HEAVY DOT: Jung Sungyoon
A. A single thread pierced my chest and vanished.
1. A line needs two dots; relationships need two hearts. However, most connections break. Think of the countless ties you’ve encountered in life: how many left something behind, and how many ended up as nothing? As the poet says, so many “became nothing.” Counting the lasting ones, how many remain?
Today’s smartphones and messaging apps push us to add more friends, but how many are genuine friends? Its futile. Most days, we connect with just ten people, few repeatedly. The dots that formed lines fade away, and the points in our hearts retreat. And they disappear. Jung Sungyoon tries to hold onto what’s gone but fails. Did he not realise? The fact that he did is the real concern.
B. In this empty space that can never be filled again / The heavy dot in my chest and I / share the closest possible distance
2. Jung Sungyoon’s work split into two phases: web-based artworks created during the rise of media art, and mechanical installations pursued after. At first glance, these two bodies of work seem completely separate. The former reflects high-tech innovation, while the latter involves semi-automated low-tech machines
Despite differences in form, the core continuity is in the message conveyed by the medium. 《Heavy Dot》 follows the same line, marking important shifts even as it shares structural similarities with earlier mechanical installations.
At this point, Park Yang-gyun’s poem 입상(Standing Figure), quoted earlier, becomes central. What did Jung Sungyoon find in this poem? Notably, the poem’s central metaphors are formal elements such as lines (threads), dots, the chest (space), and the standing figure. This is no coincidence. The poem serves as a direct key to interpreting 《Heavy Dot》. So what message does Standing Figure convey?
C. It became a figure that could not move / and could not connect to anything
3. Park Yang-gyun’s poem Standing Figure may seem difficult at first, and is often described as such. However, its formal structure reveals clarity. Its dot-line space-standing figure sequence mirrors human relationships.
A dot symbolises an individual, an isolated island in modern society. Yet, no one is truly alone; relationships are essential. These connections are shown as lines. The poet emphasises transformation over logic, embracing the fluid nature of poetry over geometric precision.
The poem starts not with a dot, but with a line. When a line hits the centre of the chest, it creates a connection that soon breaks. The poet then depicts the broken bond as a dot and describes it, paradoxically, as the “closest distance.” Yet this closeness no longer exists; it merely signifies a lost relationship.
Still, it does not disappear completely. It lingers in memory, shaped by the poet as a standing figure. Viewing the thread’s end as a vertex and the chest as a circle, a cone emerges. The standing figure is built.
Here, the poet’s insight becomes clear: “It was not circling beside me; I was circling alone.” The standing figure rotates, but in solitude. This is what Jung Sungyoon seeks to see and create in Heavy Dot, where the poem’s metaphors take full physical form.
D. It comes to my side and comes to a stop.
4. Heavy Dot resembles Jung Sungyoon’s manual mechanical installations that began in 2009. A solid metal exterior, relatively precise mechanics, and a hand-operated structure that requires another person’s effort are all still present. He likely deemed his early web works too lightweight, so he pared down the message, opting for a more solid and restrained form.
For example, works made in 2012 delivered only a single message, requiring viewers to physically engage with the piece to receive it. The interaction was challenging and outdated in an era of constant messaging.
The current work is even less accommodating. The basic structure of Heavy Dot is similar to earlier works, and the clean metal framework remains. However, the two crucial elements are missing. First, the message itself has disappeared. Where text once appeared at the top of the structure, there is now only a black dot. The message has been compressed to the extreme limit of text.
Second, the viewer’s physical involvement is gone. Unlike earlier works, movement no longer conveys the message. This time, there is no such possibility. The work balances itself through asymmetrical weights on either side. There is no room for intervention. Essentially, movement is removed, rendering it an isolated island.
E. It became something longed for, like a homeland that no longer exists / and it felt as though he and I could always preserve that distance
5. This is not the only change. The rotating bar, completing a turn every two minutes, blocks access to Heavy Dot, forcing viewers to wait in silence. Conversation and even gestures become impossible as the barrier’s slow movement deepens the silence.
In one sense, the work still demands movement from the viewer, but the meaning has shifted. In earlier works, movement was needed to assemble meaning. Now, movement is required simply to approach meaning. Even so, this is hardly movement at all, since the viewer must remain still and wait.
In truth, Jung Sungyoon was not without a partner in dialogue. That partner was Standing Figure, and the result of that dialogue is Heavy Dot. These, too, are forms of connection. The memories the artist recalled through the poem were also part of his dialogue.
Yet these connections, too, may collide as a single point and become nothing, destined to break one day. If the “heavy dot” is a period, then it is a dot that waits for the next sentence to begin.