22/ Invocation

2019
By Jane Jin Kaisen
Duration: 2:58 min.

About the work:
Invocation is a performative video that forms part of the double-channel installation Community of Parting, which traces a different approach to borders and aesthetic mediation by invoking the Korean shamanic myth of the Abandoned Princess Bari who was exiled at birth but who later becomes the goddess and mediator at the threshold of the living and the dead.

Invocation is literally created through a negotiation of forces between the embodied cognition of a spinning performer and the technological device of a drone onto which the camera that captured the image, was mounted.

At first the performer is seen close-up from an aerial view. Then the centrifugal force of her spinning movement catapults the drone into the air. As the drone gradually ascends, the spinning figure recedes until she becomes a mere dot in the snow patched volcanic landscape of Jeju Island, South Korea. A sense of spatial-temporal condensation, encapsulating both absolute presence and mythical time, is highlighted by the audio-scape composed of Shaman Koh Sun Ahn’s ritual invocation.