Space Four One Three is pleased to present Eunsol Lee's second solo exhibition Kimberly the Optimist. As the creator of Kimberly—a digital head roaming around the virtual world—Lee is always concerned with the issue of optimization. ‘Optimization’ is a term with varying significance depending on the context, such as in engineering, mathematics, or economics. In this exhibition, Lee defines the term as “attaining a degree of sufficiency that allows for the most effective performance for a reasonable environment.” Lee invites you to encounter a newly optimized Kimberly endlessly traversing the digital interface.

 

Last summer, the game engine company Unreal Engine unveiled their newest technology with the following slogan: “Nanite: The End of Polycounts?” Unreal Engine 5 is powered by Nanite, a virtualized micropolygon geometry technology that seamlessly renders billions of polygons to achieve the maximum level of detail discernible to the naked eye. Simply put, Nanite can realize high-resolution visuals optimized for a gamer’s screen in real-time. This is an effective technology especially for real-time games and real-time VR content; however, it is currently only supported on next-gen consoles such as xBox Series X and PlayStation 5. Nanight (2021) is a video work that unfolds in an environment the artist modified from the promotional video for Nanite. Lee records Kimberly within the heightened optimized environment as a 360 video, transferring the vivid experience of Nanite onto an Oculus.

 

Taking place in the virtual reality social platform VRChat, My Cephalopod Friends (2021) can be seen as a type of open-world game. The environment specifications are low-depth and crude, but the platform offers vibrant grounds for online users to interact. Audience members enter the world, which the artist built herself, as a Kimberly avatar with braided hair. The world is designed so that there is no beginning nor end. Regardless of where you choose to spawn, you will be sure to pass by the same spot eventually. You can also access the 'My Cephalopod Friends' world on your own personal device (that is supported by VRChat) via the link on Lee’s Linktree.

 

Whether it is on VRChat or Unreal Engine 5 or Instagram, Kimberly’s optimized state is consistently maintained by Lee across various platforms and digital interfaces. Kimberly is thus always on the move, infinitely floating through the digital landscape, prompting a deeper introspection of her existence. On one side of the gallery wall looms a modified version of a poem by the Russian avant-gardist and absurdist poet Daniil Kharms. In <To Ring — To Fly (The Third Cisfinitum Logic)>(1930) Kharms describes the movement of everything from living organisms to objects and even time. His use of fluid, non-linear tenses challenges our logical understanding of space and time into an infinite past and future. And it is exactly “there,” where the audience will be able to encounter Kimberly.