flags, conceal the performative codes they contain. To the viewer, they may appear as simple fragments of cloth—holding hidden meanings only accessible to those who know how to read them.
☞ video
☞ sound
Planning | Jang Daeun, Jo Seon Ah
Flag | Jang Daeun
Sound | Jo Seon Ah
Web production | Kim Byeong Seok
Photo | Soma Kim
Support | Arts Council Korea