Din: ding-dang-dong (딘:딩댕동) - Olympic Park - Seoul, Korea
Posted by: 
silverquill
N 37° 31.030 E 127° 07.787
52S E 334721 N 4153888
This massive steel sculpture, by the Australian "sonic artist," Nigel Helyer, is located in Olympic Park, site of the 1988 Summer XXIV Olympiad held in Seoul, Korea.
Waymark Code: WMD79K
Location: Seoul, South Korea
Date Posted: 11/29/2011
Views: 3
This large sculpture consists of three large bells arranged around a central granite dais. The overall ground covered is about 65 x 65 feet (22m) with an overall height of 18 feet (6m). The bells weigh in at 3 tons as does the supporting frame. It is left bare to the weathering elements, as it blends into the environment.
딘:딩댕동
Din: ding-dang-dong
1988
헬리어
Helyer-Nigel
오스트레일이아 / Australia
Nigel Helyer (a.k.a. Dr Sonique) is a Sydney based Sculptor and Sound Artist with an international reputation for his large scale sonic installations, environmental works and new media projects." He describes his early inspiration: "My childhood village contained two significant buildings, significant not for their formal qualities, they were both simple cottages, but because one had been the home of Halley, the astronomer and the other the home of William Blake the poet. Without being conscious of the fact, I grew up in a cosmos in which the arts and science were intertwined, it has marked my endeavours ever since." He is a co-founder and commissioner of the “SoundCulture” organisation, a VACB fellow of the Australia Council an Honourary Associate in the Architecture Faculty of the University of Sydney and the winner of this year’s Helen Lempriere National Sculpture Award. (
Australian Sound Design Project)
Helyer has experimented with many sonic themes from the marine environment, and has created many large scale projects. Here in this video presentation he discusses what he calls, biosonics.
In this large scale project, commissioned for the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, Korea, however, Helyer explores the themes of transition and metaphor in relation to the process of transformation taking place in Korean culture. Indeed, the work seems to have been prophetic as the rapid changes since then have given us just such enigmatic juxtapositions of themes: the ancient and the modern not merely coexisting side-by-side, but fusing into new forms of experience, of thought and spirituality. Indeed, the ancient bells, so common in both urban and mountain settings, are now surrounded by the clanging of industry and commerce. Yet, out of that cacophony can be heard the resonant "dong" of the bell, reminding us that the old has not been forgotten, but is always a part of us.
This monumental undertaking was assembled by the Daewoo Construction Company, and an interesting slide presentation of the process can be viewed at Sonic Objects
The artist provides the following context, for the "Artist's Interpretation" inscribed on the plaque below: If I were to nominate two salient characteristics of my work practice (to remain with me on my desert island!), my choice would rest upon the following:- the first shall be called “Transition”. Transition as a historical process, which negotiates the passage(s) from traditional social and cosmological patterns to those contemporary social forms, moulded by scientific and economic “Rationalism”.
The second is “Metaphor” - as the dynamic which drives the “poetic’ act, subverting the legitimate forms of the quotidian. The infectious combinatory actions of metaphor destroy the normative (and singular) restrictions of sanctioned language, by delivering a “double-vision”’; the single (authoritarian) voice is replaced by the irreverence of polyvocality.
But how does the above relate to my work for Seoul; “Din; Ding-Dang-Dong”? For even a casual visitor it is plain to see that Korea is a culture in transition. A long and clearly evident tradition with its cosmology’s and iconographies intact and operative now co-exists with the progeny of the industrial revolution, and the (mixed) blessings, which are its inevitable consequence.
from Sonic Objects.
ARTIST’S
INTERPRETATION
“Din:Ding-Dang-Dong” is squarely rooted upon
two elements – transition and metaphor. The central
“crucible/bell” elements of the work are iconog-
raphically keyed to both the historical Korean
tradition of the “Heaven Bell”, with their resonant
spiritual connotations, whilst simultaneously they
are direct descendant from William Blake’s “dark
satanic mills” of my own culture. The Bessemer
converters and reverberating furnaces of heavy
industry, an epoch which ironically is slowly expiring
in the West, only to be re-born in Asia! To engage
the work, it must be entered, both physically and
metaphorically: it must be acknowledged by a full
range of senses.
It is intended in the first instance as a kinaes-
thetic architecture, its role as an intellectual image is
coincidental : the site presents a range of sonic
capabilities which are latent: those who wish are
invited to summon up a series of physical tones, but
beyond these notes lie the pure harmonics of the
ancient bells, in company with the reverberations of
the steel works the metaphor reorders history and
implodes the contradictory!
Helyer, Nigel
This sculpture is kept in cond-
ition being decayed and changed
by natural phenomena to make the
most of the Artist’s intention of
sculpture.