Manual No.1 How to Play the Piano, digital print, 168.9x89.4cm, 2012


Here, the manual is something an individual has to set and follow based upon his/her experiences and surroundings. The No.1 features a piano as a main image along with complicated diagrams and descriptions that show what the piano looks like inside, how it works or is supposed to be operated. The manuals contain my personal history with the piano over the past 20 years. The story in this piece is that the piano is quite antique and needs tuning so the player has to play it in an odd, specific way; the owner of the piano grows up to buy a brand new electronic piano and yet misses playing her old analogue piano. The manuals in the piece tell you how to handle and play this broken musical instrument. Specifically, it tells you how to clear up the area around the long abandoned piano in the room, how to use a couch arm when you don’t have a piano chair any more, how to play music using only black keys when 3 essential white keys aren’t working (which is my 10 year knowhow), etc.

What I am trying here artistically is to visualize both the visible and the invisible using signs and diagrams and thus convey something metaphysical based upon empirical study, just like in my previous works such as Self-Portrait and The Power of a Kiss. In brief, in the Manuals series, I try to express an individual’s memories, personal knowhow and emotions which can be trivial and yet priceless, using a clear means of standardized manuals.



메뉴얼1_나의 피아노를 사용하는 방법, digital print, 168.9x89.4cm, 2012
매뉴얼 안에는 20년이 지나 골동품과 같이 되어버린 피아노와 피아노 치는 사람과의 추억이 담겨있다. 악기로서의 기능을 상실한 체 진열장 되어버린 피아노는 연주를 위해 먼저 물건들을 잘 치워야 한다. 또한 피아노 의자를 둘 수 없는 공간에서 소파의 팔 걸이는 조금 불편하지만 피아노를 앉아서 칠 수 있도록 해준다. 피아노의 흰건반인 세 개의 음 레, 미, 솔은 소리가 나오지를 않아 모든 연주를 검은 건반으로 전조해서 치면 레, 미, 솔을 치지 않고도 자연스러운 연주가 가능하다.












2012. Scripts & Systems.Lexington Art League. Lexington, U.S.A