Ellie's Eye
2020 - Film & Video (Film & Video)
11:00 minutes
Jeamin Cha
Jeamin Cha’s essay-film Ellie’s Eye is an extensive examination of the human mind and the effects of new technology, such as chatbots and virtual avatar therapists on the mental health industry. One such avatar, named Ellie, was developed by the University of Southern California’s Institute for Creative Technologies. Ellie has the ability to interpret the user’s emotions through data collected from their speech and physical gestures to indicate psychological distress on a micro-level, which would be imperceptible by a human therapist. Cha equates the technology’s aptitude to “see-through” emotional facades with the age-old desire to see into the human body and mind. By tracing the history of more ubiquitous technology such as the x-ray, Cha questions the limits of pathology and challenges the notion that our sickness is only within us. Cha’s visual language is informed by extensive research and interviews and is often guided by her astute observations of society and an earnest sensitivity to her surroundings. Simultaneously, her practice draws from chance encounters, unexpected discoveries, and daily observations. Her unique manipulation of the camera and ability to use documentarian practices, not to directly distinguish fact from fiction, but to reveal the multiple and shifting realities of the world we live in is pertinent in this film. Ellie’s Eye marks a significant juncture in Cha’s practice as it brings the foundations of Cha’s decade-long inquiries into the friction between modernism and tradition, the accelerating isolation of urban society and its discordance with nature, to the surface. Ellie’s Eye was produced while Cha was artist-in-residence at KADIST San Francisco and was commissioned as part of her solo exhibition Jeamin Cha, Troubleshooting Mind I, II, III in 2020.
Jeamin Cha’s questions exist in the gyre between individual and social environment, stepping over conspicuous strands of relation between the two in favor of cultivating characters that dwell in the night, under-noticed or otherwise surplus figures outside of mainstream societal representation. She works primarily in video-based installations, which oftentimes are the result of years of interviews, research, and a meticulous editing process. Her films are indexes of reality in its minutiae, both regionally specific to her native South Korea, and also purposefully roaming, fragmented and nonlinear, able to touch almost any contemporary population in the world. The subjects Cha conjures expand fluidly beyond the limits of her work, giving depth to figures ranging from an electrician to a trio of ancient garbage collectors, their paths echoing off of the urban environment, engaged in a web of political, cultural, and social factors. Her films have increasingly consisted of nuanced, unblinking meditation on political issues and their echoes within urban existence. It would be wrong to describe these films as positivist, or documentarian. Rather, they strive to capture the viewer’s affective affinities with a critical edge.
Colors:
Related works sharing similar palette
© » ARTS EQUATOR
Big Brother is watching you: the exhibition aiming to tackle surveillance and censorship (via SEA Globe) | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia ArtsEquator Radar June 21, 2018 Surveillance and censorship are becoming part and parcel of daily life around the world, and yet many citizens seem content to turn a blind eye to it...
© » THEARTNEWSPER
James Ensor: series of anniversary shows to reveal ‘the man behind the mask’ Art market Museums & heritage Exhibitions Books Podcasts Columns Technology Adventures with Van Gogh Search Search Exhibitions news James Ensor: series of anniversary shows to reveal ‘the man behind the mask’ Belgium commemorates 75 years since the artist's death with a year-long season of exhibitions and events, often highlighting the lesser known aspects of his work Eddi Fiegel 15 December 2023 Share James Ensor, Pierrot and skeleton in a yellow robe (1893) Photo: Hugo Maertens The Belgian artist James Ensor may be easily recognisable for the macabre faces that so often feature in his works, but a major new season of exhibitions and events in his home country aims to reveal “the man behind the mask”...
© » ARTS EQUATOR
The Body Remembers: Kitt Johnson on "Stigma" at M1 CONTACT Contemporary Dance Festival 2019 | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Articles "Stigma", photo by James Quah (left), Kitt Johnson, photo by Per Morten Abrahamsen (right) April 29, 2019 By Germaine Cheng (605 words, three-minute read) 2019 marks the 10th edition of the M1 CONTACT Contemporary Dance Festival , a humble endeavour by Kuik Swee Boon, artistic director of T...
© » LE MONDE
Au Musée juif de New York, requiem expressionniste pour les victimes du 7 octobre nav_close_menu Cet article vous est offert Pour lire gratuitement cet article réservé aux abonnés, connectez-vous Se connecter Vous n'êtes pas inscrit sur Le Monde ? Inscrivez-vous gratuitement Article réservé aux abonnés « Oct...
© » ARTS EQUATOR
Careening Into “The Milk of Dreams”: Southeast Asia at the 59th Venice Biennale | ArtsEquator Skip to content While the stated theme of the Biennale is to challenge the hegemony of the West, Nicole Wong finds that the spaces created for these interventions to happen struggles against the behemoth of the Biennale itself...
© » KADIST
Gao Mingyan
2008The television monitors utilized in the video installation Come On (2008) ostensibly serve as playback devices for a multi-channel installation of clips from blockbuster films as part of a larger commentary of mass entertainment and its relation to consumer cultures...