LOS ANGELES — The most successful pirate in history was a woman. Zheng Yi Sao, active in the South China Sea between 1801 and 1810, took ownership of her husband’s Red Flag Fleet after he died in 1807. Over the next three years, she successfully fought off advances by British, Portuguese, and Chinese armadas. In 1810, Zheng negotiated a deal with the Chinese government that granted her amnesty, allowing her to keep her bounty and retire peacefully from piracy.
The legacy of Zheng and female buccaneering inspired Yaloo’s exhibition Shininho DOCKING, on view at Rip Space, an art-meets-tech space in downtown Los Angeles that shows new media work. Yaloo’s protagonist is a fictional character named Shininho. This 86-year-old K-pop idol captains a pirate ship navigating the Pacific Rim, which marks the historic trade route between Korea and California. The character’s physical form is modeled after full-body scans of the artist’s grandmother, brought to life through MetaHuman 3D animation.
The immersive installation encompasses dancing holograms of Shininho, vertical screens projecting undulating dreamscapes, and industrial redwood pillars that resemble good-luck shrines adorning East Asian ship docks. This presentation marks a “stop” along Shininho’s journey, which will continue as the exhibition travels throughout the United States and Korea. The space is bathed in a soundscape created by Yetsuby, which clinks and clanks to the beat of an underwater rave. In “Data Bank” (all works 2024), a large screen projects a looped video of Shininho swimming through a scanned rendering of Yaloo’s grandmother’s home, adorned with her personal objects. A spindly thread of nerves linked on a DNA chain spawns new Shininhos, which float and swim off as their abdomens inflate like balloons. In front of this screen is “Ending Fairy,” a large hologram of Shininho dressed in a bright pink bodysuit decorated with punchy brand logos. A motion capture performance mapped onto the digital figure creates the effect of Shininho dancing excitedly against a digital landscape that recalls Yaloo’s hometown of Incheon, a port city at the heart of South Korea’s industrialization.
What memories does Shininho’s new digital body hold that Yaloo’s grandmother’s body leaves behind? Yaloo’s multimedia work tackles these considerations by addressing the intersection of human and non-human consciousness, challenging the gap between technological advancement and ancient spiritual practices. In “Shininho Opening Number,” a large monitor leaning against the wall projects scrolling lines of Korean and English text, which quote from Leonora Carrington’s 1944 book Down Below: “In the distant future, I descended as the third future of a trinity. Through the providence of the sun, I left myself as hermaphrodite, moon, spirit, gypsy, acrobat, Leonora Carrington, and a woman.” This inclusion from Carrington’s memoir paints a picture of Yaloo’s “third future,” which honors the transformative qualities of the aging body and reimagines the legacy of maritime women, such as Zheng Yi Sao.
Shininho Docking continues at Rip Space (1250 Long Beach Avenue #326, Los Angeles, California) through February 9. The exhibition was curated by Vera Petukhova.
