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Vacuum cleaners, personal massagers, electronic baby rockers, and walking pads: These are the secondhand machines Rachel Youn sources to create their kinetic sculptures. Made with artificial flowers, metal hardware, and these used electronic components, each one possesses a humanlike presence.
Slow Burn is made from an artificial orchid, a neck massager, bits of metal that clamp the orchids’ petals, and a monitor mount attaching the entire apparatus to a gallery wall. A motor on the massager animates metal rods that force the orchid open and close, a visual that feels caged in its sexuality, a flower forced to furl and unfurl infinitely for the viewer. Its repetitive movements allude to the way a person can become trapped in a comforting loop, endlessly rotating on a circular path of self-destruction. Youn even remarks on the way their sculptures have a lifecycle of their own, with motors burning out and mechanical hardware grinding itself into nothing inside galleries.
Often sourcing parts from various used household electronics found on Facebook Marketplace, the artwork elicits affection, sadness, and eroticism in the viewer. The works raise questions about domestic and sexual labor, human comfort, and the relationships we make with the machines we use in our daily lives. We caught up with Youn to tell us more about their anthropomorphic work.
How did you learn that you wanted to become an artist?
I grew up in a Baptist Christian Korean immigrant household, which had its own set of complications. I think the typical immigrant story is that your parents want you to be a doctor or a lawyer or something. My dad wanted me to go into the Air Force. That was never gonna happen. But, they didn’t really discourage me from doing art.
Then I had a scholarship through school, so they weren’t going to protest. The themes of things I experienced growing up have crept into the work in ways that I didn’t really expect. I think about the performance of the self or especially of womanhood, especially in the church, a lot.
Being a pastor’s daughter, seeing my mom being a pastor’s wife, how you have to present yourself a certain way, has been in the background of my mind. Fun childhood. I grew up with a lot of shame and Christian guilt. My family said it’s okay for you to do art as long as you spread the word of God through your work. And I was like, yeah, I will certainly do that.
Low-key, I’m a closeted atheist. There’s definitely a whole part of my life that my family doesn’t know about. As it should be.
Lots of people are spiritual or want something to believe in. And I totally agree with that and feel that the same, but it will not be through organized religion. I’m fighting against it. My hope for the future is that people are mov[ing] away from ideology and more dogmatic spirituality. I guess we’ll see if it stays that way. But I feel that is what people want.
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