Description

During my stint as a researcher, engineer, and scientist at KAIST (Korea Advance Institute of Science and Technology), I produced a self-portrait for a photography exhibition in Singapore titled “Metagraphy.” 

Self-portrait 1.0 harkens back to the long tradition of artists who, before the Renaissance, were quite shy about taking selfies. A painter might put a miniature likeness of himself in the background of a busy group scene, but rarely more than that. In the 15th century, when the German painter Albrecht Duerer began making detailed images of the face and torso, that self-portraiture became a genre in its own right. Since then, artists from Rembrandt to Frida Kahlo have made self-portraiture a central theme of their work. The artists themselves dictate the terms we are invited to judge them. In this version, the work can be experienced with a smartphone app, and audiences are invited to photograph the digital version of me as a performative act. Many questions arose regarding whether this work was a photography piece or not, were put down with the fact that the 3D model of the artist was technically created by photographs and seen through the camera and onto a smart device's screen.

Artist

Shengen Lim is a multimedia artist active as a researcher, businessman, and educator in Singapore. He majored in fine arts at LASALLE College of the Arts. He worked at the Graduate School of Culture Technology of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) as a scientist and researcher in the Interactive Media Lab and Experience Lab. 

The artist works in a multidisciplinary way in search of expressing traditional concepts in innovative ways. Currently, the artist is exploring new media with spatial, temporal, static, and dynamic features as an aesthetic experience. His work explores media art and culture using alchemical processes and engineering methodologies on topics related to 

such concepts as loss, interaction, and reconciliation. 

His works are on display at the ArtScience Museum (Singapore), Singapore Art Museum, Singapore Fringe Festival, Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore, Kanto Gallery (Philippines), Sunshine Museum of Contemporary Art (China), and 2e Biennale Internationale de I’image de Luang Prabang (Laos). 

He is also participating in diverse projects that are held at Loop Gallery, Ulsan Art Center, and Asia Culture Center (Gwang Ju) and for the 7th Geumgang Nature Art Biennale.