[Work Introduction]
Presented at the 1st EMAF (Ewha Media Art Festival), this work is a two-channel video installation that reveals one of the earliest artistic inquiries in Park Jung Hyuk’s practice. A single performer embodies two opposing selves—‘a drifting being’ and ‘a desiring being’—each filmed separately and mechanically superimposed into a single visual layer through a physical apparatus. The work marks an experimental attempt to construct psychological duality through an optical structure.
 
[Mechanism and Intention: Interference of Gaze and the Overlapping Self]
Dichotomous Structure: On the vertical monitor, a figure wanders aimlessly, suspended and adrift. On the horizontal monitor, another figure approaches, reaching out as if attempting to grasp something.
 
Mechanism of the Glass: Installed at a 45-degree angle between the two monitors, the pane of glass reflects and transmits the differently oriented images, merging them into a single composite image before the viewer’s eyes.
 
Visualization of Ambivalence: Through this mechanical interference, the artist reveals the ambivalent dimensions that coexist within every phenomenon and situation. The self is not fixed, but a fluid condition—constantly splitting and recombining.
 
[Critical Perspective: Director’s View]
Park Jung Hyuk’s 2000 work I ⊃ YOU contains the embryonic structure of “deconstruction and reconstruction” that would later unfold in the ‘Park’s Land’ and ‘Ordinary People’ Series. As indicated by the mathematical symbol (⊃) in the title, the artist establishes the heterogeneous relationship between I and YOU as one of inclusion and containment, thereby unsettling the boundary between subject and other.
 
The 45-degree pane of glass functions not merely as a device, but as a metaphor for invisible social frames or perceptual filters. It prompts a critical reflection on how mutable the reality we perceive truly is.
 
Artist’s Note
“Vertically drifting I and horizontally approaching I ultimately meet upon a single pane of glass. Every phenomenon contains an ambivalent aspect that can never be defined as one. Through this subtle refraction and superimposition, I seek to reveal the fissure within the ‘unity’ we believe to be truth.”