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Visiting\u00a0Dawns, Mine, Crystal<\/a>\u00a0by Yunchul Kim at the Korean Cultural Centre, London. For New Scientist, 27 October 2018<\/a>.<\/p>\n NOSTALGIA was not the first word that sprung to mind when I visited a show at London\u2019s Korean Cultural Centre by South Korean artist Yunchul Kim. At first glance, indeed, Kim\u2019s art appears intimidatingly modern.<\/p>\n But for the scientists who are Kim\u2019s most committed audience (and eager collaborators), there is something wonderfully old-fashioned about the way he works. Kim\u2019s studio in Seoul is full of materials: homemade ferrofluids, gels, metals, all kinds of reagents, acids and oils. While labs (and not a few artists\u2019 studios) grow more sterile and digital, his workspace remains stubbornly wedded to stuff. The artist\u2019s wry description of his practice \u2013 \u201ctouching, staring, waiting for things to dry\u201d \u2013 captures something of science\u2019s lost materiality.<\/p>\n Kim\u2019s latest work (see) shows a contraption in three parts that turns cosmic rays into bubbles suspended in space, a copper-aluminium sludge, stirred by hidden magnetic orreries, and a shattered gelatin rainbow. What are these but the results of a strange science that is the outcome of some spectacularly purposeless noodling?<\/p>\n The physicists at CERN loved it, and Kim soon found out why: \u201cI make all my own machinery, and so do they,\u201d he says. \u201cTheir love of craft is everywhere, from the colour for their cabling to the careful labelling of everything.\u201d<\/p>\n Kim\u2019s art is a reminder that science isn\u2019t just there to be useful. It is also a craft. It\u2019s something humans do, and something that, when presented this well, we are bound to enjoy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Visiting\u00a0Dawns, Mine, Crystal\u00a0by Yunchul Kim at the Korean Cultural Centre, London. For New Scientist, 27 October 2018. NOSTALGIA was not the first word that sprung to mind when I visited a show at London\u2019s Korean Cultural Centre by South Korean … Continue reading \nThe new pieces exhibited were inspired by his residency last year at the CERN particle physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland. They centre around photonic crystals, colloids and particle detectors, and are placed in the context of earlier work, featuring eviscerated hard drives, pencil sketches of fluid flows and a \u201cchemical synthesiser\u201d turning the electrical current flowing through a droplet of seawater into a cloud of sound.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n