Tap, tap, tap…
In Hong Seung-hye’s solo exhibition ‘On the Move,’ water drops fall without pause. As they gather into a puddle, each drop sends out ripples that read as circles, triangles and squares. Across eight video works installed in the gallery, similar but distinct sounds drift together, break apart and return, creating subtle variations.
At a news conference held on the 24th at Kukje Gallery Busan, Hong spoke about rhythm, saying, “Music moves me without me even realizing it.”
“Even the spacing when you hang frames isn’t random. It’s the result of countless adjustments. I can’t explain every moment, though,” she said.
The exhibition centers on the “mobility” Hong has long pursued, bringing together works from different periods. It traces a progression from geometric forms to sound and from sound to choreography. The show spans flat works that appear to move, video works that actually move, and sculptural pieces that viewers can move themselves.
A key focus is a group of major video works shown together. They include ‘Snoopy in Space’ (2019), which drifts through a vast cosmos, and ‘Facial Expression Practice’ (2025), in which circles, bars and crosses meet and separate to form expressions that seem to laugh and cry. In the videos, pared-down shapes move like notes on a musical staff, shifting, varying and expanding.
Hong linked that sense of movement to her own life: memories of a father who loved music, time spent learning the marimba, scenes from the film ‘The Sound of Music,’ and accidental changes produced by the undo process. She added Photoshop at 40 and began using GarageBand at 50, she said, turning her life into a kind of rhythm that remains in motion.
“I actually love dancing,” she said. “It’s like I’ve found a dance I can do even when I’m old. Even if I don’t have much energy later, if I still have the strength to move a mouse, I’ll be able to keep dancing.”
The exhibition runs through June 14.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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