8 Questions with Eun Sun Cho - ISSUE04 Cover artist
Eun Sun Cho is a Korean artist featured in Al-Tiba9 magazine ISSUE04, interviewed by Mohamed Benhadj.
A South Korean artist based in Berlin, Eun Sun Cho works primarily in the field of photography but also drawings, sculpture, and installation. She studied architecture at the University of Seoul, photography at Neue Schule für Fotografie Berlin, and currently studies mathematics at Technische Universität Berlin.
Her last projects revolve around the elements of photographic mediums dealing with physical and technical problems such as measurements, algorithms, analog/digital difference and representation of language of formality accompanied by the process of the image. In conjunction with these themes, she investigates the intersection of biology, chemical-physical phenomena and mathematical problems with photographic reality. Another interest evolves from the interaction between humanity and its contradistinct surroundings.
Please describe the intention behind your art. How do you successfully express this intention?
My work imparts a sense of entity; with no clear line in our mind between reality and photo visual representation. I draw a loose line to signify a concealed abyss between them. I defined the analog formats as the representation of specific measurements accorded with the specifically-designed camera to cut out the reality, transcribing it into dual space of 2-dimensionality, based on the international standard measure system.
By examining, enlarging and overlapping various analog formats, I measure with a ruler each format and new forms as a result of overlapping which conveys the definition: closed sides generated out of reality presented with measurement in certain measurement systems- SI and imperial. As far as the exactitude of measure goes, the physicality of a ruler inevitably allows me the rounded off results, so at the end, seemingly precise results turn out to be barely relative approximate. The actual measured format sizes are slightly different from what is known since in the production of the camera model it is apparently not easy to meet the exactness. So in order to express the interstice, I drew the grid of photographic formats in known values and matched with actually enlarged formats. Then again, the drawings of formats in the grid system could never be accurate because of the technical imperfection of physical conditions. Ultimately, it happens to be the precision that is not reachable, it only exists within the realm of convergence, which shows subtly that photography is the technical medium with the most alluded reality.
Photo courtesy EunSun Cho©
Can you talk a little about your formative years as an artist? How did your experiences and the places you inhabited shape your vision?
Traveling and residing in different countries have been the cornerstone for me to develop openness since I am a fairly chary person by nature. I have traveled across the U.S. as well as Russia, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, not to mention Europe. I have lived in France, the U.S., Turkey, the Middle East, and Germany. In the course of the experiences, I developed a sense of how penetrating universality interacts organically with the inertia inhabited in any society. I studied architecture at the University of Seoul and photography at Neue Schule für Fotografie Berlin and currently study mathematics in Technische Universität Berlin. So it could also be said that the interaction between architecture, photography, and mathematics has profoundly influenced my formative years.
How are you inspired to take the elements of photographic mediums, with their physical and technical problems, and turn it into an artistic project?
During my years of Neue Schule für Fotografie Berlin, I observed that photographic realities are often transferred through existent grammar, journalism or commercial practice or in a sheer technically aesthetic sense. In exploring new possibilities of photography, I visited Venice for Architecture Biennale to see “Elements“ curated by Rem Koolhaas. I was fascinated again by the architectural investigation that I was acquainted with. Therefore, I now develop projects that describe each of the elements of photographic mediums and that investigate how the technical conditions of each sector in photography have correlated with social context.
Your artistic production also investigates the intersection of biology, chemical-physical phenomena, and mathematical problems with photographic reality. Can you describe what drew you to this intersectionality for our readers?
Fortunately, I grew up in a household surrounded by tons of books, from classic scientific books like Newton’s “Principia“ to Korean literature classics like novels by Kim Seung-ok. Especially with my father, quite an encyclopedic type of person, I have had great discussions about philosophy, theology, literature, and science. So I was born into an already great pool of intersectionality, for which I am grateful.
My backgrounds of architecture, photography, and mathematics are respectively distinctive disciplines in terms of their perspective of reality. I am prone to mingling the disciplines, nurturing and letting myself be inundated with the intersection of ideas. Experiences of intersectionality allow me to conduct experiments with irrelevant ideas and concepts freely outside of fixation.
Photo courtesy EunSun Cho©
Photo courtesy EunSun Cho©
They say if you could be anything but an artist, don’t be an artist. As your work spans many disciplines, what career are you neglecting right now by pursuing your artistic work?
I always loved the idea of working in science. I was seriously willing to pursue being a chemist. I once had a tutor, a promising chemist herself, and she introduced me to a broad spectrum of chemistry. Even now, chemistry is intellectually very stimulating as a tool to understand the phenomena that are present but often invisible.
What current series are you working on?
I am currently editing the photographic book “Ich und Du“ composed of three chapters exploring the human conditions in three symbolic spaces: desert, forest, urban. Derived from the book of the same title by Philosopher Martin Buber, the idea of the project came while I was residing in the desert. For me, being educated as an architect, classified land was the only land I knew from my studies and experiences. Discovering land untouched by a ruler and compass was a shock to me and opened up productive discourses of historicity. I had an urge to develop a photographic series that explores the bridge between the environment and human beings, from the process of construction in the forest to algebraic structure dealing with prime numbers of the modern urban system.
If you listen to music while working, what genres do you choose and how do they influence your process?
Depending on the mood and kind of work I do, it varies. I often enjoy listening to baroque music, it makes me feel calm and think structurally while working, feeling driven by a machine-like heartbeat.
Do you have any upcoming shows or collaborations you are looking forward to?
I am planning to collaborate with a friend of mine, a chemist, about the pesticide. The basic idea and challenge of the project are how to convey the invisibility of the influence of pesticides. I really look forward to developing and presenting the project because I think it deals with an essential part of our life: food.
