This article was taken from the December 2013 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
Welcome to the grid. South Korean artist Jeongmoon Choi turns ordinary rooms into computer-generated-style landscapes -- using black light and woven threads. "I like the contradiction," the Berlin-based artist says. "People are confronted with a purely analogue construction but experience a virtual landscape." Choi originally started as a painter but, looking to work more freely with colours and planes, one day replaced her brush with a different tool. "One day, I came across a shop window with threads in various colours and thicknesses. I said, 'Perfect', and started using this material to "paint" on canvas." These drawings expanded into a third dimension, then Choi worked out that, by darkening a room and using black light, she could create "a new space or entity".
Each installation is prompted by the room. "Sometimes I have to be very precise, measuring, calculating, planning, elaborating a concept," Choi says. "Other times I draw directly into the room with red or black thread, I walk through the room, looking for new ways in my own movements, like Ariadne's thread." Choi will show new work at the end of November in the Moeller Fine Art Gallery in Berlin. And perhaps, eventually, on a truly international scale. "One most spectacular project could be realising an installation at the border between North and South Korea."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
