That Distant Future When We Can Share a Coffee - Chaeyoung Kim

‘That Distant Future When We Can Share a Coffee’ is an audience participation performance by Chaeyoung Kim where a minimum of three to a maximum of nine participants sit together and drink warm coffee or tea. As participants’ glasses begin to fog up, they take turns wiping down each other’s glasses.

A performance exploring a moment of uncertainty that opens up a new language of possibility

This project began from the artist’s experience of her glasses constantly clouding over, a consequence of having to wear a mask following the COVID-19 outbreak. The artist focuses on how invisible phenomena such as temperature, humidity, and water vapor form water droplets on her glasses, obstructing the original function of glasses—to enhance sight. The artist interprets one’s glasses fogging over as a moment of uncertainty that opens up a new language of possibility.

In the context of our current times, where we spend increasing amounts of time in front of screens, the artist uses the image of the mouse cursor to explore our society’s short-sighted attitude. Are these acts of clicking, which have become as natural as breathing, excluding certain people and consuming the future for the sake of the present? As temperature, humidity, and water vapor cause glasses to cloud over, pushing more familiar figures into the background, the artist and participants explore pointer fingers as something not stuck to the screen but rather as something that points towards distant futures and unknown others.

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A performance exploring a moment of uncertainty that opens up a new language of possibility