Fact/Cern Residency Award + KCCUK New Commission: Yunchul Kim

FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology) is the UK’s leading media arts centre, based in Liverpool.

It is a space where people, art and technology meet. In 2015, FACT and CERN, the European Centre for Nuclear Research, embarked on a three-year partnership to support artists working in the field of art and science through the COLLIDE CERN FACT Residency Award. Korean artist Yunchul Kim (b. 1970) is the recipient of the inaugural COLLIDE Residency Award, which is structured in two parts: two months at CERN focusing on immersive research and a third month at FACT centred on production and engagement through the development and prototyping of preliminary ideas with FACTLab, and through public-facing activities.

Yunchul Kim’s work focuses on research about new materiality and the artistic potential of fluid dynamics and metamaterials, which are synthetic composite materials that exhibit properties not usually found in natural materials. Kim works within the realm of contemporary media art and audio-visual effects, producing objects and installations that transfer cosmic radiation, acoustic, and/or vibrating impulses into ever-changing, fascinating yet puzzling images. Spectators are left with a glimpse into the worlds of alchemy, astrophysics and new technologies: strange, unfamiliar and at the same time captivating.

FACT and KCCUK are partners on Yunchul Kim’s project ‘Cascade’, which includes a series of events and a new commission, and premieres at KCCUK in October 2018. ‘Cascade’ looks

at the possibility of controlling the propagation of light through colloidal suspensions of photonic crystals. Following its showing at KCCUK in London, the project will be presented through the ScANNER network, a production consortium composed of leading international cultural organisations. An acronym for ‘Science and Art Network for New Exhibitions and Research’, ScANNER includes FACT and CERN, as well as Le Lieu Unique, Nantes; CCCB, Barcelona; and iMAL, Brussels.