Acrobat
The other path that Shin presents us with in Acrobat (2021) is one that draws us in from outside the stage. This is not the sort of route we find on a navigation device, which guides us toward our destination based on measurements and calculations. This route is a long way away from recorded data volumes and efficiency.
It guides us into a place where years of dust drift, a place that exudes the characteristic damp odors we find underground. In Acrobat, Shin proposes ways of interpreting space through the senses. Both videos are set around intake stations, which were used in the past to store water but are no longer employed today. Dried up and (seemingly) fated to remain unvisited by anyone, they call to mind enormous time capsules that remain sealed past their scheduled opening date, their whereabouts unclear. They also resemble stones that were raised to commemorate something in the past that no one visits anymore. Inside this discontinued intake station is a person – a person who feels, measures, and seeks. There is no defined route. Yet he moves nimbly and constantly, keenly sensing the floors, the walls, and the structure. In the world in which he perceives, the once-solid order of the “named” takes on a flexible quality. In a sense, the staircase is not a staircase to him. Named things are reinterpreted like, length of stride, body width, and grip strength: a tread-board for the feet, and a railing to stop the body from falling. These experiments suggest that with his physically based explorations, Shin Jungkyun sought to open up new structures and paths as he diluted the meaning of each individual element.
The Acrobat suggests a more roundabout path to those of us who firmly believe that we are already predicting the path toward tomorrow, or who balance between anxiety and helplessness as we wonder how valid the paths we have established will remain. It also poses a question for us: what should we be latching on to as we proceed toward the future? The bright light of a lamp that whites out whatever clue we’ve managed to find? Or a finger capable of sensing all the roughness and quivering of a surface? Sometimes, the things that we view as the most obviously reliable are the ones that lead us to ambiguous places. It is in this context that Shin Jungkyun reactivates the expired time capsule, entreating us to move along its length, width, and depth – setting today in motion in the process. Most of all, he asks us to be awake in this place where no path to the future can be found.
