An Investigation Into Phantom Possibilities

8/7/2019 An Investigation Into Phantom Possibilities

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An Investigation into Phantom Possibilities

Sung-Uk Brad Hwang


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I moved to Berlin in 1990 with no money, no language, no acquaintances. But with a

saxophone, two hands, and a certain hunger for more life, more questions, just more

communification. Id always been involved in taking the stuff around me to try and build brief

moments of coexistence. Materials and objects stripped of their initial function are

reactivated. Everything I make functions, but its up to the participants/viewers, through their

cooperation and personal investment, to give this function a purpose, although this purposemay be absurd, even unrealizable.

So steel drums became A Steaming, Singing, Soup-cooking Stove (1990) for Caf Zapata in

Tacheles, an oxy-acetylene trolley became A Steam-powered Latke Catapult (1991),

thousands of discarded gauze bandages from the GDR Red Cross were woven into a bed

(First Aid, 1992) and spun into thick ropes for swings (Angel Training, 1993), disaster

shelter cookware became a soup kitchen with screaming bowls and an automatic begging

machine (How Hunger Functions, 1993), an old tractor became a carnival stand to hawk

time (The Worlds Largest Tractor-powered Clock, 1994), and so on.

These activities and transformations arose in a greater context of dislocation and socialbuzz: Berlin in the immediate aftermath of the Wall Fall, in a time in which everything

seemed possible and a multitude of voices sang and were heard. There is a dearth (in my case,

at any rate) of documentation from this period: there was also no need for it. After all, youd

go out in the morning to collect food and junk, after that go visit some friends (if they werent

home youd scribble a note on their doors), around noon make some quick music, in the

afternoon try and hook up warm water at your neighbours, in the evening youd cook your

found food and eat together, at night go out dancing, sleep, next day go collecting lumps of

coal for heat, wait in line outside with a found or borrowed telephone in hand and splice its

wires onto a recently discovered working phone line in the rubble, youd then put on or play

or visit a concert (Novemberklub, Ornament und Verbrechen, Triplum, 1992 1998), paint or

go look at some pictures, scribble some more on friendly doors, discuss some art, politics,

recipes, toilet flush construction, books, washing machine repairyeahyeahyeah, thats it

exactly or maybe not, day after that sleep in a little, make some more music or stand at the

turntables (DJ Brad, 1996 1999) go out looking for more food, cook another meal, eat,

warm water hookup doesnt work, fix it again, how could you possibly document all this

when the production of art is the very intangible day-to-day living of it? Doesnt matter,

tomorrows another day, and therell be time, time enough to protest the Gulf War, send

delegations of poets to Kosovo, stem the slow, steady tide of speculators, send in project

proposals brick by brick, plenty of time to raise the kids, to bury dead friends, parents,

dreams, to mourn them, too (Small Comfort: Backpatting Devices, 2004), time to build a

home for the growing family (Odin, 1997 and counting), thank God youve finally got areal phone line, internet as well, much more efficient, and maybe theres not so much time

after all, got to wake up early to get to the job site and earn some money (Undocumented

Worker, 1990-2010), and how come nobody comes any more when I cook (Site-

specificity, 2003-2004)? Were all still hungry, right? I seem to recall we were going to all

meet this coming fall in the Big Rock Candy Mountains, or were we already there all along

and somehow lost our way? It became time to build a time machine (Time May Change Me /

I Cant Change Time, 2007).

Now back to those unrealizable purposes. Determinably, I take the stuff around me, transform

it in some way, and functionality is the result. Something functional, funky, weve got the

funk (Funkbeing the German word for spark and radio), e.g. Lightning Backpack, 1993-2011. But the purpose of the work is articulated through context, experience, and interaction

on the part of the conspirators and onlookers who invest their own labor (Carousel, 1996-


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2003). A function with no defined purpose. A gift made of that which is not possessed, given

those who can never repay it. The subversive gift, potlatch style, because now a responsibility

emerges, impelling one to create a suitable purpose for the function: the boy who

heartbreakingly asked, Is this a tradition where you come from? after catching a steam-

propelled potato pancake on an East German street; the homeless man in Chicago who sat

with his bowl of gumbo on the tablecloth woven out of gauze bandages, remarking, You arethe Michael Jordan of what you do. Dont know what it is you do, but you are the Michael

Jordan of it.

This bestowed purpose, despite a moment of suspended disbelief, remains unfulfilled. The

clock cant be turned back. There was a meeting in Tacheles where I attempted, in broken

German, to explain the best strategy for firing the stove without smoking out the band and the

entire audience, this happened repeatedly nonetheless and we froze our asses every winter, at

least until the brand new central heating came. The bandages, even in their woven form, are

insufficient to heal real wounds. The empty bowls scream, are filled with soup, and everyone

still gets hungry again. Everyone joins hands in the midst of a huge argument to feel the spark

manifest itself from thin air, and then immediately continues arguing even more violently.The backpatting device provides not even small comfort in the face of real loss. The carousel

doesnt really take to the sky. And in time all of these functional objects in search of a

purpose lose even their newly-won functionality, returning to useless pieces of junk,

becoming abandoned detritus, like the context in which they arose and briefly functioned.

But the spectre of this unrealized purpose comes back to haunt us as we protest, as we send

delegations of poets, fend off speculators, submit project proposals, raise the kids, as we

mourn, at home. And rightly so, because ghosts, I mean really scary ghosts and not just a

nostalgic yearning for the good old days and lost youth, are always demanding something

from us, yes they demand of us the fulfilment of purpose, the unrealizable purpose we

discover now and in the past, which we promised ourselves for the future. Or maybe not

ourselves, but those to come. A promise we cant keep.

But promises made to us also remain unkept. This ghost looks kind of familiar, although it has

taken on a slightly different appearance. Whats keeping Mayakovskys good life (we want it

now!), or Beuys social sculpture, and did Bas Jan Ader really find the miraculous? Wheres

the classless society? Wasnt there more to--? Maybe this is precisely the point: to pass on this

unkept promise, leave sufficient traces and then join the demanding phantom choir: a spectre

is haunting Europe. At the end of the day, every subjectively created purpose for a function

is the articulation of a possible Utopia. We have all glimpsed these ghosts in the dark, just out

of the corner of the eye (Seesaw, 2009). Again and again, in unquieting moments ofdislocation, yet they remain elusive. Theyre not there, and theyre not not there. They neither

belong to the past, nor do they belong in the future. And still they haunt us. Theyve always

half-been with us. What is to be done? The common strategy seems to be that of rationalizing

them away: Lets finally make this annoying atemporality history! In the final analysis,

there is only that which can be apprehended, archived, bought, sold, forgotten. This is the

rational reality, in which we live. A catalog of ghosts is to be compiled, everything

categorized to its proper place, and at last the matter is put to rest.

And yet.


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And yet, Octavio Paz: Anyone who has looked Hope in the face will never forget it. He will

search for it everywhere he goes. (Apparatus for the Observation of Ghosts, 2011).

No way around itthe ghosts are demanding that I find support in granting them a voice. Its

really the only fair thing to do. Precisely this horde of spectres is the stuff I find around me,

that stuff I wish to refunctionalize so that I can invite others to join in cobbling together apurpose for them. What Im engaged in is sort of an ongoing investigation into the ghostly,

the partial, not-quite manifestation of a spirit, a revenant which were always going to be

dealing with anyway.

Lets get to work on this wild ghost chase. No time now to get all sentimental. Set up exhibits,

draw up some maps. Build, invent, intervene. Break the compass but stay the course. Eat our

fill, reset the table and dance on it. Give the ghosts a warm neighbourly welcome and sit down

together with them, because they wouldnt be haunting us if they had nothing of import to

impart.

Berlin, 2011


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Stove, 1991

Multifunctional steam machine.


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First Aid, 1992

Loom for weaving gauze bandages.


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Rainmaker, or How Soup Works, 1992


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Lightning Backpack, 1991 2011

Various mobile static electricity generators designed to collect a charge from the air and make

the discharge visually and physically manifest. About fifty people have been simultaneously

shocked by this, as long as their hands are joined. I have to wear glass-bottomed shoes when I

perform this. The halos kind of nice, too if youre into faked sainthood like I am.


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How Hunger Works, 1994

Before you get your soup, you turn a crank to make your bowl scream (kind of like a hurdygurdy). Bottom: an automatic begging machine that can do the work of twenty beggars (the

cups contain coins that jingle when moved).


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Set the Table, 1995

Loom, Gauze bandages woven into a tablecloth, soup (Gumbo in this case), random guests.


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Soup Kitchen, 1996


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Hour Sale, 1996

The largest tractor-powered clock in the world. Maybe the only one. The tractor also powers

the shadow figures and an ink duplicator that prints out one hour-form at each full revolution

of the minute hand. These blank forms could be filled out and bought for five marks.


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Carousel, 2003

Man-powered flight.


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Kickassmachine, a Self-Motivation Device, 2004


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Backpatting device (Small Comfort), 2005


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Odin, from 1997 onwards


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Time May Change Me / I Cant Change Time, 2007

Sled with electrostatic generator, activated by rowing.


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Seesaw, 2009

The persons seesawing can see each other only when the seesaw is exactly horizontal. A

monument to the fall of the Berlin Wall.


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Apparatus for the Observation of Ghosts (Spectrescope), 2011

Swings in doorways, a hacked trench periscope.


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Tucholskystr. 34 IIer HH, 1992(Before)

Heckmannsche Hfe, Tucholskystr. 34 IIer HH, 2011

(After)


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Sung-Uk Bradden Hwang

Tiergarten SchleuseHausboot 210623 BerlinGermany

Tel. (30) 313 3935e-mail: [email protected]: www.bradhwang.com

Born January 13, 1966 in Seoul Korea

Bachelor of Arts, Summa Cum Laude at University of California, Los Angeles, 1988 under Charles Ray,Chris Burden, Paul McCarthy

Master of Fine Arts at Rinehart School of Sculpture in Baltimore, 1990under Sal Scarpitta

Selected Solo and Group Exhibitions:

2011Prozessgalerie, Berlin

2010Deutsche Arbeitsschutzausstellung, Dortmund

2009Radialsystem V, BerlinDead Chickens Warehouse, Berlin

2008Familientage, Radialsystem V, Berlin

2007Dialoge, BangaloreFamilientage, Radialsystem V, BerlinFestival du Theatre, AvignonVom Funken zum Pixel, Martin Gropius- Bau, Berlin

2006Winterprogramme Oberschneweide, BerlinDialoge und Erffnung, Radialsystem V, Berlin

2005Inventeurs , MaubeugeEXIT, Paris

2004re: Machine, Neurotitan, BerlinDialoge, Elisabethkirche, BerlinDialoge, Volkspalast, Palast der Republik, Berlin

2000Roubaix, France

1999

"via 99", Maubeuge, France"EXIT", Paris, France


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1998"TSCHIKAGO", Gary Marks Gallery, Chicago

1997Haus Schwarzenberg, BerlinThe River Show, M.S. Odin, Berlin

1996Galerie Weisser Elefant, Berlin"The Missing Limb on the Family Tree", Galerie Wohnmaschine, Berlin

1995"Engelschule", Synlabor Loop Gallery, Berlin"How Many Angels Dance on the head of a pin, Tucholsky 34, Berlin

1994Raab Gallery, Berlin"X-Position", Akademie der Knste, BerlinM.S. Stbnitz, Hamburger Hafen, Hamburg

"Tagediebetage", Milchhof, BerlinFestival of Arts", Maubeuge

1993Kunstwerke, Berlin"Incredibly Strange Machines", V2, Eindhooven"The Wurst Show Ever", Galerie Mutzek, Berin"Absolute Threshold", Amsterdam"Wie Hunger Funktioniert", Milchhof, Berlin

1992Tacheles, Berlin"Erste Hilfe", Tucholsky 34, Berlin

"Nachtbogen", Berlin

1991Tacheles, Berlin"Hinter den Museen", Museumsinsel, Berlin

1990disPLACE, BaltimoreCleveland Public Theater, Cleveland"Earth Day", New York

1989Gertrude Stein House, Baltimore

disPLACE, Baltimore

1988"Steam Show", Los Angeles Street Festival, Los Angeles"Home Work", Charles Strangman Sheet Metal Shop, Los Angeles

1987"Steam Show", Los Angeles Boiler Works, Los Angeles"New Forms", M.A.G. Gallery, Los AngelesTop Art, Los Angleles

1986"Steam Show", Los Angeles Boiler Works, Los Angeles


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Performances and recordings with various bands including Triplum, Ornament und Verbrechen, UniversalCongress of, and All Mighty Senators (discography available)

Member of Scarpitta and Castelli Sprint Car Racing Team

Founder of disPLACE, an alternative space in Baltimore

Organizer of various group exhibitions in Los Angeles, Baltimore, and Berlin

Lives and works in Berlin, Germany, on the M.S. Odin, a riverboat docked in the Tiergarten.

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