STATION ― IMAGE COMMUNITY

The 13th Seoul Mediacity pre-Biennale STATION - IMAGE COMMUNITY is organized to examine the conceptual dimensions of media art within the continuum of its history and to activate the cultural position of Biennale as a generative art institution via meta study on its accumulated resources as well as creating new production and distribution. For the last 27 years, the Biennale has explored the complexities of changing contemporary media and technology landscapes and shared thoughts on political, reflective and prospective aspects of artistic experience. The 33 videos and films comprising artworks exhibited in previous editions of Seoul Mediacity Biennale as well as new invitations and commissionsㅡcollectively explore nature as a means of experiencing the contemporary living environment, the ways in which are narrates history and notions of interrelationship through media. These artworks recollect and weave together various objects that exist among records, contacts and networks in order to decode the complex ecology of our present-day reality, which is enormously impacted by the contemporary media environment. The aggregate movements of images, texts and sounds also pose questions about the complexities of our lives today by building up various time scales, narrating methods of remembering and overturning calibrations of center and periphery. SeMA Bunker, the main venue of this program, was originally built as a secret shelter during Korea’s military regime in the 1970s and now operates as an annex of SeMA that convenes diverse programs organized by the museum. Within this historical site, artworks unfold empirical sequences in the context of Korea’s modern history and geopolitical conditions. The artistic narratives recounted here vis-à-vis time-based media inquire into the fundamental value of art creation in daily life, thereby including a retrospective view of the Seoul Mediacity Biennale’s role as an ‘image community’ that fosters participation and harbors common sensibilities.