Concrete Clock, 2011

Concrete Clock was a 15-day durational project presented in 2011 at Insa Art Space as part of Watering a Dead Tree.
Entering the exhibition space with nothing, the artist relied on encounters with visitors to obtain what was needed, documenting the events and her psychological and bodily changes, later compiled into a small book.

Durational project / Live-in installation
15 days in a sealed exhibition space, Insa Art Space, Seoul

“In a sealed space without a single window, the artist remained for fourteen days under the title Concrete Clock. During this time, she encountered objects brought in from outside and engaged in chance meetings with an unspecified number of visitors.

Neither a ‘performance’ nor a ‘ritual,’ the project confines the artist within the exhibition space. What, then, is the meaning of this act?”

— Do Byung-Hoon, Space of Dissolving Frames –

Kim Dohee’s Second Solo Exhibition Watering a Dead Tree, 2011

I simply let everything be as it wishes to be.
If someone wants to tie up my hair, I offer my head.
If someone wants me to exercise, I run as they tell me.
Children instinctively know that I will not defend myself.

Just as there were many moments when my body collided with my imagination and made that imagination seem ridiculous, the attitude of many viewers resembled the way one looks at a painting hanging on a wall.
Most people could only imagine that food would be the problem… (as I once did). Some criticized my refusal to eat the food they brought, saying it showed a “desire to push things to the extreme” or a “lack of composure.” Others wanted the situation to turn into some kind of dramatic event.

Some insisted that what they liked must also be good for me, or asked me to perform in ways that would make their actions appear as good deeds.

Thinking about it now, it feels as though I had set a trap and was playing the bait myself.

—Kim Dohee, “Concrete Clock Journal(excerpt),” 2011

On my way home, I felt the uneven ground beneath my feet and was struck by severe motion sickness. I complained about the excess of light, calling it violent. When one smell passed, another followed—an endless chain of smells that made me frown.

The white wallpaper of my house felt strangely artificial. The pale blanket looked unreal, almost sorrowful… My feet felt as if they were not touching the ground, as if I were floating. Still unable to weave relationships with the ordinary things of daily life, I drifted in a strange state of indifference, a kind of weightlessness.

When I came out at night for a moment, the red traffic light was so alluring that I stood there for a long time waiting for it.

I went to the bathhouse, washing away the grime that had accumulated on my body, trying to comfort this apologetic body… Yet the damp smell of old dust still seems to remain somewhere deep inside.

With nowhere to go to escape the noise everywhere—inside and outside—I sat in a parked car with the door closed for three hours.

I am still trying to adapt, reacting with my whole body to the countless unfamiliar things that scatter my attention and keep disturbing me, leaving me in a state where there is never a moment of quiet.

— Kim Dohee, From “A Letter after the Journal,” 2011

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Day 5 — May 26

AM 5:20
In the darkness. Woken by a sudden car horn.

AM 5:20–6:00
Morning cleaning, washing my face.

AM 6:00
One boiled egg from Kim Mijin, half a glass of milk that Song Jungeun poured for me yesterday.
Fell asleep again.

AM 9:00
Woken by the sound of the manager arriving at work.
The manager turns on the fluorescent light.

AM 11:00
First visitors: men.
Startled by the loud sound of a refrigerator falling on the first floor, then the sound of them leaving.
Eat half a piece of bread.

AM 11:50
A visitor tells me that it is going to rain.
I cannot hear the rain, but I can feel the damp air.
The manager says it feels suffocating and leaves with an umbrella.
Stomach pain.

PM 12:26
A package arrives: a box containing four bunches of bananas sent by Kim Uija.

The cleaning lady at the museum says her shoe size is 230 mm, so I give her the sky-blue shoes I received earlier.
She takes the shoes and one bunch of bananas.
Office workers visit during their lunch break, all holding coffee.
They read the Chinese characters on the wall and argue about their meanings.

PM 2:30
Half a pack of ramen from Kim Yongmin and instant rice from Cho Jongsung for a meal.
Three high school students from Kkotpineun School visit (Park Yunjung, Kim Dokyung, Kim Sangho).
They want to eat bananas, so I give them some.
We talk for about an hour.

PM 4:00
Conversation with a female visitor wearing glasses.
She leaves a piece of chocolate cake and a drink.

PM 5:00
Cho Gyuhyun visits and passionately talks about art and enlightenment.
I eat the chocolate cake frantically.

PM 6:30
Kim Choi Eunyoung gives me vitamins and says she will come back.
A man whose identity I do not know visits by chance, rummages through his bag, and leaves one hallabong.

PM 8:00
Before the door is locked, another visitor comes in with a bottle of beer, drinks it alone, and leaves.

PM 9:00
Writing records, stomach pain.
Lights out, sleep.

Day 7 — May 28

AM 2:30
Wake up and vomit.

AM 9:00
Morning cleaning. Half a piece of bread. Half a cup of coffee.

AM 11:00
Several elementary school children arrive, bringing a kitten.

PM 12:36
Two fifth-grade elementary school students visit.
Saturday, no school.

They say they are doing a courage test and run down to the basement exhibition space several times and come back.

The children sit on the folded blanket where I have been sitting and talk.

Child 1: “My grandmother has a lot of land. Two thousand pyeong. It’s good when you have a lot of land because the land price goes up…”

Child 2: “We have 2,500 cranes at home. I’ll fold one for you.”

They tear off the colored paper I had attached to the wall to look at the colors and fold paper cranes.

They call a cousin on the phone to come here.

They go out again, buy a large pile of snacks, and eat them very quickly on the blanket.

“Unni will clean this up,” they say, leaving the trash behind.

PM 2:30
Lee Hamin visits with a friend. Gives me a lunchbox. Conversation.

They say this place is scary.
I say it is only a washing machine and a refrigerator.

I look at the fresh vegetables in the lunchbox for a long time.

A woman in a white dress smelling of rose perfume and a man also smelling of perfume visit.
They take photos with me and the wall as the background and leave.

The bananas have many dark spots.

PM 4:00
A university student named Yoon Jisun lends me the badge from her bag and I prick my finger.
The needle is dull and the blood does not come out easily.

PM 4:30
Hwang Yeonju visits.
She says she deliberately searched for a place that sells delicious steamed buns.

Seeing that I cannot swallow anything, she rummages through her bag and gives me lotion, Tylenol, candy, and other things.
I take Tylenol.

She takes out a pale pink nail polish and suggests painting our nails together.
We paint them.

Hwang Yeonju says she will step out for a moment.

The elementary school children from earlier come back upstairs, bouncing a ball and running in.
They take the blanket.

They say they also need the two knee blankets I was sitting on and take those too.

The children search through things left by visitors and find a bag of hotteok and take it.

They say they will come again tomorrow.

But after a while the children return, eat all the cherry tomatoes that Lee Hamin left behind, confirm there is nothing more to eat, and leave.

Hwang Yeonju comes back and gives me two CDs.
(She says I can at least look at them even if I cannot listen.)

I put two throat candies in my mouth at once.

PM 5:52
I attach a note to the wall.

“Could someone buy me digestive medicine… or a needle…”

PM 6:00
While lying face down I hear a group of people passing.

“Wow hahaha!! Look at this — digestive medicine!”

Among the visitors who saw the note, Ahn Jeongmi buys me a bottle of Hwalmyungsoo.
After drinking it, I vomit.

PM 6:10
Two visitors come.
I neither speak nor greet them.

A feeling of indifference and lethargy.

They leave behind Maus / Art Spiegelman Volumes 1 and 2.
I follow them but they are already gone.

I cannot untie the string around the books and just stare at them.

PM 7:00
Kim Dongho visits.
We eat the lunchbox that Kim Hamin left earlier.

PM 11:00
Chills and fever.

I take Tylenol that Hwang Yeonju gave me.
I wet a towel and repeatedly wrap my head and neck with it.

The blanket is damp with sweat.

Day 14 — June 4

AM 6:12
Wake up. Loud birdsong.
The sweeping sound of an old man in the neighborhood is clear.
(The sweeping is one hour later than on other days.)
The roses given by Seo Eunju have mold.

AM 6:30
Severe hunger.
Instant rice provided by Ugamade and dried seaweed given by Jeon Jeonghun.
Blood pressure 100/54 — normal.

AM 7:00–7:40
Washing dishes, morning cleaning.
Write a letter and attach it to the wall.

AM 7:43
Leave.