I Don’t Know About the Ear

I don’t know about the ear was first presented as the ear of a performer in the performance The Adventure of Mr. Kim and Mr. Lee. All the performers had ambiguous characters; for example, one was a goblin transforming into a human being, another a human being turning into a goblin. The ear in question was that of a goblin, so it was shaped as a typical, pointed goblin’s ear. In the performance, it had been used as a special-effects costume, but now it either appears on the wall of a large exhibition or as one of the ears of a male performer.

Chung considered the inclusion of I don’t know about the ear in this show in the context that the works produced sixteen years ago, such as Lookout, Flower, and Gatehouse, would be presented in the same place. Instead of re-elaborating and re-contextualizing the previous sixteen years, she thought of inserting something new with the question, “where would I don’t know about the ear be posited in the context of the show?” I don’t know about the ear appears to propose both a connotative and a denotative moment in a very simple way. It also functions as a hole through which the periods of time initially suggested by Lookout, Flower, and Gatehouse flow in another direction.

The performance of a man with the “ear” will be held twice during the exhibition. The goblin ear, by its own extraordinary trait, provides the space with a special rhythm; the ear as an object on the wall represents a suspended moment, while it also enigmatically emerges into the body of real time/space.

text by Clara Suwon Chun