EGOSYSTEM’s ‘Dip Series’ Breathes New Life into Old Studio Tools

Summary

• Lim Wootek’s Dip series uses resin to preserve studio tools, redefining their functions while visualizing memory
• Objects like an iMac, stool, mirror and cart are transformed into sculptural furniture with blurred silhouettes

Lim Wootek of Studio EGOSYSTEM presents the Dip series as a conceptual exploration of memory and transformation in everyday objects. Rooted in Lim’s idea of “Casting Memory,” the project applies resin to used studio tools, preserving their embedded histories while redefining their functions. Unlike conventional recycling, which erases an object’s past, this method solidifies traces of use and emotion, turning industrial products into craft‑like artifacts. Exhibited in Seoul, the series demonstrates how familiar items – computers, stools, mirrors and carts – can be reimagined as sculptural furniture and conceptual art.

Each piece in the collection reassigns function to familiar objects through radical structural shifts. In “Dip1,” an iMac becomes the backrest of a chair, its monitor still visible while the keyboard and storage bins blur beneath resin. This juxtaposition symbolizes the distance between vivid memories and those fading into obscurity. “Dip2” expands a studio stool into an amorphous triangular form, with the original seat blurred inside resin to represent memory’s blind spots. The added volume suggests new possibilities for everyday tools, breaking the mold of conventional furniture design.

“Dip3” transforms an unused adjustable mirror into a purely sculptural piece. Encased in resin, its reflective function disappears, leaving only a semi‑transparent surface and a fixed silhouette. The mirror, once a tool of utility, becomes a visual element that permeates the space, illustrating how objects can gain new sculptural order once their practical role ceases. Similarly, “Dip4” redefines a broken utility cart by replacing its top with resin. The wheels remain exposed as supports, while the transparent resin surface halts its transport function, allowing the cart to serve as a low table.

Together, these works highlight Lim’s interest in the uncertainty of memory and the transformation of function. Resin acts as both a preservative and a medium of distortion, blurring outlines while redefining utility. By reorganizing the forms and narratives of studio tools, the Dip series offers a poetic commentary on how objects carry personal histories and how those histories can be reshaped into new modes of existence.