The invisible vibration is both a physical phenomenon and an event of perception. In the exhibition Rauch Hocket, the artist Seungjae Shin transforms sound into an experiential event through structures, performers, and audience participation. Sound expands beyond a mere auditory stimulus into a performative act that mediates space and the body; the audience, while listening, can intervene in the flow of sound through their own breathing and movement. In this process, sound becomes a device that reveals the rhythm of existence, allowing each viewer to experience an inner sense of time and space. At the core of artwork lies the technique of hocket. Originating from medieval music, hocket divides a single melody into alternating notes, creating a sense of both continuity and interruption. Shin applies this principle to sound installation: in 1st Movement, where the performer strikes and spins bronze discs, and in Sound Card, which invites direct audience interaction, vibration and sound are generated and fragmented. The vibration of the discs and the resonance of metal form the “body” of sound within space, while the intervals between tones function as openings through which the audience’s body and breath may intervene. These intervals are not mere silences but moments where emergence and extinction, presence and absence overlap — inviting the audience to rediscover their own physical and sensory being within the fissure.
In 1st Movement, the performer and the apparatus together manifest sound within the spatial environment, allowing the audience to experience moments in which the performer, the device, and their own bodies become interlinked. The vibrations produced by the discs disperse invisible energy throughout the space, and within this diffusion, the audience encounters a state of presence in which self, sound, and surroundings are fused. The subsequent work, Sound Card, turns the audience into performers themselves, enabling them to manipulate sound and sense vibration through their own bodies within the apparatus and surrounding space. Through the interaction of these two devices, a multilayered and polyphonic hocket structure unfolds. Within the disjointed continuity of sound, the audience explores their own rhythm and spatial perception.
The intervals within the segmented rhythm of the hocket open a field of performative aesthetics that extends beyond auditory experience. The audience reorganizes sound through their own breath and movement, witnessing moments where body and space, sound and silence become entangled. In this process, sound ceases to be an object merely to be heard; it becomes a medium through which existence is examined and experienced. Within the spatial environment where installation, performance, apparatus, and participation converge, the audience discovers anew their inner rhythm and sensory order, aesthetically experiencing the relationships among sound, body, space, and time.
The exhibition Rauch Hocket presents a space where performers, devices, and audiences interlock, offering a direct experience of immaterial sound. Through participation, the audience encounters the emergence of sound and its spatial resonance, becoming not just passive listeners but active constituents of the sonic body — participants in a state of presence. Through the dynamic interplay among performer, apparatus, and audience, gaps and silences in sound are continually generated, reconfiguring one’s internal rhythm and spatial perception. Thus, the work demonstrates how immaterial sound can be realized on physical and sensory levels through a performative experience that intertwines sound, body, space, and performance.
