Exhibition View at Korean Cultural Center, NYMourning (哭) and Curving (曲):
The Shroud of Lamentation, the Stage of Curves
“Korean sound is like drawing with a brush, whereas Western sound is like writing with a pen. Unlike the pen’s linear
and precise trajectory, the brush moves fluidly, its ink shifting in tone and pressure to create unpredictable lines.”
— Composer Isang Yun
A silver foil mat lies on the floor—the kind spread before graves during memorial visits. A hanbok skirt unfolds in circular formation, surrounded by discarded beoseon and emptied soju glasses. Electronic wires tangle between a smartphone playing the artist’s recorded pansori and an EMF microphone detecting electromagnetic fields from the amplifier and visitors’ phones. Two sounds converge: one is the trace of an absent body, the other a mechanical vocalization that never passed through flesh.
Goksori articulates a double displacement: the cry of one who has lost their home. It’s a desperate scream of one who has lost their body. For the body itself is home—it occupies space, defines place. Yet here, the hanbok remains empty, the beoseon unworn, the soju glass drained. These vessels once contained bodies. Now, those bodies exist nowhere. What persists is only the tremor of electromagnetic fields and the echo of song suspended in memory.
Yet gok also means curve—a form that bends rather than follows the straight line. The circular hanbok skirt recalls East Asian ink dispersing on paper, but here what diffuses is electromagnetic waves. As Yun Isang observed, Korean sound moves like brushwork: fluid, unpredictable, shaped by shifting pressure and density. Gok-sori translates this into sound—electromagnetic variations, air movement, and audience presence all become “ink” bleeding through space.
Notes
In Korean, gok is a homophone meaning both 哭 (wailing, the ritualistic crying performed for the deceased in traditional funerals) and 曲 (curve, curvature). So means sound. Goksori together refers to the wailing sound of the funeral.
Pansori is a Korean traditional narrative performance art combining storytelling, vocal techniques, and rhythmic accompaniment.
The beoseon is a type of footwear consisting of a pair of socks worn with hanbok, Korean traditional clothing, and designed for protection, warmth, and style.
Gok-sori, 2026, Hanbok skirt, fan motor, electromagnetic microphone, Ink, Variable size
Detailed:Gok-sori, 2026
Installation View at Korean Cultural Center NY, 2025
House of Tiktok, 2025, Ancestral tablet case, metronome, Variable size
Voice-rest, 2025, Violin chinrest, bow, resin, strainer, hemp with urushi lacquer