Chansong Woo 2019, Video, 8’04’’, Dec. 2019
The video depicts a journey toward ego at night with two moons with narration. To find ego, I think I should face the situation my name brings about to me. Since 2014, I have conducted series of Who Am I Project (2014, 2017, 2019) to try to lessen the gap between ego and name 'Chansong Woo' given to me by my parents before my birth. Everyone has endowed name as a container to hold its own substance, ego. Through their name, people can agonize over the discrepancy between ego(ideal) and name(reality), whether their ego fits in their name. This video records driving down endless roads at moonlit night. The road represents my life to find my ego. Two moons in the sky each express ideal(ego) and reality(name). The screen gradually finds its own colors: from monochrome to color which means I am getting close to my ego.
“I wanted only to try to live in accord with the promptings which came from my true self. Why was that so very difficult?” (Hesse, H. (1919). Demian)
Chansong Woo, Video, 2’29’’, 2018
Chansong Woo 2017, Video, 9’12’’, 2017
As a subsequent of ‘Sodam Kim and Chansong Woo (2014)’, this video clip is a monologue about Chansong Woo, at 29(in Korean age, 27 in the international standard). Now, 3 years later, she interviews herself about how her consideration and thought have been going on. Due to the conversational tone, the audience feels like they are interviewing her even though they are not. Calmly, she tells her story and her current situation to the audience.
Her story is basically about Chansong Woo as an artist, but it is our story and she is merely one example of ordinary people in our generation. In the introduction, a goldfish tries to lift herself and keep opening and closing its mouth to take a breath and go under the surface. At the end of the video, another new goldfish pops into the screen. One becomes two. The appearance of new goldfish is not the process to equate one’s artwork and one’s ego, but to separate ego and alter ego.
Sodam Kim and Chansong Woo, Video, 15’42’’, 2014
It is the conversation between Sodam Kim and Chansong Woo in 2014. Chansong Woo, at 26(in Korean age, 24 in the international standard), and Sodam Kim, at 27(in Korean age, 25 the international standard), tell their own stories in dialogue form. They have an in-depth conversation about feelings and thoughts while making artworks, reflection on artwork as a life goal, and its life circumstances. They ask questions each other and organize other’s thoughts to come to their conclusions. The conversation is about the meaning of name they have, what they want to be, what they are currently, and the story of contemporary people.