Toy Under Development

In her work, Geumhyung Jeong explores the relationship between the human body and the objects that surround it through works that combine the languages and techniques of contemporary dance, performance, puppetry and the visual arts. As her body enters into physical dialogue with objects, it becomes increasingly difficult to determine who is controlling whom, blurring the boundary between the animate and the inanimate.

At DFTL, Geumhyung Jeong presents two works. The first, Toy Under Development, is a lecture-performance in which she revisits a series of projects, from Homemade RC Toy (2019) to Under Construction (2024), sharing anecdotes about their development and the creative processes behind them. The presentation offers an introduction to her ongoing fascination with robots, explored through installations, videos and performances, while also serving as a gateway to her performance Find Select Copy and Paste.

Reflecting on the latter work, Jeong explains: “After spending years creating large-scale installations with robotic sculptures, I decided to show only the body. Nudity makes it clear that there are no other objects—that the body itself is the material.” In this performance, she reconfigures movements originally devised to animate objects or to transform her body in relation to them. Performed without the objects, these rearranged movement phrases generate a new choreographic layer while retaining traces of their original context.

As she further observes: “Being naked on stage is like wearing the costume of nudity. (…) I’ve often thought that performing on stage is like becoming the victim of a ritual.”rmances, et peut d’autre part être considérée comme une introduction à sa performance Find Select Copy and Paste.