MELA Foundation presents Jung Hee Choi: Ahata Anahata, Manifest Unmanifest VIII

Jung Hee Choi, Environmental Composition 2013 #1, 2013. Blackwrap with pinholes, transluscent paper, fresnel lights, video 276 x 128 inches,

Jung Hee Choi
Ahata Anahata, Manifest Unmanifest VIII

21 August – 20 September 2014

MELA Foundation Dream House
275 Church Street, 3rd Floor
New York, NY 10013

Hours: Thu-Sat, 2pm-midnight

T 212 925 8270
 

Live Performances: Tonecycle Base 30 Hz, 2:3:7 with 3:4 and 6:7
Saturdays, September 13 and 20, 2014, 9pm
Reservations: mail@melafoundation.org

La Monte Young, voice
Marian Zazeela, voice
Jung Hee Choi, voice
77 sine wave frequencies

“I found Jung Hee Choi’s installation Ahata Anahata, Manifest Unmanifest moving and engrossing... the effect of [Choi’s] work is mesmerizing.  I believe that this use of drawing with the moving light projections of her video works represents a new and original direction in art today." - Jon Hendricks, Silverman Fluxus Collection

MELA Foundation presents Jung Hee Choi's Ahata Anahata, Manifest Unmanifest VIII. It features large-scale multimedia installations including Environmental Composition 2014, an installation version of Color (CNN), and two sound environments, Tonecycle Base 30 Hz, 2:3:7 Sine Wave Version on a 3D sound system and Tonecycle Base 30 Hz, 2:3:7 Vocal Version with La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela and Jung Hee Choi improvising over the 77 sine wave frequencies that are imperceptibly changing. The relationship of their improvisations to the drone continuously elaborates the musical meaning of the pitch, creating a compelling, harmonious construct that draws the listener into a profoundly contemplative world.

Choi's synthesis of expression collectively creates an intersubjective space as a unified continuum emphasizing the totality of sense perceptions as a single unit to create a state of immersion. This exhibition premieres the installation works Composition 2014 #1 created with Light Point Drawings on black wrap with video. The drawings are viewed as indiscernibly moving light from video projection glowing through the pinholes creating abstract and analogous representation of "Manifest Unmanifest."

Curators of the exhibit, Young and Zazeela wrote regarding Choi's Light Point Drawings, "With the application of her drawing techniques to a new, self-invented medium, that of inscribing with pinholes on black wrap, and with the utilization of video-projected colored light not on the drawing but, as it were, through the drawing, Jung Hee has created a profoundly engrossing body of work in these installations. Although these works can be described and even photographed, they must ultimately be experienced by the viewer in order to fully incorporate the element of time, which has now become an even more central and intrinsic aspect of these works. The varying colored light from pre-recorded videos projected through her needle point patterns continually delineates an ever-changing array, displaying facets of the curvilinear cosmos she has portrayed with endless imagination."


About Jung Hee Choi

Jung Hee Choi has created a series of Environmental Compositions with video, evolving light-point patterns, drawing, incense, performance and sound involving the concept of Manifest Unmanifest. Choi's work has been presented in the U.S., Europe and Asia, including Frac Franche-Comté, France; Berliner Festespiele, Germany; Guggenheim Museum and MELA Foundation Dream Houses, NYC; FRESH Festival, Bangkok;  Korea Experimental Arts Festival, Korea. Commissioned by MELA Foundation, her video sound performance and installation, RICE, in a setting of Marian Zazeela’s Imagic Light environment was chosen as one of The 10 Best of 2003 in the December Artforum.

In 1999, Choi became a disciple of La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela in the study of music and art, with the classical Kirana tradition gandha bandh red-thread ceremony in 2003.  In 2002, with Young and Zazeela she became a founding member of The Just Alap Raga Ensemble and has performed as vocalist in every concert, including those at the MELA Dream House, the 2009 Yoko Ono Courage Award Ceremony, Merce Cunningham Memorial, and MaerzMusik Festival.

Choi graduated BA, summa cum laude and received her MA in art and sound from NYU. Choi’s in-depth interview on her work is featured in the online Asian Contemporary Art Week presentations organized by Asia Society, NY. Since 2008 Choi has been teaching Raga as instructor at the Kirana Center for Indian Classical Music. Choi appeared as guest artist and lecturer at the School of Visual Art, NYC and École supérieure d'art de Mulhouse, France. Choi's essay, SOUND: A Basis for Universal Structure in Ancient and Modern Cosmology, was published in a festschrift for Antonio T. de Nicolas: Poet of Eternal Return. Her work is in the collection of Frac Franche-Comté, France.

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