Artist statement for the Final project

 Jonathan Crary’s essay 24/7 addresses the problems of capitalism that is restless and wastes everything. 24/7 symbolizes the intention of the endless consumption, human's desire, and control to human’s ability. On the other hand, there is sleep as a symbol of the nature that is in harmony with human's life in the essay. Jonathan Crary shows us how important sleep is to humans as many examples of sleeplessness research through his whole essay. Sleep provides to people another energy source like food. Sleep could mean to people the rest or recharge. Sleep that we need shows human is influenced by the ecosystem. The desires of humans have been substituted other things, yet sleep still remains that can’t be replaced. That means sleep cannot match with 24/7 universe that sleep has no necessity or inevitability.

 Today, people have used the night time because they could control the light after the Industrial Revolution. This has brought many impacts to people. The history of lighting in the Chapter ǀ shows that urban street light by 1880s gave people safety from dangers at night and the economic benefit of many activities. The light at night means that people could work extended hours and produce more goods.  However, we couldn’t answer the question as if people’s life is improved by the results of the decrease in sleep hours.  Sleep can’t be eliminated but it can be wrecked and it gives us bad influence when we tried to remove it.

Why do I think that sleep is important? Sleep gives me new energy. Without sleep, I make mistakes easily and make wrong decisions. I have experienced that sleep can’t recover it several times when I sleep less for doing an urgent thing even if I sleep more later.  In addition, I realized while I raise my children. Their behaviors were not right when they sleep less. They threw a tantrum without a reason. They had caught a cold easily. We have to spend more time and energy if we sleep less.

On the top of that, Jonathan Crary stressed the importance of dreams in his essay. People have dreams while they sleep. The average person has three to five dreams per night. Many people in the modern world don’t believe their dreams connect to their inner life and they think that dreams consist of meaningless images and contents in their present life. However, many scholars have insisted and researched that dreams may have to mean for inner growth toward super-ego that people want to be perfect as a whole creature. They focused on the way to find to ‘inner growth’ or ‘self-understanding’ of people and that is the observation of the dream. I totally agree with their opinions and find one of the solutions from the dream as the recovery of people from widespread materialism. I have worked with my dreams as a theme for a long time.

The 4^th chapter of the article brought the importance of the dream.  As I mentioned earlier, I believe that my dream reflects my consciousness to connect self- understanding.

  Fish in my work in this semester are also the same situation. Several years ago, my brother came and told me that he ate a fish and the taste was like beef in my dream. I really wondered about the meaning of the dream after I woke up. Two weeks later, I got a call from my father, and he said my brother has fallen and he was diagnosed with leukemia. The dream symbolized the warning of the loss of my brother.  One year later, he has passed away. Because of the dream, fish is unpleasant but a warning sign to me. In fact, a fish in the dream is normally a good meaning for people. In dreams, a big fish is swimming in clean water, it promises new discoveries, achievements, good luck or profit.

 However, as a mother, I worry when I feed fish to my children. Fish maybe not a good food in these days. We know fish is healthy for our body but these days, fish is harmful because it is contaminated by pollution. Maybe, this situation that we can't eat fish influences my consciousness eating fish is dangerous. I can't explain exactly the reason. Moreover, I don't know how my dream told about my brother's condition even I have lived in the U.S.A. which is far from Korea where he was and why fish came into my dreams.

 Maybe may consciousness wants to tell me that eating fish is harmful these days. I thought it warns me that be aware in your life and it tells me that keep thinking what is important. After I read this essay, I drew several images. I wanted to draw some fish figures but I don't know how to connect the images into my work before reading the article. I was really pleased that I could make the image that I want. I printed and painted about fish in the dream. I tried to express that we, human want to control nature, including sleep, as the sun in the box or a cage. But we are dying inside in spiritual like fish of skeleton.  As an artist, I wish that many people have an opportunity to have the interest in their dream after they appreciate my work and they keep trying to understand their inner growth out of the influence of 24/7 universe.

Week 14: electronic waste

……Jennifer Gabrys has pointed towards the complexitites of this new metamorphic economy, and its material, persisting nature: ‘recycling does not remove remainder or wastage; instead, it displaces and transforms waste….

 I felt really uncomfortable while I was reading ‘Electronic waste’.  I worried about our environment but also involved in the situation that I was also making the electronic waste. Then, do I not I buy the electronics? That isn’t possible. However, I could save the environment if I buy things that I really need them and use them for long time regardless of fashion.

In addition, U.S.A. needs a state level system like South Korea to save the environment. The South Korean government enforced the ‘volume-rate garbage system’ and recycling from 1995, before I came to America. I felt guilty when I threw away recyclables, such as papers, glass bottles and aluminum cans after I was living here, because I already grew a habit of assorting recycling in the trash. I was pleased that my subdivision district recommended neighbors to join the recycling system several years later. 

I was shocked that I had to trash broken electronics in America. Why don’t Americans fix and reuse broken things? The reason is that labor charge is very expensive in America, and usually products are made from China where the labor cost is cheap.  People in Korea can get after service from each electronics companies when electronics are broken.  That service could help people not only saving money but also saving environment. I wish the government provide many systems to save our environment.

Week 13: From Pong to Planet Quake

Playing video game has become a major entertainment of 21^st century. The video gamers turn to the modders for their satisfaction in the DIY maker culture thanks to the advent of the personal computer. It isn’t an one way culture from makers to consumers.

 I confronted some video games in the middle of 1980s in Korea. There were many video game space for children in the market area. Playing video game in PC was possible after 1990s. I couldn’t meet the role playing video game fever because this sensation happened after I have lived in U.S.A. The first video game, ‘Space war’ was appeared in 1962 by Steve Russell. He couldn’t expect the economic possibility of video games. PC games were developed a major companies, but  modders improved and developed the PC games for personal enthusiasm. They have been doing this without profit for their pleasure. The modders have developed the game for their leisure and engaged in developing new games but the benefit from the game is for major companies. The modders develop games regardless to the benefit, yet there is some capitalists abuse the modders’ innocent enthusiasm. Is there a win-win situation on each side?  

Week12: Traumas of Code

I kept thinking why is the title of the article ‘Traumas of Code’ not ‘Traumas of symbol’. This is because I think that traumas could relate with symbols. However, I could tell now. Symbols have changed in the meaning depend on the culture or personal experience, and have multiple meanings. Yet codes are fixed in meaning and they can be to solve in only one way. In addition, Hayles focused on the code as mediators computers and human to overcome trauma.

Hayles quotes Joseph Weizenbaum’s ‘Computer Power and Human Reason’ in the last part of her article. That maybe the book has the key point of her thought. Dr. Weizenbaum’s secretary chatted with the ELIZA computer program, even though she knew the computer’s ability. Why did she do that? I would want to know the reason why people want to talk with a computer. Why do they not talk to people? Hayles agrees with his opinion that people shouldn’t give computer abilities like human being. However, as she mentioned, computers have the human’s faculty, now. They overpower human’s abilities. These parts in her article “…more and more code is written by software programs rather than humans……..In this guise they are seen as interacting positively with humans to provide transmission pathways for the articulation of trauma. In other ways, however, they are taking over from humans more of the cognitive load, a maneuver widely perceived as an implicit threat to human autonomy and agency…” that really made me terrified.

Week 9; When taste politics meet terror

….As The Critical Art Ensemble defense website points out, historically these laws- ‘Charges of mail and wire fraud’- have been used when the government could not prove other criminal charge… Joan Hawkins

There were restrictions to art created by the politicians in Korea during the period of military autocracy. South Korea is a democratic state that guarantees freedom of expression like America. In the article ‘When Taste Politics Meet Terror’, we knew that Steve Kurtz was arrested and released for bio-terrorism without evidence after 9/11. This incident was related with overreactions about the terror. It is not same situation-not the terror-, but Korea has undergone a preposterous period under dictatorship. In the period, there are many worse incidents than ‘the charge of mail and wire fraud’ of the critical Art Ensemble’.  If the people who serve dictatorship felt disobedient, they overreacted. That could be found anywhere that under autocracy in the earth.

For example, the novelist, Soosan Han, wrote a novel released daily in parts ‘The street of Desire’ in the Joong-Ang Daily News in 1980. After 300 days of writing, he wrote about a security officer who had a pride that he served in the army. However, Han’s expression about him was very cheap, a part of common pride among Korean males who served in the army. Everyone could notice that wasn’t indicate about rebellious power of the dictatorship. Yet, he was arrested by National Intelligence Agents, and tortured. Not only him but also his colleague, Jeongman Park, was arrested and tortured because he was Han’s friend. The writer, Soosan Han quit writing, and went Japan and Jeongman Park has passed away in 1988 because of the aftereffects. They were not North Korean spies, terrorists or politicians who opposed the dictatorship. They were innocent writers. The ridiculous thing was the action of the people who thought the novel was written for criticizing the military dictatorship. The more preposterous thing was the people who had brought up a problem.  They were staff sergeants, not the high-ranking officials.

Out of its mind, crazy. Schizophrenia. Schizoanalysis….

I think The critical Art ensemble members were fortuante, at least, they didn’t tortured and die.. and they have supported by many artists and scholars. 

Week 7; Fantasy about a cyborg mother

There are many comic images that I watched when I was young about a cyborg mother when I think of it. There were normally computer systems to take care of people’s needs. Why didn’t I  think at once that an incubator could be a cyborg mother?  In the movie or cartoon-especially Japanese Manga-, the characters of cyborg mother were really hideous. They were jealous of the real mother, tried to manipulate children’s fates or tried to kill, if they couldn’t have the children. Jaimie Smith-Windsor’s cyborg mother is an externalized  womb  under control-statist technology. Normally a cyborg mother is expressed in externalized emotion of mother, in other words, the possession of children and control in SF movies or SF fiction. Why do movie scenario writers or novelists express as incapable mothers to the cyborg mothers? The image of mother, usually, sacrifices many things for her child like Hans Christian Andersen’s ‘The Story of a Mother’ who sacrifices everything for getting back her child who was taken away by Death. I wonder why the writers have written that a cyborg mother is incapable. It may be that they wanted to suggest that a cyborg mother as a symbol of imperfect technology by humans and the writers hoped that people would control technology.

The Five Obstructions

The Five Obstructions (2003) Danish film by Lars Von Trier and Jøgen Leth

Why did Lars Von Trier ask Jøgen Leth to make the five movies with obstacles? Why did Jøgen Leth hesitate every time when he heard the instruction from Lars?

In the Fifth films, Lars said “to help Jøgen to be perfect....” In his monologue, I could understand the reason why Lars asked Jøgen to make movies with obstructions. To be a perfect human, he has to overcome his situation whether good or bad.

It was really uncomfortable when I was watching the movie, because, I really understood the situation. When people get older, they get used what they have done through their life. The people could get perfect professional achievement like Jøgen Leth in a certain area, yet they don’t want to try new things after they gain  reputation, because they afraid to lose their fame. If I were him, Jøgen, could I do that? Could I try to overcome my achievement to be a better person? Celebrities could sense more obstacles than commoners when they apply something in a new area because they are famous as professionals.  

This movie was an experimental movie which consists of 5 documentaries. It starts with that Lars suggesting to Jøgen to remake his movie, ‘The Perfect Human’. Lars gave him very difficult obstructions in the movie.

The obstacle in first documentary is that Las should remake the film in Cuba without setting and using only 12 frames. The first documentary looked like a music video to me. It was visually pleasant. Second obstruction in the film is making in the most miserable place in the world, and Jøgen should play ‘The Perfect Human’ by himself with eating scene. Yet, his mission was failed because the local people shouldn’t be in the scene. The third obstruction in the film is making the movie without a rule in Brussels as the punishment from the second film…which was the real challenge. The fourth obstruction was making ‘The Perfect Human’ as a cartoon. Jøgen said that he couldn’t..but the outcome was really good. It was really sensational. The final obstruction is that Jøgen should voice over narration as Lars directed.

Every time, for Jøgen, making movies with the obstruction was the real challenge. In his situation, his fame and his profession that can’t be ignored by the people’s appraisal, I could understand Jøgen’s pressure to overcome the obstructions. I was really pleased when I saw that Lars admitted to Jøgen’s achievement. 

The Final Installation 'Pulse'

The Final Installation in the 'Pulse'

A curtain  is hung on the frame.

sketch_ Nov,

These wooden bars will be connected with Dowel Pins for the curtain frame.

These are Dowel Pins.

These are the motion sensors and other items for the light.

Sketch 10. 21

The fabric has finally arrived. It is 60 inches by 14 yards, but actually I wanted to buy an 18 yard according to the frame size. However, the company sent an email that they have only 14 yards. I couldn’t find other fabric companies and time was running out. Anyway, I’m relieved that the fabric color is better than I expected.

These photos are the wood bars for the frame. I drilled the holes for connection of each bar with my husband's help.                                                                                    

  

  

Sketch 10.19

These are the wooden bars for the curtain frame.

My husband and I started to cut the bars to the right sizes.

  

Sketch 10.14

I bought an LED bulb with 90 watt replacement for the installation, and checked it in my room. It was evening and the bathroom’s light turned on at the time, so it wasn’t completely dark. Maybe, in the installation, it will be hard to block the part of the gallery’s light. Considering the situation, the light is pretty brighter than I have expected. I’ll put one more bulb, if it isn’t as bright as I expected. 

This photo is for the motion sensor of the light bulb, yet I was not sure what is good for the installation. I’ll search for more motion sensors to find the right one. 

  

Sketch 10.11

This is a floor plan of Patti and Rusty Rueff  Galleries. I plan to make a wooden frame for the red curtain. The table length is 5 feet and width is 3feet, so the size of the wooden frame will be 11 feet for the width, the depth and the height will be 8 feet.  The top of the box will be covered with boards or black fabric.

I’ll attach the gallery wall and the red parts of wood furring strips and the curtain will hang on the frame. If the frame isn’t stable, more wood furring will be placed between the bottom part (green dot part).

Inspiration

sketch 10. 08

There will be table setting in the installation. 

Week 5: The Face and the public: 

              Race, Secrecy, and Digital Art Practice 

A lot of new idea for me: I have understood about a face as an identity very obscurely before reading this article. A face is became a material as discourses for understanding modern society after the advent of the Internet.

The existence of ‘uncanny doppelgängers’: There are many doppelgängers in Korea. It is not related with “Nancy Burson’s Human Race Machine” that is to “move beyond differences-inequality- and arrive at sameness-equality”. Some of Koreans envy “The Beauty” and they have several plastic surgeries for transformation of their faces and bodies. For them, the Beauty is a physical trait as a symbol for the bright future. There is a kind of substantiated ‘passing’ in offline.  Their intention that is to “move beyond the ordinary and arrive at the beauty” is different with Burson’s, yet the result is the same of her work. They could transform through the plastic surgery- the certain technology- in their physical traits, however, their face become like any other face, any whatever face. By Agamben, “Be only your face. Go to the threshold. Do not remain the subject of your properties or faculties, do not stay beneath them; rather, go with them, in them, beyond them”.

Week 4: Gates, Kelly: 

              The Past Perfect promise of Facial Recognition Technology.

              Shepard, Mark: Minor urbanism: 

              everyday entanglements of technology and urban life

The Past Perfect promise of Facial Recognition Technology

Kelly Gates introduced the concise history of facial recognition technology and the justification of it. Starting with the possibility that could be prevented the September 11 attacks because the facial recognition technology already was existed, yet the authorities didn’t use the technology systems.

For safety issues, several countries, especially U.S.A., have developed the facial recognition technology. America can’t be predictable or identifiable the Enemy after the cold war. In this situation, ironically, the technology, which has been developed for safety of citizen is used monitoring them.

Minor urbanism: Le parkour, The key for changing near future -the convenience: evolution of the white-label ATM and Design fiction, - It contraries to major urban development and shapes various culture. The little attempt of every individual oppose the major system will make a difference for future.

It’s easy to miss something you’re not looking for: Awareness test

It was shocking to me because nobody can see the moon walking bear even though the new media classmates were the students who major in art and design. If some people can’t figure out the importance of the art, they wouldn’t want to involve or appreciate to art. Actually, they are the most imperative people to close the art world because art can be a way to people connect to their inside – could I say for this as the super ego? - and think their situation in the modern world. How do I guide them to be interested in Art ?

Week3:  Hansen, Mark B.N. “Ubiquitous sensation”

              Veel, Kristin “Calm imaging: The Conquest of Overload” 

“Ubiquitous sensation”

The development of technology gives rise to people’s desire to expand their sensory capacity. Ubiquitous computing makes smooth and invisible cooperation between the technology and its users. It doesn’t require people’s attention. It remains the user’s periphery.

“Calm imaging: The Conquest of Overload”

…Arvidson’s tripartite model seems particularly apt at capturing this multilevel quality of attention. What is of particular interest for us here is his substitution of the term unconscious with margin of attention because he finds the negation inherent in unconscious to be maldescriptive: “The margin has depth and is a genuine dimension in our lives- an ongoing presence in attending life. Just as everything in the unconscious can never be made conscious, but nonetheless some of its content may be active in my ongoing life, everything in the margin can never be made thematic, but nonetheless some of its content may be active in my ongoing life”.(2006, 181).

Replacing the term unconscious with margin of attention does not imply that we are aware of the whole sphere of attention all the time or that events cannot occur below the threshold of our awareness. However, Arvidson’s conception of attention as a sphere(rather than as a binary opposition between conscious and unconscious) makes it easier to imagine the nature of our interaction with calm technology, and it provides a model for understanding how we can be affected by what goes on in the margin even if we are not aware of it, which seems to be at the heart of the discomfort with ubiquitous, calm computing that we have seen in the criticism of softwear-sorted societies and in Rokeby’s Sorting Daemon……..

I wonder if I understand the context correctly, yet, Kristin Veel explains about ‘calm computing’ and its influences, for instance, quoting Arvidson’s opinion as a key for the awareness about today’s situation. Maybe, it can be connected with the last week’s my thought about the role of art. Through it, people can have the power to overcome problems in their lives and recover from the stress of modern life.

Week 2; Marx, Leo. Technology: The Emergence of a Hazardous Concept

              Shanken, Edward. Art and electronic media

As time passed, the term, “Technology” was changed like the one of “Art”. Why the concept of technology is Hazardous? Leo Marx said,

Reification, as the philosopher George Lukacs famously explained, is what occurs when we endow a human activity with the characteristics of a thing or things. It thereby acquires, as he put it, “a phantom-objectivity,’ an autonomy that seems so strictly rational and all-embracing as to conceal every trace of its fundamental nature: the relation between people.”……. By consigning technologies to the realm of things, this well-established iconography distracts attention from the human—socioeconomic and political—relations which largely determine who uses them and for what purposes. Because most technologies in our corporate capitalist system have the legal status of private property, vital decisions about their use are made by the individual businessmen who own them or by the corporate managers and government officials who exercise the virtual rights of ownership. The complexity and obscurity of the legal relations governing the use of our technologies,   abetted by the reification that assigns them to the realm of things—all of these help to create the aura of “phantom objectivity” that envelops them.

Reading this section, I remembered the part of the book, “Media sexploitation” by Wilson Bryan Key because he argued that technology has been used through media to distract people’s attention. It was shocking to know the facts that I could be manipulated by somebody’s will. My spending habit, attitude and consciousness that was shaped by something … What is the solution for the brainwashed people in modern society? He proclaimed to create or appreciate art because it can lead distracted people to heal, mediate and intuit values in human being. Of course, the influence of art is weak in the society, especially in modern time, yet it is important, because art plays a pivotal role for a chance to think about the present that is currently underway. Then, there is a question for me as an artist. How do I use my intention into artwork in the society that manipulated people by well-established iconography live?

Week 1; 

Introduction of the course and the Black mirror 

"The Entire History of You"

There was an introduction about the course, which included the description and the syllabus. After the intro, Dr. McMullen showed us the one of the episodes of the Black mirror series. I guess she wanted to give students some ideas about technology’s role in the society. People have improved technology expecting a bright future, yet still they face to many difficulties. In the episode, people wanted to check on their memories like watching a movie for several reasons. One reason that they want to use the device - a grain- is save the perfect memory and show one that can’t be convinced by the brain’s ability. In my opinion, the memory is very important and unique, because it defines the person’s identity and also, reverses the time in the present. When the memory turns to the fact through the device, there is no space for connection to people’s imagination or emotion. Memory provides the power that people can be a human being. People can’t live only the facts. This is the limit when people rely on technology entirely.

Inspiration

                                                                    By Andy Goldsworthy

                       
                                                                         By Damien Hirst

sketch

test

Presentation

Sketch 09. 24

For the installation, I’ve checked the Patti &Rusty Rueff Galleries again. When I checked the West side, it looked very large for my future installation. I was confused, because its condition was different than when I saw the space at first. In my imagination, my installation will fit into the small space which is connected with the East gallery.

The idea about the spotlight… before checking the lights, I wondered ,“Can I install the motion sensor for the light?” and I relieved when I saw the lights, every light has a own electric plug. However, the light …does it have any problems for turning the light on and off for short period to a long time?

Sketch 09. 23

I had a plan to use my cellphone to record with a motion sensor in the installation. However, I have a question. The cellphone has its own battery so it can't work with motion sensor. If so, do I have to buy a recorder?