Kii Kang
Kii (Wonki) Kang is an independent researcher, architect, programmer, and ‘hacker’ interested in using computation as a tool to blur binaries, reassemble temporalities, and embody semiotics. He holds dual masters in Architecture Studies and Computer Science from MIT, and a Bachelor of Architecture from Seoul National University. https://k–kang.com/
Archive Reindex Archive presents photographs and captions from National Geographic magazine from 1945 to 1959, filterable by year and country. It was conceived by Ivetta Sunyoung Kang and has been developed in collaboration with artist and web developer Kii Kang. It is formed as an interactive and participatory website inviting visitors to annotate the archives, whose photographic elements are glitched by an inversed saliency mapping. Saliency mapping deliberately reassembles the perception of internalized movements of general viewers’ eyes that lie on input images at first. It unearths archived remnants of the aftermath of WWII, the “expeditious” human movements of global colonization and imperialism, war and wealth propagation and discrepancies between capitals and raw resources for national expansions. The project strives to collect contemporary annotations that correct, question, and confront uncomfortable gazes in the magazine to bring a collective means of slow, gentle recuperation of those gazed at and othered.