Your Positions
Your Positions
Embedded Files
Korean language
In the fall of 2016, the Center for Art Convergence at Korea National University of Arts hosted <Your Positions> as the first lecture program. Research-based art, critical media practice, and research/planning as creative activities were viewed. Each lecture introduced the spaces and places we said we understood. The world cannot be viewed in isolation from the human way of existing. Thus, there is a body that faces a place, walks into a place, creates a place, moves from place to place, and even passes through a non-place that is just a location. Also, various material/immaterial objects through which living things and cultures are accumulated or connected are interpreted as places. The body, including the voice, also becomes a place. Finally, we discussed some questions about contemporary works of art and activities that mimic the world, create places, or connect places.
The lecturers were researchers and planners who confront, create, or analyze various places. Architect Seokjae Lim deals with both architectural history research and design, and Haecheon Park is a design researcher and critical fiction writer. I-jae Kim is a cultural geographer who conducts research through travel and site visits, and Jaeyong Park is a curator of a contemporary art collective, Work on Work. Haejin Bang is a critic who actively works in the field of performance and art, and Haeju Kim is a curator.
Opaque Transparency: Glass, Body-Machine Theory, Visual Centrism _ Seokjae Lim
In a society, the view of buildings and the view of the human body generally coincide. This is also the representative value of an era. In modern architecture, the representative value of buildings and bodies converges into a “mechanism.” “Body-Machine theory” was led by two architects: Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe. Among them, the architecture of Mies van der Rohe clearly represents the transparency of glass. From the point of view of the body theory, the transparency of glass is one of the main factors in the collapse of the existential condition. It is an architectural phenomenon that symbolically represents lightness without the basis of modern civilization.
Monsters in the House: What Happened in Their House? _ Haecheon ParkDuring the period of rapid modernization after liberation, how did the residential space of the middle-class change, and what events took place inside it? Following Walter Benjamin’s approach to exploring the correlation between Art Nouveau and crime fiction to look at it in relation to Korean novels, we might have found a “monster” there, not a “culprit.” In a society where rationality is not sufficiently matured as a principle of individual life, if an “event” occurs in the private space of such a society, the form of narrative is likely to depend on the private testimony of witnesses rather than the sophisticated reconstruction of the event according to the principle of cause and effect. It wouldn’t be too strange if the identity of the criminal became blurred and an unknown monster went wild on the spot.
Geographical Imagination: From Landscape Art to Pokémon Go _ I-jae KimGeographical imagination can be said to find “various perspectives and images of places/spaces” and the power to “see the world freshly (or differently) through my own eyes.” From the Impressionist painters who recreated natural landscapes to contemporary artists whose expressions went beyond conventional stereotypes, the brilliant artists who changed the way they saw the world were masters of the geographical imagination. On the other hand, it is essential for artists to stably secure a space where they can properly embody their artistic ideals as well as to place themselves in an environment where their work can be properly understood and evaluated, and to contextualize the meaning and value of their work appropriately. British contemporary artists such as Tracey Emin and Antony Gormley, as well as Korean artists such as Ufan Lee, Atta Kim, Haegue Yang, and Do Ho Suh, have navigated through space, experimenting with possibilities and building their own art spaces. Also, the geographical imagination that helps understand the importance of place and context and maximizes its effect can be applied in various ways. In addition to the land art, architecture designed by Tadao Ando and Zaha Hadid, the mobile game “Pokémon Go,” which exquisitely combines the space of everyday life with virtual reality, and animations such as “Ratatouille” and “Finding Nemo” are the products of the geographical imagination that freely crosses boundaries.
In the Name of Art, from the Ruins of Data _ Jaeyong Park Focusing on the projects that the curatorial collective “Work on Work” has been working on since 2011, we look at the changes that have been made “in the name of art.” Today’s art can be made as atypical practices, but the institutions and systems surrounding art seem to be aiming for something standardized. In Korea, where the institutions, standards, and principles of each field of society are not uniform, such an ambiguous realm – art – may be the area where disconnection and confusion stand out more. That said, what is art practice, and can it be achieved? We expect questions, concerns, and interference from those participating at the lecture.
Interval: Gap between Movements _ Haejin Bang and Haeju Kim
Voice, Location of Event, Space, Site, Position, Mark _ Haejin BangThe voice, often regarded as inferior or trivial to the visual elements, and thus out of the discussion, does, however, act as a covert and radical strategic point. The voice drives the narrative or plots betrayal. As a part and the other side of the body, the voice makes the body exist or negates it. Likewise, the voice becomes the place where the event takes place or the event itself. How does the voice become an aesthetic and political device that shakes and reorganizes the world of visibility through its invisibility? Across video and performance, we questioned this through examples of various works.
Performance and Videos _ Haeju KimThe most common way to access past performances is through video recordings of the performances. Since the 1960s, when recording media became common, many artists have recorded their performances and experimented with their performances in front of cameras. In addition, the body and its movements are treated as materials and subjects in various video-related works. This lecture examined the relationship between performance and video, which is a record of the time and sometimes overlaps with recorded time, and introduced some interesting attempts to explore this relationship.
Voice, Location of Event, Space, Site, Position, Mark _ Haejin BangThe voice, often regarded as inferior or trivial to the visual elements, and thus out of the discussion, does, however, act as a covert and radical strategic point. The voice drives the narrative or plots betrayal. As a part and the other side of the body, the voice makes the body exist or negates it. Likewise, the voice becomes the place where the event takes place or the event itself. How does the voice become an aesthetic and political device that shakes and reorganizes the world of visibility through its invisibility? Across video and performance, we questioned this through examples of various works.
Performance and Videos _ Haeju KimThe most common way to access past performances is through video recordings of the performances. Since the 1960s, when recording media became common, many artists have recorded their performances and experimented with their performances in front of cameras. In addition, the body and its movements are treated as materials and subjects in various video-related works. This lecture examined the relationship between performance and video, which is a record of the time and sometimes overlaps with recorded time, and introduced some interesting attempts to explore this relationship.
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