Wonjun Jeong Captures Floating Ethereal Images in The Sky

Seoul-based graphic designer and photographer, Wonjun Jeong, captures magical images of people’s faces projected onto floating ethereal pieces of fabric. Dubbed Conversation and Floating Life, the series communicate concepts that concern us all – identity, life and death.

Conversation is conceptually rooted in the thoughts of French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, and particularly his theories of ‘Other’. Levinas suggests ‘Other’ is an unknowable entity – a ‘visage’ that’s completely dissimilar to our true selves. Conversation visually interprets this idea. Images of people’s faces are projected onto a soft lightweight textile thrown up into the air against twilight skies. These images materialise as a visage that signifies a conversation with ‘Other’.

“In the photographs, the space becomes the world where one encounters the Other, and the cloth tossed into the air becomes the medium that draws out one’s relationship with Other,” says Jeong.

Floating Life highlights the idea that Death is hidden in our modern society. “Dead body is a subject that should be put away instead of being mourned of,” he says. “Hundreds of reasons exist in death, and people are trying to eliminate the reasons. Death is not natural anymore. It is not obvious, people logically produces result of the cause of death.”

The white coloured cloth used in the images is representative of the colour of ‘nothing’ – a colour that has meaning of non-existence, in turn symbolising death. At the same time, white implies a blooming of a new life from death. The cloth captures a moment in our lives as it flies in the air, reflecting light onto the white cloth which projects the life from the death. The cloth acts as a screen that absorbs a variety of images that tell the stories of life and death, literally becoming the screen of our lives.