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Jeanyoon Choi (b.1999) is a Computational Artist researching in interconnectivity and complexity through Multi-Device Web Artworks.

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jeanyoon.ch@oi /oi % cat competition-relativeness-and-absoluteness

Competition: Relativeness and Absoluteness

2024-07-31

Walter De Maria’s Time/Timeless/No Time prompted this thought about competition. In education, employment, wealth and personal appeal, we often evaluate ourselves through relative position rather than an absolute condition. Value emerges from comparison with someone else.

An improvement in material conditions therefore does not necessarily end dissatisfaction. The reference point moves with the people around us. Competition demands more resources without guaranteeing a corresponding increase in contentment. My image of being a hundred times wealthier while consuming a hundred times more is deliberately symbolic: the excess does not resolve the comparison that produced it.

An installation could make that structure tangible. Several participants each use a mobile phone, facing one large projection. They begin pressing without fully understanding the system. More presses raise their score, represented through an abstract visual field.

As competition intensifies, scores rise—but the lower scores begin to disappear beneath a rising surface. The image evokes rising sea levels. Those already ahead continue upwards while others are submerged.

The participants’ local pursuit of improvement produces a shared environment in which fewer and fewer can remain. The work would connect relative competition to the resources and ecological conditions it consumes.

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