Crystal time series
Junyong Cho
On April 17th, 2013, I came across an image of the Boston marathon bombings in SE14 6AG. Crystal time series attempts to align spatiotemporal elements divided into past, present and future to a photographic frame. The images used in this series are associated with such socio- politically precarious and contentious events as terrorism, natural disasters and riots in which catastrophic and urgent moments are embedded. Such a series of events that took place between 2013 and 2014 are documented as part of the pasts having already passed by. I put a semi-transparent silk screen in front of my camera by corresponding the perspective of photographic images to the overall backdrops behind them. And then I beam these images of socio-politically controversial past events onto this silk screen by using a projector. These backdrops function as the kind of passage through which trains, ships and cars move, leading to connecting between spaces in London. I viewed these spaces not only as the passage of time, but also as a wherewithal through which to connect divided time and space. Through this process, the images projected onto the silk screen and its backdrops can be aligned. Moreover, this semi- transparent cloth, on which this photographic image is printed, is akin to memories that remain between the past and the present. These memories tend to become varied due to external forces. Or vividly remembered memories tend to be faded away with time, just as wind does. Through this process, I would like to raise the question of what form crystal time – i.e. the temporal form shaped by both divided and durational time – has, by showing how the events reflected in these photographic images are absorbed into time and space and how these images are condensed layer upon layer in our memories.