Noh Jungha's Fantasy

Fantasy made by Time and Space

Sanghee Jung (Art Critic)        

Noh Jungha’s photographs are filled with a fantasy about something she never conquered, but wants to own and remember. In landscapes, artist’s ateliers, self-portraits sometimes gorgeous and flashy, sometimes pure and childlike, video clips composed of numerous still images, all captured with a pinhole camera, neither places nor people nor people clearly show their identity. It is the desire to protect the fantasy bound to be broken at the moment of complete disclosure that permeates Noh Jungha’s artistic world.

There is a place on Earth, filled with dazzling sunshine. No human traces are sensed, but this familiar space is full of invisible energy which is vague, but unique. The essence of Noh’s pinhole photography is the process of grasping the invisible energy from the surrounding space. The artist finds the true meaning of subjects, thoughtlessly abandoned by the relentless flow of information and complicated mechanisms, by using the charm of chance specific to pinhole cameras and drawing out the elements of time and space. The images of places reborn through the pinhole box are no longer the places in the real world, but the places in the memories we have of loved ones and the time spent with them.

To capture a scene, the film in the pinhole box must be exposed to the subject anywhere from 5 to over 20 minutes, with the length of time depending on whether the pictures are taken indoors or outdoors. During this period, beams of light come into the box and generate images by clashing, disappearing and appearing again in the meantime. The photographer can only control the exposure to a very small extent, and the created images are completely unpredictable. Time passes through the small space in the box, along with the anxious moments of waiting.

It is imaginary stories that are formed within the box. The fantasies become real images by combining with temporality and spatiality. The interference if time and space is inevitable in pinhole photography, where capturing a moment is impossible. Noh Jungha focuses on the invisible energy produced in the unpredictable time and space within the box.

Self-portraits are another method of fantasy-making. Still, the identity is obscure to the artist herself, and this obscurity is reflected in vague impulses of various colors. Gold, which the artist claims represents her, is the color of desire, and appears in a number of Nog’s photographs, including self-portraits, symbolizing a woman’s life driven by desire, which can either be miserable or extremely vital. However, Noh’s self-portraits do not carry feminist viewpoints exposing women as a way of complaining about male-oriented society. The artist rather tries to hide herself behind images that are sometimes gorgeous and flashy, sometimes pure and childlike. This is asking a question about the identity of the artist herself and the audience to envision their own self-portraits and consider their own identity. This time the fantasy-making regarding identity is not driven by chance, but by intentional use of time and space.

Noh’s video images satisfy various impulses related to the audience’s unconscious acceptance of narratives in movies. They represent also a way of drawing fantasy out of segmented identity revealed in the images. Separate photos are combined to make a natural flow of time. Moments of separate times amalgamate into continuous time in a single space. The photo images show Central Station in New York, where nobody stays. The images of people that keep moving complete an event, which is reminiscent of the beams of lights clashing and interacting in the pinhole box to complete an image. Each person becomes a beam of light, moving, crossing and denying each other to ceaselessly make new reality, new images.

The artist makes a journey of life along with her works, making a journey of looking for the hidden fantasy in life. Recording different memories of different spaces, Noh takes pictures of women who, unlike men, are determined to take responsibility for love through childbirth. Their images are strong, but gentle. The journey to find her identity as a woman, and as an artist, is also remembered in photographs. Sometimes with a voyeur’s gaze, sometimes with a gaze of desire, she finds unreal images that are never to be found in reality. But, her artistic vision gives weight to communication and accordance with others, which keeps her unreality from going beyond the limit. The fantasy that Noh Jungha is looking for is not an escape from reality, but an alternative reality that many others can accept. ■