The moment virtual space meets the keywords of reality, gaming, and social

Elephant Space in Yeonnam-dong, and the virtual social platform 'Figro'

'The Adventure of Dot and Dash,' a virtual multiplay exhibition planned by Level Nine and co-hosted and co-organized with Elephant Space, will run for two months until December 24 simultaneously on the virtual social platform Figro and at Elephant Space in Yeonnam-dong, Seoul.

This exhibition is being held with support from the Korea Arts Council's 2022 Metaverse Art Activity Support Program, and features virtual multiplay works by furniture designer Somok-jang Semi, painter Lee Hae-gang, and video artist Lim Young-zoo.

The Adventure of Dot and Dash is a story about the moment when virtual space, reproduced in binary, forms a relationship with reality. In other words, it deals with a worldview that is transformed into images, texts, and technical images through a series of symbolic systems known as code. The exhibition takes as its starting point the 'metaverse,' a term recently much discussed across various media. The metaverse is the new commons of immersive virtual reality (VR)—that is, three-dimensional computer graphics realized through digital code—accessed by wearing an audiovisual device, as depicted in Neal Stephenson's 1992 science fiction novel 'Snow Crash.'

Within this new commons, The Adventure of Dot and Dash presents the next stage of the metaverse. Those who log in to virtual reality go beyond being mere users to become explorers who navigate a future reality, attempting to form a variety of relationships. Through multiplay implementation, social experiences unfold in virtual space among artists and visitors, visitors and visitors, and hosts and visitors. The exhibition title 'The Adventure of Dot and Dash' draws on Ella Thayer's 1879 novel 'Wired Love (A Romance of Dots and Dashes)' because it sought to speak of relationship-forming in cyberspace not only in terms of sensory immersion but also in terms of social immersion.

Participating artists Somok-jang Semi, Lee Hae-gang, and Lim Young-zoo attempt for the first time virtual multiplay works that reinterpret their existing bodies of work based on the keywords 'rules' and 'play,' thereby exploring what it means to experience and sense artworks placed in the new phase of network-connected virtual reality.

Somok-jang Semi's 'The Reopening of Hospitality' begins with a scenario in which the main stadium of the Cup Constellation Olympics—held to great success 2,000 years ago—is discovered. According to the story of the Cup Constellation Olympics, passed down only by word of mouth, the cups that became stars played mini golf to build up their strength and to foster friendship and harmony. Somok-jang Semi reinterprets the human activity of 'physical training'—at once private and communal—in sculptural and spatial terms, offering a lighthearted commentary on social prejudice and oppression.

Mini golf, the motif of The Reopening of Hospitality, is a representative family leisure activity that began in North Carolina, USA, in the 1900s as a form of commercial sport and spread to Europe and Canada. Unlike golf, which is perceived as an upper-class sport that destroys the environment, mini golf is a family-friendly, down-to-earth pastime that does not require large-scale development. Visitors, having become avatars, enjoy various mini golf courses in The Reopening of Hospitality, creating opportunities to naturally cooperate and build friendships with others in virtual reality.

Lee Hae-gang's 'Neuyeong-nayeong' takes as its starting point 'Dokkaebi Park,' created in 1998 by the late designer Lee Gi-hu. Dokkaebi Park, filled with some 2,000 dokkaebi (goblin) sculptures, was a 'hands-on learning ground where one learns while playing.' When its founder, designer Lee Gi-hu, passed away, Dokkaebi Park sadly also closed its doors in 2016. Artist Lee Hae-gang is in the process of archiving Dokkaebi Park—built by his father's hands—and relocating it into the digital world, and Neuyeong-nayeong, presented in The Adventure of Dot and Dash, contains a prequel worldview of how the dokkaebi of Dokkaebi Park came into being. Visitors take up the club of Heosu-kkaebi, an inscrutable being that connects this land with the land of the dokkaebi, and strike the stones to awaken them. When the stones awaken and become neuyeong-nayeong, they resonate with one another, emitting light and sound.

Lim Young-zoo's 'Bing' begins by testing the sight and hearing of a human who has become an avatar in a strange other world. Visitors who enter Bing follow the instructions of a voice that sounds like a hallucination, groping their way through a world of beats, until, before they know it, they lose control of their own bodies, falling and rising, drifting through a space connected like a Möbius strip. Sensing phantom-like forms that are neither quite sound nor letter, neither quite video nor sculpture, they become possessed by the image that is virtuality.

To realize the immersive and interactive nature of virtual reality, this exhibition is presented on 'Figro,' a virtual social platform built on VR HMD and a multiplay-type game world. Anyone who wishes to view the exhibition can apply for a Meta Quest 2 access link free of charge on the Figro website. A desktop version (Windows, MacOS) is also provided.

Alongside this, Elephant Space in Yeonnam-dong, Seoul, transforms into an offline portal for accessing The Adventure of Dot and Dash during the exhibition period. Visitors can view the exhibition through Naver Reservation, and a large LED screen and VR HMD devices will be installed to offer a distinctive exhibition experience.

▲ 'The Adventure of Dot and Dash' exhibition poster (graphic design: Kim Jung-wook)