Text by CLOT Magazine
What kind of individual or societal transformations will follow the global pandemic? HYUNDAI X ELEKTRA: METAMORPHOSIS refers to the classic Book of Changes (I Ching) and proposes that today, one of the fundamental effects of constant change is to broaden our understanding of the relationship between humanity, nature, and technology.
HYUNDAI X ELEKTRA: METAMORPHOSIS is a Montreal collaboration between Hyundai Motor Company and ELEKTRA to offer a unique cultural experience. Due to the current context of social distancing and travel restrictions, HYUNDAI X ELEKTRA: METAMORPHOSIS is shared through various online platforms to create a virtual experience and foster exchange between communities across the globe. The invited artists Matthew Biederman, Choe U-Ram, Justine Emard, Yunchul Kim, Christa Sommerer & Laurent Mignonneau, teamVOID & Youngkak Cho have been chosen from the previous and upcoming ELEKTRA International Digital Art Biennales.
The exhibition explores the symbiosis between the material, the immaterial, and the physical and the virtual, with selected artworks incorporating generative imagery, artificial intelligence, metamaterials, and speculative biomorphic creatures.
Christa Sommerer & Laurent Mignonneau are presenting Portrait on the Fly (2015), an interactive installation in which the audience is confronted with a large screen that displays around 10.000 small flies which swarm around. Once a person positions itself in front of the screen, he or she will see the own silhouette gradually appear, composed by the little flies that try to sit on any outline they detect. As a result, the person will slowly recognise that this is him-/herself and start to experiment by attracting and chasing away the flies through body gestures. They told CLOT Magazine during an interview in 2018.
The online virtual exhibition will be accessible in July and from June 15 to September 20, 2020, at Hyundai Motorstudio Seoul.
