Kyung Roh Bannwart’s practice is based on the study of transitional objects and transitional phenomenon, attempting to integrate performativity as an act of playing, a tool to search for the self through the interaction with the other (the other person, objects, or surroundings). Employing the effects from different media, she explores the possibilities of materialization of concept and a plural creation turned into 3-dimensional space.

Playing Reality presents three new works: a video Dialogue, a sound piece Echo, and an installation in-situ Shadowgraphy. Each work plays with different realities by fragmentation and distortion (Dialogue, Echo), and reconstruction (Shadowgraphy).

A video work, Dialogue, is a recording of two persons reading the dialogues from ≪Waiting the Godot≫ by S. Beckett in a random order.

I have chosen this text because of a theatre’s symbolic meaning, the absurdity of it, and the simplicity of dialogues. Two actors distort the context and exchange systemized meaninglessness. Surprisingly the listener immediately tries to contextualize the conversation although the dialogue is deconstructed and illogical, creating a subjective and temporary meaning. The text is read in French as its original writing and subtitled in Korean. Subtitle can create another kind of reading of the text and it can perform a role to engage with the viewer rather than a distractive obligation to understand the narrative. The absurdity of assemblage of out-of-context phrases becomes more obvious by reading them in subtitle.

Echo is a sound piece, the extension of Dialogue, the recording of 2 persons conversing with the text from ≪Waiting for Godot≫ in Korean, out of its context in a random order. The several recordings are played in an open space through different speakers simultaneously creating temporary chaos and echoes of conversation.

Shadowgraphy is an installation in-situ which draws the attention of the spectator to the dynamics of the immediate surrounding created with the basic materials such as wood and light and the poetic power of these objects. The performativity is realized in the simplest and accessible form, reduced to the basic mechanism. This installation is created in collaboration with a light designer Jonas Buhler.