계속 밤
섭씨 36도의 순간--심장은 가슴 한가운데 있다
In the Still of the Night
The Moment of 36 Degrees Celsius: The Heart Lies in the Middle of the Chest
2019
Thermochromic material, colored platinum-cure (addition cure) silicone, transparent nylon thread
Diameter : 60cm and 40cm
In the Still of the Night
Artist's Note
The work began from my interest in somatization disorder, a disorder whereby the patient experiences--often severe--physical symptoms despite the absence of clinical abnormalities. The crux of In the Still of the Night is based on an idea that patients suffering from somatization disorder may be dealing with emotional distress to which they are unaccustomed by displacing them with the more familiar physical pain.
In the Still of the Night consists of three spherical objects, each with a dent on one side that resembles craters on the moon. Hidden underneath the outer layer of these dents--or craters--are various texts, content of which is personal and has aroused visceral response from the readers. This outer layer, or skin, is made of thermo- responsive material that turns dark when the temperature is lower than 36.5 degrees, hiding the text underneath. At the exhibition, the viewer is given a heat pad and asked to hold one of the sculptures. To see the hidden text, they must place the heat pad between their body and the object that they are holding. Once they withstand the heat long enough so that the surface temperature of the sculpture reaches close to 36.5 degrees, words hidden underneath the skin of the sculpture are revealed.
The frequentness of physical contact leaves the work vulnerable to abrasion, and sometimes cracks as well. In the case of cracks, they are stitched up using surgical thread. After the exhibition, these spheres were given out to my tattooist collaborators, who were asked to treat them like human bodies and draw tattoos on them. This collaboration constituted a part of my later work Leda and the Swan (2019).