Episode 133: Space
Melissa knew every nook and cranny of the school.
The library alone held hundreds of thousands of books.
With its vastness, the school had a variety of classrooms, and exploring it was quite fun.
“Hmm…”
Rooms like the fresco-painted meeting room and other grand and majestic spaces came to mind.
The school, exhibiting over 40,000 cultural heritages, was a treasure of France itself.
It had everything. Except for the square room Kang Lim mentioned.
Melissa furrowed her brow, causing wrinkles to form on her thin skin.
“The central part of the chapel is square. But it’s open, so it won’t feel like what Kang Lim is imagining…”
“True, unless there’s a specific reason, architects don’t design rooms to be square.”
“Yeah, it’s inefficient.”
Kang Lim took out colored pencils and started sketching.
Since it was different from the Barbara Gallery, an alternative was needed.
“Honestly, it doesn’t matter if it’s rectangular. We can unify the details in a solo exhibition later. For this assignment, let’s just provide a cube.”
“A… cube?”
Melissa and the team looked at Kang Lim’s notebook.
On the paper was a transparent, sparkling cube.
“We’re going to store the data of life inside it and give it to people as a gift. Not a real cube, but symbolically. After the performance, it would be nice to take home a cube keychain, right?”
Listening to Kang Lim, Shin Taemin nodded.
“If it’s colorful and transparent like this drawing, it would be cool. It changes color every time light hits it.”
“Right. Since it’s an object that datafies memories, it would be nice if it looked different every time. We can use OTP film. It’s cheap even if we produce it in large quantities.”
Melissa touched the hexagon drawn with colored pencils.
Sunlight was filtering through the delicate expression.
“It feels futuristic. Expressing memories as data… I’ve seen your previous works using Arduino technology. It’s a bit similar.”
“Yes, that’s right. I want to make the performance space look like an SF movie. Like a room that future people arrive at after death.”
“What kind of performance are you going to do?”
All eyes turned to Melissa’s question.
It meant they needed a concrete explanation.
“The previous work stored time with sound, right? This time, I want to deal with more specific memories. It’s about storing events that happened… If done well, it can have social significance beyond the theme of life and death.”
Melissa swallowed hard.
So, she understood the concept of storing memories in a futuristic space.
There’s a story about humans wanting to survive as data even without a physical body.
But how would they express this in action?
Feeling frustrated, she shouted.
“So what actions are you going to take? That’s important!”
“It’s simple. We’ll become robots.”
The team members tilted their heads at Kang Lim’s short answer.
Their expressions seemed to ask what was so simple about it.
“If we’re robots, we’ll have to do makeup too, right?”
“Don’t worry about that. I learned a bit while filming movies.”
“…Kang Lim, you do movie filming too?”
“Yes, it just happened. I got cast in the art team while doing live painting on the street.”
“What! Who’s the director?”
“Frazer.”
The chatty Melissa suddenly went silent.
A moment of silence fell in the café.
It was understandable. Frazer was a very famous director.
“As robots, we’ll receive information from people and process it. That’s the performance.”
In the quiet, Shin Taemin spoke up.
Well, Kang Lim always presented surprising things.
Thinking about it, being cast in a movie wasn’t a big deal.
“What kind of information and how will you process it?”
Kang Lim took out his phone from his pocket and shook it.
“This! A phone.”
“So what.”
“In modern society, a phone is just like us. The professor the other day and Mr. Baudouin today carried it around all day and recorded with photos. Your phone must have thousands of images, not just daily records but also screenshots from web searches.”
Shin Taemin didn’t understand what Kang Lim was saying.
“Don’t tell me… you’re not planning to just randomly print photos and stick them in the space, are you?”
“Exactly. If you do that, the space will become colorful like the cube we just drew. It’s a flood of information.”
“…”
“When you’re inside, you’ll see that the phone is storing memories you had forgotten. Machines are increasingly replacing our brains. It’s hard to remember even one phone number these days.”
“No. Beyond that meaning, will people participate? It’s a privacy issue.”
Melissa intervened between them.
Judging by her bright expression, she seemed to like the performance idea.
“I like it. We can show that the photo files transferred to the computer are deleted! We could even put a shredder in the exhibition hall!”
“People might dislike printing random photos from their albums… because they don’t even know what’s in there.”
“Isn’t that even better? The refusal to participate itself becomes part of the theme. It shows how vulnerable we are to information exposure.”
“…What about datafied death? That requires people’s participation.”
“There will be people who willingly hand over their phones!”
Baudouin sat at the table and quietly pouted his lips.
He looked tired from the heated debate between the two.
Hearing his murmurs of difficulty, Kang Lim spoke up.
“Taemin is right. So, I don’t plan to actually leak real information. There’s a way.”
Kang Lim flipped to a new page in his notebook and started jotting down a plan.
Drawing more specific images, he explained the performance to the team.
“But it seems like it would cost a lot of money to do this.”
Melissa looked dazed at the larger-than-expected scale.
“Don’t worry. We’ll get exhibition support from the Barbara Gallery.”
“Well, the most important thing is expressiveness. The key is how futuristic we can make this space.”
“Right. The robot makeup doesn’t necessarily have to be rigid androids. It could be more organic instead of metallic. Let’s pour out all our ideas.”
The team members opened their respective drawing books.
They began drawing the machines, costumes, and lights needed for the performance.
Alexander Quinn, Designer Meeting Room.
The design team was in awe of the clothes Sarah had made.
“Wow… you mixed the fabrics half and half. The top is smooth cotton, but the bottom is stiff gabardine.”
“Yes. This kind of boldness is what Alexander wanted.”
The upper part of the clothes Sarah made was a suit, and the lower part flared out like a trench coat.
Hybrid fashion, mixing two kinds of clothes, was Alexander Quinn’s trademark.
“Can you bring me the basting thread?”
“Yes.”
She pulled the back part of the belt one last time, adding a few more pleats.
Thanks to that, the front jacket line was sharp, and the back flared out elegantly like a dress.
“Much better.”
“You’re truly amazing.”
Sarah added an epaulet on the shoulders for a more classic touch.
In the eyes of the staff, she always looked perfect.
The fashion industry had said, “Fashion is dead,” and “There would be no designers to continue the brand,” after Alexander died…
The design team thought Sarah’s more public-friendly and softer reinterpretation of Alexander was wonderful.
Of course, Sarah herself always denied such admiration.
“This is nothing. I’m just applying a bit of what Alexander created.”
Sarah spent 13 years under Alexander.
Watching him design felt like witnessing magic every moment.
Alexander Quinn debuted with titles like the enfant terrible and the disgusting heretic of the fashion industry, but remained a historically genius designer.
His rough and sharp designs and bizarre clothes were unlike anything seen before.
Literally haute couture. What Alexander did was showcase his creative world.
Revealing new art pieces and leading future fashion trends for all brands.
“No, you’re amazing even now. If Quinn were alive, he would have undoubtedly praised you.”
“Thank you. Have you all seen the exhibition I recommended?”
“Yes, of course!”
The design team leader connected the video to the presentation screen.
It was filmed personally for Sarah to see.
“They did a performance at the opening reception. I heard the artist you had in mind participated in the stage design.”
“Really? Are you sure?”
“Yes, it said Kang Lim. He was there that day too, so I saw him.”
“But… why is the video black?”
Just as Sarah questioned, the sound of a trombone echoed.
Boom boom boom. Drums and cymbals were added.
It was the Mehter, the war music of a marching band heading to the enemy.
As the fast tempo added tension, a light appeared in the darkness.
The round light moved stealthily.
It roamed through the darkness like searching for an escaped criminal.
“The entire exhibition hall is covered in dazzle patterns. Everywhere the light shines, it’s filled with stripes.”
“Yes, it was a performance using optical illusion effects. The theme was not to believe everything you see.”
The light stopped at the center of the floor.
The sunken space was swirling.
“They drew concentric circles densely on the floor, adding curves between the circles to create a distorted sense of space-time. It’s even more extreme in person, but it’s hard to see on video.”
“…No, the video is impressive too.”
A person wiggled in the pit.
It was someone wearing a hood zipped up to hide their face.
Covered in dazzle patterns from head to toe, they began searching for their partner.
The light slowly followed the performer, who fumbled along the wall like a blind person.
Thanks to the geometric space patterns, recessed walls looked protruded.
Maybe tired from not finding their partner.
The performer draped their body over a sharp wall.
A pattern human in a full-body suit.
As they covered their face with both hands, the lighting changed.
The exhibition hall brightened in an instant, and the audience cheered.
The space, filled with shattered patterns from ceiling to floor, seemed to have shocked them.
“Haha. It’s amusing to see people surprised by the performer.”
An audience member found the performer.
The two pattern humans met in the center of the exhibition hall.
As the light slowly dimmed, a giant pin spotlight appeared.
The intense light illuminated the front wall.
One pattern human began to dance.
Following their shadow, the other human moved their body.
They swept through the space gracefully, breaking like waves.
“When they were hiding in the pattern, they were mysterious like chameleons. Now dancing, they seem lively.”
“Yes, they added static choreography to highlight rhythmic movements. To prevent getting used to the optical illusion patterns, they also used multiple lights.”
“Did the twin performance artists plan that?”
“No, I spoke with the artist, and I heard he only planned to use dazzle patterns and shadow dancing, while the overall space design was done by Kang Lim.”
“…Impressive.”
Sarah was amazed by Kang Lim’s spatial directing when she saw his second solo exhibition.
It’s not easy to take the audience to a new world under limited conditions.
“You have to experience that geometric space to understand! The recessed parts look protruded, and the protruded parts look recessed. It was dizzying.”
“Right. The shadow-dancing performer was amazing, but the stage composition would have been boring without it.”
“Three elements aligned perfectly. Space, performance, lighting!”
“Especially, Kang Lim’s signature fits well with our brand. Elegant yet intense imagery, mixing different textures, that’s Alexander Quinn.”
The staff who saw the exhibition shared their opinions.
Sarah’s only weakness was her lack of stage directing.
Collaborating with a young artist with a fresh perspective could revive Alexander’s glory.
“Oh… I see. I like Kang Lim’s work too. But…”
Sarah pressed her temples as if she had a headache.
Setting the stage for the upcoming Paris Fashion Week show was a tough decision.
Moreover, this collection was to unveil Alexander Quinn’s unpublished works.
If it were her own clothes, she’d readily agree, but it was the last show for her deceased mentor, making her feel the weight on her shoulders.
“It must be a heavy burden. It’s a show revealing Quinn’s last collection.”
“Yes… that’s why we need a stage designer.”
Alexander Quinn was famous for creating unique shows.
He disliked models walking the standardized runway.
“Shall we contact the artist then?”
“Ha… Just a moment.”
Sarah recalled Alexander’s shows.
In the spring season of ‘97, models swam out from a stage filled with water.
In the fall season of the same year, they walked a path avoiding burning wrecked cars and drums.
The models, with bleached-looking pale makeup, didn’t walk but crouched in place.
His radical stage directing made the clothes stand out even more.
While water was dripping and the fabric was scorched by fire, the materials brushed against the skin, dancing.
Like a scene from a ballet, the exquisite layered pieces rose layer by layer.
Sarah slowly returned to her seat and read the notes Alexander had left.
He had written them while creating the last collection.
[When humanity felt pain and joy immediately and absolutely like children.
When the distance between misery and happiness was far.
The goddesses of earth and sky met and breathed together.]
Sarah stroked the frail handwriting.
After making these nonsensical Johan Huizinga sentences into clothes, what kind of stage was he planning?
It was a world of a genius artist she couldn’t imagine.
“…It’s a symbolic collection. It will remain as the image representing our brand.”
Sarah wanted to show a proper show one last time.
Since Alexander’s death, models had started walking uniformly, and she wanted to give them freedom again.
“You’re concerned because the artist doesn’t have many stage directing experiences, right?”
“…”
The design team staff carefully approached Sarah.
Holding her small hand, they whispered. It was time to look forward and run, not look back.
“I heard there’s an open studio at the Paris Beaux-Arts this time. Since there’s a performance work, why don’t you go? You might see another installation stage.”
