Seoul, February 26, 2026, https://www.dotolim.com
Another visit to Seoul, another visit to Dotolim. It is incredible, how long this space keeps going. New location in Yeongdeungpo south of the Han River, but same old team and innovative noises and sounds.
There were multiple events around the time I was there. This one, as well as another one the following day, and yet another one at a different venue/organizer called “narrenschiff.seoul”. I specifically chose this one with Zhao Cong and Zhu Wenbo, because I expected a kind of “classical” and “arty” sound art approach, an approach close to art performance, where mundane gestures and sounds are given new meaning. Jin Sangtae was in my view always a follower of this line, in his case focusing on the “mundane” sounds of electronic and electro-mechanic equipment. It is a simple and modest approach, but that is where its beauty lies.
The first performance was by Zhao Cong 赵丛. It was indeed a very mild and gentle affair. The thing that stuck in my mind was an amplified sound of sparkling soda water, that went through the performance. Working with contact microphones, amplified touches between materials themselves. It was a nice and pleasant set. I enjoyed.
Next Jin Sangtae followed. It was the “usual” set of broken hard drives and rotating elements and strings, clattering and banging and squeaking at each other. It is by now a well known soundscape, but it still remains fascinating to me, maybe through the strange mix of (now) familiarity, but still complete randomness.
During Jin Sangtae´s performance, another guy (I guess Choi Joonyong) was moving around the space. The venue was a room in the cellar of a residential building equipped with mirrors on one wall, akin a dance-practice room. Choi was setting up laser pointers on microphone stands, creating a web of reflecting light rays (not that good on the eyes). Then he started a smoke machine. I guess the point was to add a visual element to performance. In my view, it was rather disturbing, taking away focus from the actual sound. It has also a bit of a feeling like two adult kids playing in a basement with laser pointer and smoke machine. Of course, on one hand I appreciate the playful everything goes approach, at the same time, as in this case, I felt it simply went against the simple and modest sound art performance approach.
The not intended highlight followed: Towards the (I guess) end of the performance, the fire alarm went off. Cellar doors were opened, audience poured out, residents from the building were coming down, organizers were on the phone quickly trying to prevent the arrival of the fire brigade and explaining to the building manager that this was not a fire just a couple of adult kinds playing in the basement…. slightly funny, but also a bit ridiculous.
After this unwanted intermezzo, Zhu Wenbo 朱文博 performed his set. It was quite difficult to return to a calm state of mind to follow his meditative performance. I remember a record player that was used to turn cymbals around instead of records, amplified via microphones. Paper sheets. Paper tearing. Paper crumbling. The performance was (compared to Zhao Cong) more choreographed, almost theatrical in the way how Zhu “whispered” words to the white paper sheets before tearing them up into pieces.
I assume that originally it may have been planned to have a kind of “jam” in the end. Also, Choi Joonyong in fact did not “perform” anything else except for the laser pointers and smoke machine, but after Zhu Wenbo´s performance, the time was over (approaching 10pm) and the residents of the building likely wanted to have their peace….
I had a mixed feeling from the evening. I could have been a very nice evening full of strange sounds and noise. But the light effects and unintended fire alarm intermezzo disturbed the atmosphere and mood for me. So, I hope all the adult kids got their lesson… don´t play with fire in the basement… hope for a better next time.
