Artience Daejeon (KRISS)
2018. 6. 1. ~ 2018. 11. 30.
Artience Daejeon is an art/science convergence residency program designed by the government-funded Daejeon Culture and Arts Foundation. The name ‘artience’ is a portmanteau of 'art’ and ‘science,’ and the residency is built upon the research infrastructure of Daejeon City’s Daedeok Innopolis Foundation. In 2018, CheolWon Chang won a place in this residency project and moved into the Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS), a national institute of South Korea. KRISS owns the technology to measure the standards of seven basic physical units: length (m), weight (kg), time (S), electric current (A), temperature (T), mass (mol), and luminous intensity (cd). Out of these, Chang focused his attention on the Planck constant, the official physical constant to be used in redefining the kilogram. The Planck constant is not visible to the human eye, yet it is related to the colors in the visible spectrum. This is because the amount of energy carried by a light’s color is the light’s frequency multiplied by the Planck constant. Inspired by this irony, Chang created a new artwork that could interpret color in energy units. Also, Chang analyzed the frequency of the color reflected by a paint color, and experimented to newly redefine the standard of colors. The results of Chang’s research and experiment were presented to the public during a two-week exhibit in October 2018.
Arts at CERN
2018. 1. 31. ~ 2018. 3. 1.
CERN (Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire, the European Organization for Nuclear Research) is the world’s biggest particle physics research institute and is coincidentally the birthplace of the Internet – the World Wide Web. CERN has continuously contributed to energy physics research, and in 2012 it detected the Higgs boson using its 27km-long Large Hadron Collider (LHC). CERN’s activities are not limited to scientific technologies; it provides creative opportunities to artists. ‘Accelerate Programe’ is a residency program that provides artists an opportunity to research their art at CERN. The residency selects one artist from each country, and from South Korea, CheolWon Chang won CERN’s competitive selection and was financed to reside at CERN for a month which covered round-trip flights, living expenses and an additional cash prize. Meanwhile, Chang visited ATLAS and CMS, respectively an experiment and a facility for detecting the proton beam collisions of the LHC. Chang also went to see the Antimatter Factory which researches antimatter, and DUNE(Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment), and discussed the boundary of science and art with the on-site researchers. This residency experience led Chang to take an interest in particle physics, and in particular, Chang has been continuing to direct his artistic practice towards the issue of ‘visualizing the invisible’ such as the particle detector which reveals the invisible particles.
Paris Lee Ungno Residence
2016. 8. 3. ~ 2016. 10. 31.
Paris Lee Ungno Residence is the only residency program run by a South Korean art museum which takes place outside of Korea. The residency was established to commemorate South Korean artist Lee Ungno’s growth into an international artist at France and provides young Korean artists a pedestal for expanding to the international art world. CheolWon Chang was selected for this residency through competition and created art for three months in Vaux-sur-Seine, a city near Paris. During this period, Chang visited 59 art museums and galleries in France and participated in art events of nearby countries including Germany, the Netherlands, and England. Especially, after encountering the artworks of Peter Struycken, Chang found a new way of converging computer drawing with drawing and painting made by hand. Plus, Chang invited art experts and held two critiques. During one of them, Chang discussed a question, ‘can hand-drawn pictures be connected to the body?’ with Mael Bellec, Chief Curator of the Cernuschi Museum. Chang took this opportunity to expand the conceptual aspect of his artworks. Before returning to South Korea, Chang curated an open studio/show with other artists in the residency, choosing PASSAGE/PASS-AGE as its theme. Chang and companions invited French art professionals and other locals to the show and had a cordial time.