Poster image of 《Cache Memory; Rereading the MMCA New Media Collection》 © MMCA
The National
Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA) presents 《Cache Memory: Rereading the MMCA New Media
Collection》 as part of its
MMCA Film and Video program. The screening will take place from June 16 to July
17 at the MMCA Film and Video in Seoul.
Yeondoo Jung, Documentary Nostalgia, 2007, Single-channle video, color, silent, 84min 18sec © MMCA
This edition
of the Film and Video program brings together a selection of works from the
MMCA’s new media collection by leading artists of contemporary media art,
examining how images are produced and circulated, and how they participate in
the construction of history, memory, and subjectivity.
The program
features 19 works by internationally renowned contemporary media artists,
including Harun Farocki, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Anri Sala, Wael Shawky,
Ayoung Kim, Kim Heecheon, and Im Heungsoon.
Kim Heecheon, Sleigh Ride Chill, 2016, Single-channle video, color, sound, 17min 27sec © MMCA
The title “Cache Memory” refers to the
high-speed memory system in computers that temporarily stores data for rapid
access. While cache memory does not permanently preserve information, it
functions as a crucial intermediary that enables present operations and access.
Borrowing this concept, the program
approaches the museum’s collection not as a fixed and completed body of objects
with stable meanings, but as a living archive of memory that is continually
recalled and reinterpreted through contemporary perspectives and research.
In particular, media artworks acquire new
meanings in response to changing technological environments and social
contexts, while the historical and political conditions surrounding them are
subject to ongoing reinterpretation. In this sense, research on museum
collections is not limited to preserving the past, but constitutes a process of
reactivating works from present and future perspectives.
《Cache Memory》 thus
metaphorically evokes the fluid and provisional state of memory, while posing
the question of what new inquiries and critical perspectives MMCA’s new media
collection can generate within contemporary contexts.
Yeom Jihye, Future Fever, 2018, Single-channel video, color, sound, 17min 10sec © MMCA
This program foregrounds the fact that
moving images today no longer function merely as a medium of representation.
Instead, they are produced and circulated through recording devices, editing
technologies, platform infrastructures, and political-economic power relations,
becoming sites of cultural practice that actively intervene in the formation of
memory, history, and subjectivity.
Through works from MMCA’s new media
collection, 《Cache Memory》
explores key concerns and aesthetic practices in contemporary moving image art
across four axes—image and apparatus, testimony, power, and
subjectivity—shifting attention from what images represent to the conditions
under which they are constructed and operate.
The screening schedule and further
information are available on the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary
Art, Korea (MMCA) website (https://www.mmca.go.kr/exhibitions/exhibitionsDetail.do?exhFlag=1&exhId=202606100002078).
Participating Artists: Harun
FAROCKI, KIM Beom, JUNG Yeondoo, Jonathan HOROWITZ, Anri SALA, Sejla KAMERIC,
IM Heungsoon, Eric BAUDELAIRE, Akram ZAATARI, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, YANG
Fudong, Anton VIDOKLE, Laurent GRASSO, Ho Tzu Nyen, Wael SHAWKY, KIM Ayoung,
KIM Heecheon, YEOM Jihye, Sara Sejin CHANG(Sara van der Heide)
