plastic fugue

Hoin Ji

trophy 1
2024
Polylactic Acid(PLA), Polycaprolactone(PCL)
20 × 9.2 × 7.5 cm

trophy 2
2025
Polylactic Acid(PLA), Polycaprolactone (PCL)
25.2 × 11.3 × 9 cm

trophy 3
2025
Thermoplastic Polyurethane (TPU), Polycaprolactone (PCL)
25.2 × 11.3 × 9 cm

A trophy, which refers to a system that, by intertwining economic barriers, cultural hierarchies, and neoliberal values, turns the trophy into a symbol not of achievement, but of exclusion.

introducing air&dust
2024-2025
Single channel video and stereo sound
9' 11"

Plastic Fugue. 2025. Polylactic Acid(PLA), Polycaprolactone(PCL), ESP-32, air pump, silicone tube, variable dimensions.

Plastic Fugue is an interactive sound installation that examines how material hierarchies shape artistic standards and sanctioned exclusions.
It begins from the concert flute as a social object, where training, legitimacy, and access are often determined by economic conditions prior to aesthetic judgement. The same logic appears in painting, where materials circulate with a name value of brand, price index, and where standards of quality are repeatedly tied to the cost of canvas, pigment, oil, paper, or even a pencil.

In this way, art aligns easily with economic sorting, in tension with its supposed promise of liberty. Treated as a recurring pattern, value is stabilized through symbols and their restriction rather than use. Within this structure, classical music and canvas painting are positioned as default standards through repetition and institutional reinforcement.

Plastic Fugue gathers this irony across multiple mediums. In the installation, plastic instruments and interfaces do not simply represent exclusion but rehearse the formats through which it becomes ordinary. Within a neoliberal corporate grammar, plastic paintings and plastic flutes reenacted as products, plastic trophies, and cheap rococo style arcade buttons clumsily restage the structure itself, making visible how the present normalizes what is not self-evident.

Using interactivity, the work exposes these standards as mechanisms rather than neutral flows. It treats legitimacy as something produced through material, repetition, and asks how quickly aesthetic judgement becomes a postscript to conditions that were already set in advance.

air 11-13
2025
Polylactic Acid(PLA), Polycaprolactone(PCL)
-

Biomüllbeutel
2025
Polylactic Acid(PLA)
-

air 1-10, air Pp 1
2025
Polylactic Acid(PLA), Polycaprolactone(PCL)
-

button 1, button 2
2025
Polylactic Acid(PLA), arcade button, metal hinge, ESP32
12.3 × 10.2 ×10.5 cm

Pp 1-9
2025
Polycaprolactone(PCL)

Sax Recital - Online Version
2025
3-channel video installation and stereo sound
16' 37" looped

Credits

Artist & Director:
Hoin Ji

Sound & Editing, Imagery & Web:
Moberm Corporation~~(Hoin Ji)~~

3D Modeling (Mouthpiece, Hardware):
Hao Ding

3D Fabrication & Consultation:
Fabian Düss
Arthur Hanstein

Performance (Sax Recital):
Arno Arial

Video & Lighting (Sax Recital):
Minsu Kim

Poster & Catalogue Design:
Minjung Kim

Photo Documentation:
Hanjoo Lee

Exhibition Design (with input from):
Yerim Kim

Catering:
Pavel Polenz

Special Thanks to...

Prof. Charlotte Eifler
Prof. Diana McCarty
Prof. Nina Zschocke
Dr. Barbara Kuon
Lorenz Schwarz
Tjark Schönfeld
Alexander Knoppik
Tobias Keilbach
Richard Brunner
...

For children who learned too early not to ask for anything,
and for adults who grew up with that memory.

Thank you!