Applied Self for Ensemble, Performance, Fixed Media and Sound Installation
The word “apply” originates from the Old French aploier (“to apply, use, attach”) and the Latin applicare (“to attach to, fold, bend”). From these roots, the act of applying for something evokes the image of folding oneself to fit a specific form—an experience for the artist where their original grain is lost, overlaid by external demands.
In “Applied Self,” we face the repetitive cycle of an artist writing endless applications and the transformations that occur within that loop. Between the intersection of resolve and resistance, compliance and surrender, my shape continues to shift, and time flows by a strange, unfamiliar set of rules. Perhaps what the artist’s clock measures is not numbers, but a different scale: the weight of invisible pressure, conditions, or desire.
Within this space, time does not flow linearly. It stops and restarts; it returns, yet appears in a different form. As independent artists, how do we “apply” ourselves to external demands—and what can we still manage to hold onto within that state of being applied?
Clarinet/Performance Nayoung Cheong
Violin Juyeon Im
Cello Kyungon Yun
E-Guitar Hyunseok Kim
Project “Application”, supported by Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture
Premiere November 8th 2025, at Seoul Mullae art center, Seoul, Korea
