Haewon Jeon

The Object Is Present (2023) is a compilation of practices that breathe life into the concept of the open object through an experimental methodology of post-readymade configuration developed by myself. I worked with a ubiquitous example of closed and finished objects in modern society, IKEA kits, and re-assembled them without following the given instruction manuals. This approach allowed for the exploration of various contingent mutations that these kits can potentially possess.

In the post-readymade configuration, every component within a single kit can encounter unpredictable conjunctions, and some parts can intentionally be lost. Through the continuous circulation of possible assembly and disassembly, the kit deviated from its original functionality and purpose, while simultaneously establishing a new ontological condition as an open object. This open object exists in indeterminate coordinates, perpetually undergoing processing and transformation.

📂O.O.P.zip (2023) is an ongoing networked folder designed to store and distribute objects in the form of data files. Through the practice of The Object Is Present (2023), I converted selected objects into STL or OBJ formats using 3D scanning. This transformation allows the objects to attain the ultimate value as open objects, capable of infinite processing and improvement. Users are encouraged to freely download the folder, add their own objects, manipulate existing ones using 3D modelling programmes, and contribute to the ever-evolving collection.

🎬The TaskRabbit Is Absent (2023) is a performance video that captures the interplay between the act of opening an object and the roles played by myself and the object. This work delves into the aesthetics of art labour versus the costs, time and efficiency in modularised manufacture systems. By rejecting the laborious obligations as a TaskRabbit imposed on consumers to complete products with predetermined functions and purposes, the labour can be subverted into an art- performance of continuous reproduction of meaninglessness.

Today Will Shatter into Bits with Material Loves! (2022) is a practice to investigate the spectral characteristic of materiality in the contemporary era, while simultaneously seeking the possibility of sculptures within ontological objecthood. 

Through a recursive operation of transcribing a simulated object from a 3D modelling interface into a tangible form, the material interstices between one medium and another revealed themselves as a negative space. Within the act of casting this negative, an enigmatic object was excavated, embodying the inseparable entanglement of immateriality and materiality. This object now exists as a nomadic sculpture which seeks to establish an intra-network circulation of its replicas through conversion and transfer across a range of media, from physical fragments to digital files such as GIF or OBJ.

I'm too sad to tell you (2022) is sculptural metamorphoses into diverse forms of media. While each work originates from the same source, it remaps the discontinuities within their material spectrum, forging parallel relationships with individual entities.

Collective Surfaces Appeared in a Broken Fantasy (2022-2023) is a compilation of ongoing image-collage experimentation to construct uneven panoramas wherein sculptural remnants intertwine and intersect. In my quest, I embarked on a journey through countless websites and the labyrinthine shelves of the library, seeking diverse legacies encompassing simulated objects and discarded materials. With deconstruction, I scattered these fragments upon the physical plane, letting their edges to collide and intertwine, while weaving the surface layer by layer. Amidst this process, the lingering traces of incongruity affirm an inherent desire to acquire its own materiality within the realms of a broken fantasy.

THE SHELF, we.. pt.2 (2023) is a collaborative project that explores our presence within the realm of auto-ethnographic objecthood and aims to construct an architectural publication in the form of a shelf. Chiao and I collected a diverse range of objects that serve as reflections of ourselves. Through engaging conversations, we categorised these objects into five sections, each symbolising our past, present, and future, encompassing our strengths, weaknesses, and our perspectives on the world. This process has manifested not only as a publication titled The Objects Make Our Presence (2023), but also as a communal shelf known as 🎬How To Publish Your Shelf? (2023), inviting audiences to actively participate in this collective construction.