Summoning the Beings of Metamorphosis

Namsee Kim

Maya Deren, The Witch’s Cradle, 1944. 16mm transferred to digital. 13 min. Courtesy of Re:Voir, Paris and Tavia Ito on behalf of Estate of Maya Deren. The 13th Seoul Mediacity Biennale Séance: Technology of Spirit. Seoul Museum of Art, 2025. Photo: Hong Cheolki

Maya Deren, *The Witch's Cradle*, 1944. 16mm transferred to digital. 13 min. Courtesy of Re:Voir, Paris and Tavia Ito on behalf of Estate of Maya Deren. The 13th Seoul Mediacity Biennale *Séance: Technology of Spirit*. Seoul Museum of Art, 2025. Photo: Hong Cheolki

Namsee Kim studied aesthetics in Seoul and cultural studies in Berlin. Since 2015, he has been a professor of Studies in Visual Arts at the College of Art & Design, Ewha Womans University. He is the author of Art, Madness, and Writing (2016) and What is Seeing (2013), and has translated several works into Korean, including Daniel Paul Schreber’s Memoirs of My Nervous Illness (2010), Friedrich Kittler’s Gramophone, Film, Typewriter (2019), and Boris Groys’s On the New (2017). He explores and researches contemporary philosophies and art theories, while writing critiques of artists working in diverse fields such as painting, installation, media art, sound art, and performance.

Research Title

Summoning the Beings of Metamorphosis
Participants

Namsee Kim
Publishing Date

2025-09-11
Languages

Korean
Editions

SMB13
Categories

Essay
Keywords

death photography séance technology

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Research Title Summoning the Beings of Metamorphosis

Category Essay

Edition The 13th Seoul Mediacity Biennale

Author Namsee Kim

The English version of this essay can be found in e-flux journal #156, a special issue for the 13th Seoul Mediacity Biennale Séance: Technology of the Spirit.

Link: https://www.e-flux.com/journal/156/6776773/summoning-the-beings-of-metamorphosis

It will also be available on this SMB website from mid-October.

This essay is originally commissioned for the 13th Seoul Mediacity Biennale Catalogue, Séance: Technology of the Spirit (Seoul: Seoul Museum of Art, Mediabus, 2025), scheduled for publication on October, 2025. With the author’s consent, it is being published in advance on the Seoul Mediacity Biennale website and e-flux Journal. No part of this essay may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author, Seoul Museum of Art and Mediabus, Seoul.