HEARTS ECHO LIKE MERCURY
Hearts echo like mercury
HD video, color, sound, 19min 13sec, 2016
The protagonist of this video is a longtime friend of Yi and former member of Yellow Kitchen, an indie band which active in the 1990s. The time Yi and the protagonist spend as ‘you’ and ‘I’ (namely, ‘we’) flows slowly in the video like a ripple moving through water, and they exchange their voices and appearances much like Narcissus and his reflection. What propels the video’s fragmented narrative and its general sentiment could be described as shoegazing, or electronic sounds which mimic those of a music box and howling guitar.
While traveling together, the two speakers share in a mundane dialogue regarding a lucid dream while another voice whispers “Don’t give out your heart.” The dialog and voiceover reveal a tender mind yearning to commemorate every escaping and ephemeral moment experienced by ‘I.’
Video Credit
Appearance & Assistance | Do Yeon-woo, Song Daseul
Camera | Lee Heein, Yi Yunyi
Editing | Yi Yunyi
Color Grading | Lee Heein
Music | Do Yeon-woo
Sound Design | Um Insung
Costume & Make-up | Song Daseul, Yi Yunyi
Translation | Choe Jeong Hoon
Screenwriting & Directing | Yi Yunyi
All music composed and performed by Do Yeon-woo
“Very Tiny A Beaming Kiddy”, Track 6, Yellow Kitchen, [Mushroom, Echoway, Kleidos], Nviron, 1998
“T AT A”, Track 3, [Random Elements], Nviron, 2002
Re-make of:
“Moearie”, The original song written by Yu Chi-Hwan and composed by Kim Dae-Hyun, 1954
“The Echo Of Love", The original song written by Evgeny Ptichkin and sung by Anna German, 1977
All texts written by Yi Yunyi, except of:
“She is incomprehensible, even to herself. That got her anxious for a long time. The fact that ‘she couldn't understand herself’, and that she didn't know herself, seized her with a sense of guilt.”
Excerpts of Hélène Cixous, [The Laugh of the Medusa], 1975
"Is it time the watch is inside? Is it the watch time is inside? Teacher, I am fine. As if I was a ghost!"
"Ugly? In every possible way though I grow old and ugly, I will crawl my way out, screaming like hell
Should my body not work, I will use my spirit and mind, my soul, to rush out and back inside
Together with the windmill that goes round and round let us die out"
Excerpts of Do Yeon-woo's Notes
Special thanks to:
Kim Nam Yoon, Yi Nana, Choe Hyeryung
Produced by the occasion of the group exhibition, <Push, Pull, Drag>, Aug 30. 2016 - Nov 13. 2016
Platform-L Contemporary Art Center, 11 Eonjuro 133gil Gangnamgu Seoul 06053 Korea, +82 2 6929 4470
Screening History
5/19/2020 - 6/20/2020, "Fluent Stutter", d/p, Seoul, Korea
10/14/2016, 'Interude' Artist talk with Eunbi Jo, Insa Art Space, Seoul, Korea
8/30/2016 - 11/13/2016, "Push, Pull, Drag", Platform-L Contemporary Art Center, Seoul, Korea