Great Chain of Being: Sung Rok Choi
Sung Rok Choi’s exhibition 《Great Chain of Being》 presents two animation installations. The show consists of the animation work Great Chain of Being and the live action animation A Dog in 12 Motions.
The two works present the relationships, movement, and connections that shape the structure of the contemporary world as animated, moving landscapes. Great Chain of Being is a 2D animation installation that reflects on the structure of today’s world and the cycles and relationships among its elements. The concept of the “Great Chain of Being”, once a philosophical idea, explained the world through a hierarchical order of existence. This work reimagines that idea through the forms of beings that make up the contemporary world.
In the past, philosophers believed that God stood at the top of the world’s structure, followed by angels, humans, animals, plants, and elements. While civilization and culture have changed the elements at each level, invisible hierarchies still remain. In this work, the structure of the present world is represented by robots, machines, humans, animals, and virtual or digital beings. These entities appear and disappear within a virtual system as they are created, arranged, used, discarded and recycled. The work presents these processes as a single system, like a factory.
A Dog in 12 Motions is a twelve-channel live action animation that tells the story of an abandoned robot dog through twelve screens and movements. The work is based on robot dogs currently being developed with modern robotics technology. It follows a malfunctioning robot dog that has been discarded and now wanders around the edges of a city.
As it roams, the robot dog repeatedly performs twelve learned movements that appear animal-like or strange, each set within a different landscape. Through this work, the artist presents the movement of a created being through animation, linking it to the way robots are built, programmed, and made to repeat mechanical actions.