2023
ヨンウン・キム
YoungEun Kim’s work examines the history of sound, focusing on how modernization and colonialism have shaped our aural perception, centering around Asia. She studied Art and Sonology in Korea and the Netherlands and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Film and Digital Media in the U.S. Her work has been shown at the Museum of Fine Arts Bern, Switzerland; Samsung Museum of Art, Korea; Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, USA; and many others. She has been awarded at Prix Ars Electronica and SongEun Art Award.
明るい音A／デジタル／17分／2022年／韓国・アメリカ
Brilliant A/ digital/ 17min./ 2022/ Korea・US
–––映像制作を始めたきっかけを教えてください。
本格的に映像の制作を始めたのは2022年です。それまではサウンドインスタレーションやパフォーマンスの形式が主でした。作品に歴史的なリサーチを加えようと考えた時に、観客に、より物語性を伝えるには映像が効果的ではないかと感じました。私が大学で学んだソノロジーは、音の物理的な側面や音響学的な特性について研究する学問ですが、本作の制作にあたり、わたしは音の文化史的な側面にも焦点をあてたいと考えました。
–––今回の作品はどのようなところから発想したのでしょうか。
大学でソノロジーを学び、作品を制作する上で私が感じていたのは、韓国人の音の感覚・聴覚、音楽に対する趣向・趣味がどのように形成されたのか、その原点を調べたいと思いました。オーケストラなど、現代的な楽器の調律の基準となるA（ラ）音は「440Hz」と決まっています。この音が、韓国に導入された瞬間を映像で再現したいと思いました。そこで1900年に韓国の大邱市にピアノが持ち込まれた様子が記録された文献を元に、その瞬間を再構築したわけです。
–––作品には人間はほとんど登場せず、ピアノが印象的に映し出されます。どのような意図があるのでしょうか。
当時、大邱にピアノが持ち込まれたプロセスは、ある宣教師の書いた手紙に詳細な記述が残っていました。それは労働に関する資料で、私はそこから本作の映像化を着想しましたが、あえて人間を写すことはぜず、西洋の文化を象徴するピアノという大きなオブジェを中心に撮影しました。それは韓国に輸入された西洋の文化、価値観、制度などをあらゆるものを象徴するオブジェとして表現したのです。
–––Please tell us what made you get into video production.
I seriously began video production in 2022. Until then, my main forte was sound installation and performance. Then I started thinking of adding historical research in my works. It was at this point of time that I began to feel that effective visual content presented a more narrative story to the audience. At the university, I studied sonology, a field of academic study that researches the physical aspects of sound and the attributes of acoustics. In producing my new film, I also wanted to focus on the historical and cultural aspects of sound.
–––From where did you get the idea for your film?
I studied sonology at the university. In producing my work, I felt I wanted to conduct research on the origin of how Koreans came to shape their sense of sound and hearing as well as their taste and interests in music. Now, the sound of the musical note of A, used as the tuning standard for modern instruments including those in an orchestra, is set at “440Hz.” I wanted to recreate the moment when that sound was introduced into Korea. So, I recreated that moment, based on literature which describes how a piano was brought into Daegu City in Korea, in the year 1900.
–––What was impressively depicted in your film is the fact that hardly any people appear in your motion picture. However, a piano does. What was your intention here?
A letter written back then by a missionary has been preserved, which states in detail the process of how the piano was brought into Daegu City. This letter on labor practices was how I got the idea for my film. However, I didn’t bring people into the film but took footage of a large piano to symbolize western culture, placing it as the main object of the motion picture. I depicted this object to symbolize everything western brought into Korea, including its culture, values and order.