The Seoul edition opened the series with a search across Segeomjeong, a neighborhood where past and present cross in strange ways. Explorers gathered at Space illi, the base of operations, took on their roles after a briefing, and set out into the neighborhood.
Each of the five roles defined D differently. The Dust Archivist saw it as something that accumulates, the Tactile Medium as a sensory afterimage read through vibration, the Flow Sensor as a signal that flows and collides, and the Form Observer as a pattern drifting through light. The Data Operator had the strangest task of all: instead of settling on one accurate number, they had to find the point where three D-Meters gave different readings.
Operation D: In Search of D is a site-specific game performance that combines the narrative of a role-playing game (RPG) with DIY technology to physically track fine dust (D), a symptom of extractive modernity.
The project introduces a science-fictional world in which participants return from a future “ultra-particle age” to 2025, turning the audience from spectators into players on a mission. The program has three parts: (1) a DIY workshop in which participants build their own tracking devices, and (2) an urban performance in which they wear those devices and set out on missions across the city. These are followed by (3) a feedback and ending session.
Wearing their self-built trackers, participants intervene in real urban environments and re-sense environmental pollution, otherwise known only as data, as an ecological event in which humans, nonhumans, and machines are entangled. The project is an experiment in recovering sensory data sovereignty: citizens explore the unseen side of the city through technology and sensation, without relying on the central government's data power.
Collaboration
Mina Kim
Hosted, organized by
Space:illi
Filming
Henry Hyunsub Kim
Participating Explorers
Jiwoo Kim, Haechan Kim, Nareumjin, Miya, Jisoo Park, Eoming, Sojin Im, Sara Cheon, Jungmin Hwang
Funding
Arts Council Korea, Visual Arts Creative Entities, Mondriaanfonds
