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Rainey Knudson

63. Kim Beom, A Rock That Learned the Poetry of Jung Jiyong

Kim Beom, still from "A Rock That Learned the Poetry of Jung Jiyong," 2010, single-channel video. Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

In this video, a man reads poetry to a rock on a table before him. It’s funny and absurd, tinged with futility. But it also assumes, with complete conviction, that the rock is sentient, capable of listening and learning. Is it crazy to believe that everything is alive? Not just animals and plants and amoebas, but everything? Cars, artworks, tools, even rocks? Everything is made up of atoms — in the midst of those atoms' mysterious, undetectable-but-we-know-it's-there dark matter, where does "aliveness" begin? And what would it mean to our world if we treated inanimate objects as if they were alive?


More about Kim Beom’s work can be found here.


 

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