Chada

2021
Participatory Performance
+
Creative Coding
+
Poetry

Two microphones, two speakers
TouchDesigner system
December 4-5, 9 2021, Fletcher Building #606, RISD

“Chada” is an experimental performance, which invites the audience to participate. The participants and the artist are seated back to back, facing the speaker, which plays each other’s voice after 10 seconds of delay. Together, they recites a poem, “Between Autumn Equinox and Winter Solstice, Today” written by Emily Jungmin Yoon, Korea-born American poet. After they both finishes reciting, the sounds from 10 seconds ago remains in the room, in-between the participants. Like the word "Chada," which simultaneously means "it is cold," "it is tea," "it is being filled up," and many other things in Korean, the performance exposes perceptive delay in relational languages and untranslatability of migrated beings. And in this poetic conversational setting, "Chada" caresses mis- and un- translatability of communication, language, identity, and relations.



When Nostalgia Cannot Find the Closed Eyes, The Smallest Unit of Time Becomes Smaller and Smaller Infinitely.
(Telephone Game, 2021)


“When Nostalgia Cannot Find the Closed Eyes, The Smallest Unit of Time Becomes Smaller and Smaller Infinitely. (Telephone Game)” is the first practice that I explored delayed sensation of presentness.
I recorded a sentence in my voice, then I gave it to my friend to listen, and I asked him to repeat it as he heard it. Next, I gave his voice recording to another person and asked her to repeat it as she heard it. I repeated this ‘telephone game’ process twelve times with different people. Eventually, I made a layered version of twelve recordings at their exact timings of start points. The delay of each recording‘s starting point is the inevitable delay that occurs when people are asked to speak it as they hear it.
In this piece, the accumulated delays play as metaphors for the present moment which continuously becomes the past. And the errors, which occurred during the original sentence is broken are the metaphors for reconstructive memory. While making this piece, I was motivated to explore how to make this ‘broken telephone game’ into a real-time performative piece.




TouchDesigner system built for “Chada(2021)”


Between Autumn Equinox and Winter Solstice, Today
Emily Jungmin Yoon

I read a Korean poem
with the line “Today you are the youngest
you will ever be.” Today I am the oldest
I have been. Today we drink
buckwheat tea. Today I have heat
in my apartment. Today I think
about the word chada in Korean.
It means cold. It means to be filled with.
It means to kick. To wear. Today we’re worn.
Today you wear the cold. Your chilled skin.
My heart kicks on my skin. Someone said
winter has broken his windows. The heat inside
and the cold outside sent lightning across glass.
Today my heart wears you like curtains. Today
it fills with you. The window in my room
is full of leaves ready to fall. Chada, you say. It’s tea.
We drink. It is cold outside.





추분과 동지 사이, 오늘
에밀리 정민 윤

한국 시를 읽었다
이런 구절과 함께, 오늘은 앞으로의 일생에서
당신이 가장 어린 날.
오늘은 내가
여태껏 가장 늙은 날. 오늘 우리는
메밀차를 마신다. 오늘 나는
아파트 난방을 켰다. 오늘 나는
차다라는 한국어를 떠올린다.
차갑다라는 뜻. 채워지다라는 뜻.
찬다라는 뜻. 채운다라는 뜻. 오늘 우리는 지쳤다.
오늘 너는 추위를 입는다. 너의 차가워진 피부.
내 마음이 내 피부를 찬다. 누군가 말했어
겨울이 그의 창문들을 망가뜨렸다고. 내부의 열과
외부의 냉기가 유리에 벼락을 내렸다고.
오늘 내 마음은 너를 커튼처럼 감싼다. 오늘
내 마음은 너로 채워진다. 내 방 창문은
낙하를 앞둔 잎들로 가득 찼다. 차다, 네가 말한다. 차다.
우리는 마신다. 밖은 차다.












Performance with Kamari Smalls, Jordan Metz, Christine Greer, Tess Oldfield, and Lilan Yang
December 4-5 2021, Fletcher Building #606, RISD



“Chada” is an experimental performance, which invites the audience to participate. The participants and the artist are seated back to back, facing the speaker, which plays each other’s voice after 10 seconds of delay. Together, they recites a poem, “Between Autumn Equinox and Winter Solstice, Today” written by Emily Jungmin Yoon, Korea-born American poet. After they both finishes reciting, the sounds from 10 seconds ago remains in the room, in-between the participants. Like the word "Chada," which simultaneously means "it is cold," "it is tea," "it is being filled up," and many other things in Korean, the performance exposes perceptive delay in relational languages and untranslatability of migrated beings. And in this poetic conversational setting, "Chada" caresses mis- and un- translatability of communication, language, identity, and relations.



Performance with Ann Lewis
December 9 2021, Fletcher Building #606, RISD