Dead but not Dead

< A shabby Wish>, 2022, Wooden Seat, Wood, Incense, Hair, 150×30×30 cm

Man is the creature of death. So humans have a desire to transcend death, to overcome it. It has been expressed in various ways in various fields. Among them, the development of science and technology is most plausible in achieving human desire for immortality. Technology makes humans without bodies due to death a living being through information left on the Internet. For example, the social media account of the deceased celebrity still communicates with fans' comments, and embodies a "dead but not dead" state by recreating the dead in augmented reality (VR) to talk to the dead and touching them with the welcome that the dead person seems to be back alive for a while.
<Where did all those AIBOs go? : In the 'Death' Theory' of Artificial Intelligence Robots>, Shin Ha-kyung has expressed this ambiguous state of death as a human 'specter'. He explains the relationship between artificial intelligence robots and humans as follows. Artificial intelligence robots that have reached the end of their lives are discarded, but human information acquired through deep learning does not disappear in the relationship between artificial intelligence and humans. Therefore, it is said that even if human and non-human beings are biologically "dead" beings (information bodies), they have ghost characteristics that are difficult to say that they are dead.The ghostly nature that exists between artificial intelligence robots and human also exists in the relationship between the Internet of Things used in everyday life and humans. As such, in the contemporary era, death is placed on an ambiguous boundary that "does not seem to be dead even if you die" due to technology, confusing the meaning of death. In addition, humans today, which encompasses physicality to ghosthood, give themselves mythological character. As the phrase "everything is my world" in the Meta (formerly Facebook) campaign video says, everything ends with my body. Humans were able to think about death through fear of it. However, the fear of death is disappearing for individuals in the digital world who can travel between life and death. At the same time, it also stops thinking about essential death.
I borrow the mythical symbols that appear in ancient Greek murals to unravel the strangeness felt in a new state that exists at the same time, "Even if I die, I don't feel like I'm dead." Through wooden panels that are flatter than canvases, i try to approach contemporary three-dimensional death flatly, which highlights the intuition of the original way, causing come and go between the state of death and not dying. Because the essence is revealed when it is close to the unpretentious shabby. Therefore, the ambiguous color and untrimmed technique, the wooden stick standing shabby in the exhibition hall, and a few strands of hair barely attached to it and lowered their heads are an attempt to reach the essence of death.