Paul Groot

Adynda - or size does matter

A review of the project by Young-hae Chang Heavy Industries

A drive through the city center of Amsterdam, in which the passengers -a man and a woman- but especially the man - ponder upon the size and color of his reproductive organs. The size isn't right and the color seems to be wrong as well. He is irritated, and is getting more and more worked up while hardly controlling the squeaking tires of the car. A rash fool, a jerk with a plummeting blood sugar level, who wants to yank his fellow passenger from her balance by suddenly braking.

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"Adynda- or size does matter", Chang-hae Ching Heavy Industries - Mediamatic Outdoor Projections 2003

And finally, you have been prepared, rapes her! The text is written in the first person, much of it being dialogue, his partner's name is Adynda, who counters the rape with French outcries Minable! Impuissant!, but finally woos him by whispering baby baby baby.

The city of Amsterdam, this much is clear, seems to be even more responsible for the deed than the man is himself. Amsterdam provokes, because apparently, Amsterdam is a sinless farmer's landscape to the makers of Adynda, Heavy Industries, who themselves are from Seoul. Adynda is brash realistic story of love with a nasty ending that shakes you up: the center of Amsterdam as the terrain on which an impulse is open heartedly, knowingly and efficiently executed. With, in any case, a nice smack on the head for the narrator once it's all over I've almost given myself a concussion and for the victim he imagines a satisfying ending as well She's a different person: she's beautiful. But the viewer stays behind with empty hands.

What are we supposed to do with this?

Is that all? Well, maybe not. He who likes brash realism will read this story for what it is. But he who would like to read the story as a parable, to at least give it some purpose, could perhaps see an artistic struggle in this peculiar cruise. Something like in the fight of Heavy Industries with the computer program Flash with which they author their projects. Because indeed, in art size does not matter, and indeed, in art we don't have to take the whining of the protagonist about the size or color of his penis literally, but we can see it as the whining of a clumsy artist who cannot cope with Flash.

Or are we supposed to take Adynda - or size does matter literally?

Not me.

TRANSLATED BY NADYA PEEK