Insun Kang

Romantic App 2.0

The Romantic App 2.0 is the version 2.0 of a collective project conceived by Claudia Hart, the Romantic App (first executed in fall 2015).

Adèle: Two letters from the Research Files (2019)

Adèle: Two letters from the Research Files (2019), uses augmented reality to layer the lesser known stories about the making of the painting and the art historical interpretations that followed the completion of the work to let them exist in the same time and space. The current state of technology renders augmented reality experience one that embodies the viewer, as they are required to move around with the device in hand. As the viewer gets closer to the artwork, searching for new angles to view the work through the camera on their device, they become increasingly aware of what they bring into the artwork. The device that unveils added temporal and spatial layer atop the artwork is in itself a framing device and serves as an entry point for the viewers to contemplate how their social, geopolitical, and historical positioning shapes their understanding of the work.

In creating the series of three augmented reality lenses for the European Paintings at the Art Institute of Chicago, I used the research files at the museum extensively as sources of both material and inspiration. These files contain myriad of visual and texts that allow a generous glimpse into how the works are maintained, contextualized, researched, ownership transferred and shown around the globe. I found that some lovely personal stories hide amongst those dense research materials, such as the one from the great-granddaughter of ‘the’ Madame Dietz-Monnin, the model of this painting. Contrasting to Degas’ unsent letter to Mme. Dietz-Monnin, Victoire reveals her take on why her great-grandmother disliked the portrait. The following is the unsent letter from Degas in full, followed by a short excerpt from Victoire’s handwritten letter. The augmented reality work that I created merges three imageries together, one of the pastel sketch done as a preparation for the painting, a photo of the framed sketch sitting on a piece of furniture that was a part of a small packet containing Victoire’s letters, and the portrait by Degas.

Unsent letter from Degas to Mme. Dietz-Monin:

To Mme Dietz-Monin,

Let us leave the portrait alone, I beg of you. I was so surprised by your letter suggesting that I reduce it to a boa and a hat that I shall not answer you. I thought that August or M. Groult to whom I had already spoken about your last idea and my own disinclination to follow it, would have informed you about the matter.

Must I tell you that I regret having started something in my own manner only to find myself transforming it completely into yours? That would not be too polite and yet…

But, dear Madame, I cannot go into this more fully without showing you only too clearly that I am very much hurt.

Outside of my unfortunate art, please accept all my regards. (undated)

Letter from Victoire Gilbaud (Great-granddaughter of Mme. Dietz-Monin):

“She was a gay widow. It is said that in the portrait, she was in a nightdress, …and drunk. Others say she was painted as a prostitute, waiting for a client. (That is why she did not like it!)” (excerpt - dated 1980)

Woman in Garden Nook at Bellevue (2019)

The focal point of analysis for this painting has long been the journal the woman is holding or the act of reading, as demonstrated in its current and previous titles: Le Journal Illustré (The Illustrated Journal) and La Lecture (Reading or the Reader). Its impressionistic style also seems to be equally of interest, as this work is considered one of Manet’s most impressionist paintings. Thus it is not surprising that the seemingly everyday scene was often discussed in the same vein as painting the moment, a spontaneity of sorts.

However, what may strike as a surprise is that this scene is unlikely to be one Manet encountered walking down a boulevard. He surely may have had the intention to recreate a scene he walked past, perhaps to give it the quality of capturing the impression of the moment, which seems to have been a successful pursuit. Nonetheless, some clues point to the possibility of the scene being a carefully staged setup. The lush green landscape dotted with red flowers and a metallic light blue object behind the woman is one that resembles a corner of another painting that Manet worked on around the same time, Coin de Jardin de Bellevue (A Garden Nook at Bellevue) (1880). The same elements are also present in his Portrait of Madame Gamby (1879/80), which gives a further clue, as this work is annotated to have been painted in his studio in Rue d'Amsterdam.  The garden appears to be the one attached to the villa Manet rented, and it is probable that he either set up the scene in his garden or used one of his other paintings to stand in for the outdoor setting that he was staging.

I create my interpretation of the garden in the software that is widely used to simulate the real. The garden is assembled using the preset plants and trees, lights places to emulate sunlight, and the turbulence from the non-existing wind is added to give them more life. This 3D rendition of the garden is then flattened to image sequences, and reduced to a filter that only sees the light apart from the dark. The Coin de Jardin de Bellevue seeps through the shape defined by the chosen brightness.

A Gentle Wind from a Garden (2019)

Silhouettes of the plants from the 3D garden that I recreated from the Coin de Jardin de Bellevue reappears here, positioned so that it contours the face, blowing softly in front of the woman. This added layer is my rendition of re-incorporating elements with different context and history to stage a scene, such that Manet reinterpreted his garden as a backdrop of multiple different everyday locations.