David Yun

David Yun examines how photography and video alter the content and manner of our memories. Three intertwined, unique bodies of work comprise his study, and mirror the three stages of memory: "Encoding", "Storage", and "Recall".

"Encoding" examines the first stage of memory making. David erases most of the background in select photographs, allowing the photo's subject and a hint of where they are to remain, suggesting our reliance on photographs supports our memories. In "Storage", David isolates single frames from found VHS home movies, and uses the premise that we assume our memories are eternal (but our lives inevitably change and our relationship with the memories change as a result). For example, why would a home movie of a wedding or the birth of a child lose its value? David creates a visual metaphor to memory by exploiting the low fidelity and short lifespan of found VHS tapes, and using selected, photographed pieces of the tapes where information began to degrade. His choices and retention of select parts of the original tape, become, like a memory, remnants of the original event. The images impart an illusory feeling of something universal and familiar, like a common memory. Finally, with "Recall" David studies the idea that organic, unadulterated memory is impossible to achieve, because anything we recall from our past is inevitably colored by experience. He seems to say, "We store memories, that change over time, and are affected by the relationships we create from one memory to the next." David illustrates this process of recall with a video installation of a floating screen, that could be viewed from all sides.

David's strength in video lies with his choices of imagery. He consistently shows beautiful and lyrical images (previous videos: "Hug", "Flowers") that flow seamlessly one from the other, creating a strong visually pleasurable experience. His successful achievement of this experience is repeated with "Recall" - a quiet video, a collage, of images that could have come out of anyone's family archive. And while the floating screen seems a gimmick, it's minimal and sensitive to the slightest movement of air. The result is a video presentation of sweet, softly moving images pendent on the environment - much like our memories.