On Sept. 13, Inside Magritte, which was on display for four months at the Insa Central Museum in Jongno-gu, Seoul, came to an end. The exhibition went beyond just displaying the works of Magritte. Adopting advanced technologies such as augmented reality, video-based immersive materials, and monochromatic lights, the show recreated the artworks three-dimensionally. In the Main Immersive Room, animated paintings moved and filled the capacious exhibition space. At the AR photo zone installed in the Play Magritte Zone, audiences enjoyed the experience of becoming the main characters in the pictures.
This type of exhibition is called “convergence art” or “immersive exhibition.” It applies multiple visual effects (visual design, holograph, VFX, 3D, projectors, etc.) to plane paintings and produces synesthetic impressions. For instance, Van Gogh: Records from 10 Years Ago, which was held at the War Memorial of Korea in 2015, installed 70 Full HD projectors and 4-meter screens on the walls, floors, and stairs to display 350 digitally reinterpreted artworks. Moreover, the show utilized motion graphic techniques to add movements into characters’ actions, facial expressions, fluttering reeds, and twinkling stars. It also reproduced and transformed Van Gogh’s works through highly developed technologies such as interactive techniques, 3D mapping, and morphing.
Bunker de Lumières: Van Gogh,Monet Draws the Light (2016) at the War Memorial of Korea, Van Gogh Inside: Festival of Light and Music (2016) at the Cultural Station Seoul 284, MUSE: Van Gogh to Matisse (2018) at the Hangaram Art Museum, and Renoir: Scent of a Woman (2018) at the Bon Davinci Art Museum Seoul Forest were all based on convergence art. More than five hundred thousand people visited Bunker de Lumières: Klimt, and Monet Draws the Light extended its exhibition period due to its popularity. Indeed, the craze for convergence art is showing no sign of decline.
Meanwhile, convergence art reminds me of PoPoPo, a collection of poems published by Junbeom Park. He wrote every poem in the book by using Google Translate. The author converted Korean poems consecutively into Japanese, English, and back to Korean. He conducted every process of composition only by clicking a mouse, copying, and pasting the texts. Through this process, Park created poetic simulacra, purposefully departing from, and breaking the grammar of, the original poems. Interestingly, convergence art andPoPoPo are similar in many ways. LikePoPoPo, convergence art “translates” paintings into visual technology. Just like PoPoPo, which does not write a single new word, convergence art copies and pastes artworks without adding any brushstrokes. Perhaps like PoPoPo, which is full of grammar errors and absurd word choices, convergence art dismantles the forms, textures, and intentions of the original pictures. In other words, neither the artists nor their creative activities can be found in digitally “laundered” poems and paintings. Technology alone, ponderous and unwieldy, remains present in these artworks.
Philosophical and aesthetic analyses are necessary to figure out how audiences should appreciate these digitally recreated artworks, and how much the aura in the originals is lost in technological reproduction. However, since both my expertise in this field and the length of this article are limited, I would like to focus on the sociological implications of convergence art. In this essay, I will analyze the various ways in which convergence art is appreciated. By doing so, I will examine how the popularity and consumption of convergence art reveal the unique characteristics of contemporary society.
1. Although convergence art involves art exhibitions, it has rarely become the subject of criticism. On the contrary, it is easy to find articles about the advanced technology and blockchain development used in convergence art. These articles focus on the projectors – their brightness reaches thousands of ANSI lumens and resolution exceeds Full HD. Such articles also highly appreciate attempts to expand business by tokenizing artworks and registering them to crypto art marketplaces. Similarly, audiences are more enthusiastic about the technological effects on the original artworks, rather than their artistic impressions. They respond with more excitement to dynamic and splendid visual effects than to static and delicate brushstrokes. In short, a work of convergence art is more like a “tech exhibition in the guise of art.” Artworks are mere materials that highlight advanced technology. Therefore, from convergence art, in which technology is central rather than the art itself, we can identify contemporary society’s obsession with technology, just as we can from a long line in front of an Apple store following the announcement of a new iPhone model.
2. The Main Immersive Room of Inside Magritte was packed with people taking photographs. They were busy taking selfies in front of the artworks projected on the walls. Because of its visually appealing production, convergence art is the perfect backdrop for “the best shots.” This trend corresponds to the increasing popularity of exhibitions on social media.
“It is nothing to a millennial if it cannot be posted on social media,” and so people nowadays do not take pictures as they do things; they do things to take pictures. To get the best photos, they pose in hanbok outfits at Gyeongbokgung Palace, buy books for their pretty cover designs, and drink coffee at edgy cafes. Noticing this trend, the art industry has been creating exhibitions more focused on concepts and atmospheres than on specific content and compositions, such that their visitors can easily find photo locations, just as they do in theme parks. They even install photo zones like the Play Magritte Zone, stark in the middle of exhibitions. The Museum of Fruit, ALICE: Into the Rabbit Hole(2018) at the Galleria Forêt, and Finding Spongebob’s Happiness (2020) at the Yongsan I-Park Mall are other notable examples. Audiences skim through the artworks, take pictures, buy souvenirs, and summarize their visits by posting photos on social media.
However, these superficial exhibitions do not offer any opportunities for artistic thought. The artworks neither resonate with the souls of audiences nor suggest keen insights. They are simply consumed as pretty backgrounds for photographs. At the exhibitions designed for social media, people find greater satisfaction in taking photos than in looking at the artworks. The same goes for convergence art. Viewers do not seriously appreciate paintings of Van Gogh, Monet, and Magritte when they are covered with flashy visual effects. Instead, they are busy planning how to take pictures of themselves in these splendidly constructed places.
3. Having gone through the eras of text, image, and video, we are now at the period of transition into 4D. People are seeking new media that satisfy not only vision and hearing but also the senses of touch, taste, and smell. Although this demand has yet to be fully met, there have been several attempts to convey the five senses through video. By watching “mukbang” (eating shows), people taste flavors through their eyes, and by watching videos of slime, they experience textures visually. They also enjoy multiple sensual pleasures when elements fall exactly into their proper places in “oddly satisfying videos.” Meanwhile, film industries have maximized the audiovisual effects of IMAX and ScreenX and have adopted 4D technology to recreate senses of movement, wind, water, and more. The same goes for convergence art. By utilizing advanced technologies, it expands the limitations of paintings beyond mere vision to synesthesia. It adds grand music and installs interactive zones where audiences can virtually touch the artwork. Also, convergence art often makes use of Kinect sensors which transfigure paintings according to the movements of viewers.
However, it is still in question whether this pursuit of stimuli is a healthy phenomenon. While watching “mukbang,” slime, and “oddly satisfying videos,” viewers are overwhelmed by senses, deprived of moments in which they can pause and think. Once one video is over, they immediately click the next, as if they are addicted. Similarly, audiences of convergence art are not subjects of active interpretation but rather objects in a sensory flood of distracting visual effects, manipulative music, and the “experiences” forced upon them. Viewers exposed to such an environment are made to seek stronger stimulation, not moments of calm and contemplation.
As I write this article, I am thinking about the S/S 1999 No.13 finale of Alexander McQueen. A model in a pure white dress stands on the stage and two arm-shaped robots are installed on either side. As she rotates, paints spew out from the machines. The model stretches her arms to avoid the paints, but she helplessly becomes stained by the spraying colors. The show ends with a chaotically painted dress.
The manner in which convergence art reflects contemporary society is similar to the model’s staggering walk between art and technology. Just as paints drench the model’s body, technology permeates every part of our life. The white dress of our society is spotted with technophilic cultures, exhibitions prioritizing selfies over artworks, and demands for stimulation only. Nevertheless, the model in McQueen’s show walks out among the robots and proudly stands in front of the audience. Her beauty, which the machines could not destroy, shines brilliantly.
Likewise, we must not be shackled by technology. We need to strive to capture the aura of art that technology cannot replace. This effort may take several forms. We can try to understand paintings even if they seem difficult and boring; we can get off social media and focus on the exhibitions themselves; we can pay attention to the impressions of artworks stirring within us. Whatever the method may be, we must not lose our ability to appreciate art actively.
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