Kim Kulim, From Phenomenon to Trace(1970)

From Phenomenon to Trace is a game-based reinterpretation of Kim Kulim’s 1970 site-specific performance.

In the original work, the artist burned sections of grass on a riverside embankment, leaving behind dark triangular traces on the landscape. This project does not aim to simply reproduce that historical event as a static record. Instead, it transforms the work into a playable system.

The player intervenes between action and trace. Using a water cannon-like control, the player attempts to extinguish or distort the fires as they spread across four triangular zones. Kim Kulim’s figure continues to appear across the field, reigniting missing or extinguished areas. The result is not a fixed image, but a constantly shifting negotiation between formation, interruption, and residue.

By translating performance into game mechanics, this work explores how a completed performance might be reopened as a variable process. What was once preserved as documentation becomes unstable again — not a finished record, but an event that can be altered, replayed, and experienced differently each time.