Electrifying Spaces: ‘Wild Beasts’ by Jinku Kim

Over the last year, Jinku Kim (Music MFA 12) has transformed spaces at CalArts into vibrant, pulsating audio-visual pieces. Above is a video of his piece, Wild Beasts, from the INNER BEAST 2011 concert that took place in March.

“My art is inspired by spaces and objects, first,” says Kim. He composes the music, adding the visual components later: “Once I’ve found a space that I like, I think about how to visualize the musical ideas that I have written to fit the space. As I continue my process, the music affects what I create visually, and as I create the visuals, they in turn affect the music.”

The visual components of Kim’s pieces, which usually involve multiple projectors, take time to install in a space. “I need to manually map the various projected video elements directly to each space.”

His process is influenced by multimedia and installation artist Tony Oursler, who uses a similar technique to map out surfaces, while the audio components are inspired by Japanese sound artist, Ryoji Ikeda.

South Korean-born Kim, who is enrolled in the Intermedia and Experimental Sound Practices programs at The Herb Alpert School of Music at CalArts, chose the Institute because of the diversity in musical styles that are taught, as well as the ample opportunities to collaborate with different artists.

Kim’s next project, which he hopes to complete this fall, is an installation involving multiple moving screens inspired by John Cage’s Variations II.

Below is a video of another piece that utilizes Kim’s technique. The Partikkel debuted at the ESP #1 Concert last December, in Roy O. Disney Concert Hall at CalArts:

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