Jamyoung Koo (b. 1986) has been exploring how rapidly evolving technological (software) experiences influence the creation of visual art. He investigates the structures and forms of invisible virtual systems that operate and sustain the physical structures of the real world, focusing on translating them into the realm of sculpture.

In his first solo exhibition, 《PBB》 (2018) held at Dimensions Variable, Jamyoung Koo conducted experiments that involved transferring the processes of design software into hardware (the exhibition space), while also reversing the approach to explore what happens when hardware-related issues are brought into the realm of software. 

To briefly outline the experimental process: Koo first transcribed the environment of a design program (Artboard) onto the exhibition space’s windows, and the method of extruding the edited layout into the interior served as the spatial division and interior design. This process was accompanied by a mode of thinking that derives three-dimensional forms from a plane, in accordance with the modeling rules of three-dimensional computer graphics (3D CG).

In this exhibition, his work traversed the boundary between software and hardware, posing the question of how the form of the individual might transform in the future and what alternative relationships it could forge with contemporary art.  

Koo envisioned a fictional computer sample file, ‘PBB (Phoenix Phenotype Breeding)’, designed to diagnose and find solutions for computer virus programs that would disrupt a digitized human body in a future where human organs are replaced with computer components.

The exhibition took the form of a prototype platform designed to showcase PBB—a fictional entity that researches and commercializes programs by debugging human-computer viruses. This platform allowed for the display of various sample files without categorical distinctions.
 
Through Art-Channel, a medium aimed at embracing individual singularities and the expansiveness of media, Koo engaged with clients, using its server network to advertise the brand and distribute content. 

In this way, Koo’s first solo exhibition offered a space and framework for an alternative platform—one in which, in the current moment when offline still holds validity, brands fully replace individuals, and data-constructed bodies can be exchanged within the web.

Since then, Jamyoung Koo has observed the structures through which programs are created and examined their impact on industry and visual culture, developing a series of works that categorizes the forms of software into three components: frame, formwork, and facade. 

In his 2020 solo exhibition 《Development of Editing Methods for Website Structure》 at Space Willing N Dealing, the artist reexamined the systems of an actual physical exhibition space through the framework of a website’s virtual structure, exploring the invisible boundaries that exist between these two realms.

To this end, Koo analyzed the website structures of six exhibition spaces—Space Willing N Dealing, MMCA (National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea), SeMA (Seoul Museum of Art), AVP Lab (Audio Visual Pavilion Lab), ASJC (Art Sonje Center), and Fondation d’entreprise Hermès. Using his unique methodology, he deconstructed, restructured, and materialized these virtual frameworks, presenting the resulting works in physical form.

Koo analyzed HTML, the language that structures websites, and translated it into a “molecular structure” model, subsequently transforming the network between hardware and software into three-dimensional sculptures. In this process, he employed molecular graphic programs capable of visualizing molecular structures, defining the website data of each exhibition space in dimensional values, and transposing the space into a new microscopic world in the form of molecular units.

Inside Space Willing N Dealing, where the exhibition was held, an environment resembling a laboratory was created, reconstructing six alternative spatial forms derived from the six units.
 
Koo referenced Transformer, an architectural work by Rem Koolhaas’s OMA-AMO that explored the organic expansion of fixed spaces, to develop a framework in which structures, organically connected through conditions of multidirectional rotation, respond to one another.  

Through this approach, the reconstructed boundaries of the exhibition space—produced via programming—were linked to the actual venue via data storage (computers connecting to servers), thereby extending into a new spatial dimension.

At a subsequent solo exhibition titled 《On Growth and Form of Software》 (2020) held at Incheon Art Platform, Jamyoung Koo explored the concept of the program’s “formwork” (body). He viewed the process by which imperfect code is gradually revised and improved through developer communities from an evolutionary biological perspective and materialized this as sculptural forms possessing physical bodies.
 
First, he extracted several codes found on the developer community ‘Stack Overflow,’ where over 20 million source codes can be freely accessed, copied, modified, and redistributed without significant restrictions.

Koo observed the shapes of source codes as they are modified by users within the web ecosystem, drawing a parallel between this process and the growth of human muscles. Just like muscles that grow through cycles of tearing and healing, these codes undergo continuous breakdown and recombination by users, gradually forming a kind of body capable of performing specific functions.

At the same time, the artist observed that the process of examining the structure of code, identifying problems, fixing parts, or reconstructing the entire system with new designs closely resembles the sculptural methods of visual art. 

Based on this perspective, Jamyoung Koo traced the form of software through the principles of muscle growth and translated it into the language of visual art. The resulting series, ‘Soft Muscle’ (2021), is a sculptural body with volume, created using carbon fiber—an industrial material most similar to muscle—that embodies the growth and transformation of code as it responds to external resistance (developers’ modifications and interventions).

In his recent solo exhibition, 《Monocoque: Principles of the Garden》 (SPACE ÆFTER, 2023), Jamyoung Koo focused on the facade of software. In this exhibition, he connected the software landscape—where operating systems and viruses form a single environment—with the long-standing human concept of gardening, aiming to view the world of software in an expanded, metaphorical sense.

To this end, the artist selected software named after elements of nature, such as Gooroom, RedStar, Hare, and Creeper. These nature-inspired software consist of operating systems designed for security and computer virus programs. The software ecosystem where they coexist resembles a garden’s ecology, where weeds and pests abound alongside moles that damage tree roots, coexisting with carefully maintained landscaping.

Jamyoung Koo decoded the source codes of software named after elements of nature and, using casting—a sculptural technique—he engraved the shapes and forms of these codes onto mineral

Just as understanding the principles of a garden requires grasping the lively chaos of life existing under the garden’s imposed order, the artist seeks out the chaos hidden behind the logical language of source code and materializes its surface into physical form.

Jamyoung Koo began to take an interest in North Korean software after discovering the North Korean computer OS called "RedStar" during the course of this project. He researched and explored North Korean software, which is extremely difficult to access due to the country’s closed policies. 

His new series, ‘Software Laundering’ (2024), presented at the 《24th SONGEUN Art Award Exhibition》 (2024) at SONGEUN, was created against this backdrop. The work materializes the code structures found within North Korean propaganda websites using biological methodologies.

In this work, Koo reimagines the code structures of North Korean propaganda websites as proteins and DNA using biological methodologies such as AlphaFold and Genome Browser. The title, which draws from the concept of money laundering, suggests a transformation process that conceals or reconfigures the source material, allowing it to adopt new forms. 

Through the strategy of materializing website HTML tags as fundamental biological components like amino acids and nucleotide sequences, the artist examines how codes with specific systems and messages acquire biological materiality and are recontextualized.

Jamyoung Koo explores the complex intertwining of physical reality and virtual software technologies, examining how these affect our lives, perceptions, and senses through the lens of visual art. He makes these intricate internal structures visible by transforming them into tangible materials.

In the process of extracting and materializing software’s underlying code, Koo presents it in a fragile and imperfect state. He describes this as “putting software into crisis.” By revealing and documenting the hidden vulnerabilities beneath its solid structure, his work reminds us that software—which is originally meant to be flawless as a language and written code—is, like a living organism, a mutable entity that evolves and grows within various networks.

 “I hope that software, which originally must be flawless as a language and document, can break free from its fated constraints, reject fixed frameworks, and freely construct meaning.”       (Jamyoung Koo, from the BE(ATTITUDE) interview)

Jamyoung Koo majored in Western painting at Chugye University for the Arts and studied three-dimensional sculpture in the graduate program of the Department of Visual Arts at Seoul National University of Science and Technology. His solo exhibitions include 《Monocoque: Principles of the Garden》 (SPACE ÆFTER, Seoul, 2023), 《On Growth and Form of Software》 (Incheon Art Platform, Incheon, 2021), 《Development of Editing Methods for Website Structure》 (Space Willing N Dealing, Seoul, 2020), and 《PBB》 (Dimension Variable, Seoul, 2018).
 
He has also participated in numerous group exhibitions such as the 24th 《SONGEUN Art Award Exhibition》 (SONGEUN, Seoul, 2024), 《Rubbing Your Name》 (Ilwoo Space, Seoul, 2024), 《To You, I Say》 (MMCA Residency Goyang, Goyang, 2023), and 《Gongjungchelyeon (Air Practice)》 (LaLa &, Seoul, 2021). 

Jamyoung Koo has participated in residency programs at Gongju Culture and Arts Village Creative Residency (2024), MMCA Residency Goyang (2023), and Incheon Art Platform (2021).

References

• 구자명, Jamyoung Koo (Artist Webstie)
• 인천문화통신 3.0, [인터뷰] 구자명 (IFACNEWS, [Interview] Jamyoung Koo)
• 가변크기, [서문] PBB (Dimension Variable, [Preface] PBB)
• 스페이스 윌링앤딜링, [서문] 웹사이트 구조의 편집 방법 개발 (Space Willing N Dealing, [Preface] Development of editing methods for website structure)
• 인천아트플랫폼, [전시 소개] 소프트웨어의 성장과 형태에 대해 (Incheon Art Platform, [Exhibition Overview] On Growth and Form of Software)
• 황재민, 0과 1의 조경 기술
• 송은, [도록] 제24회 송은미술대상전 (SONGEUN, [Catalogue] 24th SONGEUN Art Award Exhibition)
• 비애티튜드, 소프트웨어를 위기에 빠뜨리는 조각