Ousss Sister (2010) is one of seven distinct installation works Koo Jeong A created for the exhibition Constellation Congress at the Dia Art Foundation (5 November 2010 - 26 June 2011). In the piece two large, seemingly levitating, cubes serve as screens for the double video projection of the sun. This silent projection presents a face-to-face encounter of collaged satellite footage of solar flares, in close-up and in black and white. Through the narrow corridor, formed by the cubes, the two suns emanate a soft light and become a reflection of one another. A fantastical experience – being in such bold proximity to the stormy surface of the sun, in defiance of the limitations of human eyesight – is here made possible by the telescopic camera lens. And yet with the black and white footage we are left colourblind before this image of the star we associate with colour and light. Koo’s modest contemplation of the abstractions and disfigurations of the filmic lens endorses the baffling yet powerful poetry of the ethereal.

Objects in Koo’s mind have mostly drifted free from language, the nature of this drift sumarised by words she invented, Ousss, a sibilant syllable whose meaning remains evasive. She has periodically drafted Ousss into service since its invention in 1998; in 2002 she drew its imaginary map, but Ousss cannot be defined through its use. It is more sound than sense. In Ousss Sister the suns become each other’s audience. The most that title reveals is that there is a family of two Ousss. These suns cast their light only into each other.