Simulation

Shin Jungkyun All the elements in Simulation’s partitioned three-dimensional space – the smoke, the vibrations, the wind and water – are devices included to create a particular scene. With such a staged disaster or emergency, the participants expect to learn some pre-designed pattern of behavior. But then something unexpected happens: the character in Simulation speaks out, declining to go along with the anticipated theater. In a subway car thick with smoke, he remains in place and performs a handstand. Struck by the water, vibrations, and wind coming down the staircase, he lurches forward. He is too alive to be called powerless, too frail to be called strong. Eliciting a temporary pausing effect, the scene recalls Brecht’s attempt to turn theater from a place of illusion to one of a practical experience. In other words, by distancing us from and rendering a strange contemporary experience where we exist in a form of temporary theater, Shin encourages us to notice the unstable – or perhaps artificial – ground upon which we stand.