Bang Geul Han and Minna Pöllänen

Bang Geul Han (based in Queens, NY) and Minna Pöllänen (based in London, UK) have collaborated on Signs of Flood, an installation combining new media and hand-stitched embroidery that explores the connotations of the word “flood.” The work shifts between an international vantage point, where abstract and decontextualized media representations are propagated widely, and a far more local, imminent level, where this imagery may have an impact on individual bodies and communities.

In the video, Han, holding a banner similar to those Pöllänen produced for the exhibition, reads aloud headlines from a live feed of Internet sources such as Google News and Twitter. To mine this constant stream of information, Han has created custom software that aggregates any headlines which include the phrase “flood of…,” collecting a variety of literal or metaphorical uses of the word “flood.” The custom software gives voice to these headlines by splicing together clips drawn from a video inventory of the artist speaking thousands of pre-recorded individual words. Han’s program also responds to “weather watch” keywords: a flood warning anywhere around the world can trigger the TV meteorologist background to turn an ominous red color. The robotic and hypnotic delivery alludes to the endlessness of automated media and data streams, disconnected from the content they are reporting on.

Minna Pöllänen’s banners work in tandem with Han’s video installation, embroidered with a choreographic score of body positions pulled from social media. The slow process of hand stitching traces the body caught in action: a series of yoga poses, open water survival tactics, gestures of fleeing migrants climbing and hiding, Steve Jobs presenting a new Apple product, etc. The images on these banners evoke the schizophrenic constellation of topics we consume, edit, and respond to on a daily basis. Their symbolism distills the algorithmically delivered news stories that “flood” our social media platforms and materializes them as real actions taken on and by the body.