Bookon Park's Land, Landscape in Progress

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There was an island. The island is located in the middle of the ocean, open to the world in every direction. People gathered and lived here as home to their lives. They yearned for land, but loved a marine life more. The struggle with a harsh nature is their daily life and their fate that they cannot defy. The island was home to boats navigating in the ocean and birds flying along with the wind, and also served as a shelter. It is not sure when the wind of change began. Like a fiction, the ocean is increasingly vanishing before our eyes as it is filled with an excessive amount of soil from every direction. A number of things got stranded or departed, like a waterway that was blocked all of sudden. Because of the storm that keeps people from distinguishing things right in front, birds do not stay here any more. In parallel with a parade of trucks dashing along the seawall that stretches endlessly towards the ocean, the island leaves the waters and reaches the land. The mountain, which stood as if an iconic monument at the heart of the island, collapsed hideously to the point of being unrecognizable. Soil and rocks, as well as trees, were eroded, cut and broken, scattering to places that no one recognizes. Houses on the island do not emanate light at night any longer. The lighthouse finally took its one last breath. Even the tranquility of a silent night was invaded by a raucous sound of machines working incessantly. Now there are a flood of vehicles on newly built roads. The island, which disappeared off the map forever, is placed on a virtual land.

Under the slogan of building a prosperous nation while conserving the natural environment, the five-year National Economic Development Plan has been implemented since the 1960s, turning the nation into construction sites. Thanks to such an initiative, inconvenience reduced with less dust from uneven roads with unpaved surfaces. The roads have stretched like a spider’s web, and lot line adjustment on land, including agricultural land, has been done. In terms of design, living spaces and houses have also transformed with concrete bricks on the exterior, where people live their whole life. Many things have gone as fast as modernization. Values that were supposed to be there have also fallen into oblivion from our memories and reality. The craze over fast-paced development and improvement horribly engulfed everything on earth. Without any reconsideration and reflection on selection and execution, and unhesitatingly, the home town submerged. Only the huge artificial lake took the place of the past nostalgia. In Korea, where nearly 70 percent of the country is surrounded by mountains, it was almost impossible to find a lot for large-scale public facilities in the first place. Man-made sites were created by destroying mountains and reclaiming rivers, oceans and mudflats. It is hard to obtain data indicating when the mountain, fields, trees, river, as well as residents on the island disappeared. It is still annoying to hear the explosive sound of dynamites like a mundane task of everyday life whenever heading to an remote suburb.

 

The reality faced by Park Bu-gon in <The Land of Evolution> is an evolving space where progression and retrogression of history conflict intensely. Human desires hidden behind the indifferent machines for a long time transformed the natural environment into a stage of competition for survival. As you may know, land is the physical foundation of civilization and a fundamental component of life. Therefore, the images of land that the artist set in these photographic works are in a variable territory where nature and cities contract and expand, and also a space full of ailing symptoms of a modern society that lost control.

<The Land> series are objective photographic evidence which documented the transformation of land and its surroundings. From the artist’s perspective, the land was devastated by the abominable power which was wielded by industrial machines. In this regard, it can be said that photographs he took around development sites day and night appear to be calm on the surface, but with aggressive, wild images deep down. However, the artist takes a neutral perspective through emotional restraint, that is, in the form of moderation and transcendence, in taking pictures of the fields of development and destruction. As if even a delicate tremble of the pupil of the eye stopped, the photographs ironically reveal violence in the world. The space in the photographs, illustrating changes in land with an absent look, even create an unreal silence. All sorts of equipment and people who were busy working in the construction site, and even a stream of wind came to a standstill, or are not present, in this space. Because most of the photographs were taken in broad daylight, the represented images of the real world are rather strange and empty. Creating an empty space works as a visible element to amplify a surging tension on land.

<The Land> series present beautiful color photographs that were produced by natural light on the outside. <The Land 2> demonstrates a combination of dissimilar colors with stagnant water and soil in the mountain, while <The Land 7>, a photograph of cutting planes of land, paints the world in red, giving a strong impression. The romantic tone in <The Land 1> that embraces the image of a vastly unfolded construction site adds a decorative touch to the entire frame. The stunning colors used commonly in these works, in fact, indicate an ailing nature. Hence, a cruel beauty. Blood-like striking colors may lead us to imagine the surface of the ruined land and its inside, and further deep down. In this regard, his photographic works illustrate a tragic beauty of modern times and apocalyptic landscape that was produced by machines and nature. The aesthetic tones of <The Land> series cover and disguise the nature of reality unfolding before our eyes. On the other hand, the artist’s attitude towards land is embodied through <The Land H1-H18> in which images taken in various regions are laid out in parallel on a single frame. In this process, the artist tried to convert images of land in pieces into a complete unit by putting together with adjacent images. Once tens of fragmented images are arranged on the common line, a super-huge latticed frame is formed like a vision device of cameras. The newly created frame offsets individual differences through the repetition of images. The disorder of different perspectives becomes incorporated into a visual field. Within this transcendental territory he created, the boundary between nature and civilization is slowly blurring and fading away. At last, the pieces of the fragmented land are recovering as a whole unit with life.

 

In <Urban Light> series of dark night views, Park’s night resists to fall asleep. Technically speaking, the photographs are not dark though they were taken at night. The night is more bustling and active thanks to artificial lights brightening night sky and the movement of various objects. In fact, at night when darkness dominates, the movement of machines that were not present on land becomes visible. With the photographs embracing a particular time and space of night, the artist has a hidden intention to reveal the substructure that sustains the world and operational mechanism, as well as the surface of land.

In <Urban Light> series, darkness fades away amid intensity of light illuminated by artificial things that appeared on land. A festival of the light serves as a visible device to embody the truth of a sleepless night. Like Alfred Stieglitz's Night in Manhattan, New York City, of the 1930s, artificial lighting represents a symbol of modernity and a new human era that dominates night. In Park's photographs, images created by a combination of darkness and artificial lights imply the true nature of a world that cannot be visible to the naked eye and the proliferation of artificial machines encroaching nature. In <Urban Light 1>, an apartment complex is emitting blue light in an remote suburb. This gigantic square-shaped luminous object is illuminating strange, cold lights. Meanwhile, in <Urban Light 3> that reddens the lower part of the frame in stark contrast to the deep cobalt blue sky, night triggers a psychological shock through the presence of an invisible thing. In <Urban Light 4> and <Urban Light 5>, the city and artificial things reveal their the silhouettes amid thick fog at night, producing a lonesome feeling. They remind us of a world of fiction and fantasy like a scene from a science fiction film. The mysterious colors in these works are a result of coincidence from long exposures, but they create an inexplicably gorgeous and profound atmosphere. The colorful tones lighting up the night sky, which were produced by artificial illumination and the accumulation of light scattered in the sky, exhibit a contemporary noble beauty. Finally, the spectacle of night is completed in <Urban Light 2> that captures a moment of night sky viewed from the upper part of a large-scale bridge. Two rays of light shining towards the dark night sky mean that endless human aspirations and desires to grasp the principles of the universe reach the zenith. Moreover, Park's night in <Urban Light> series is lonely and desolate. Apartments, factories, constructions and industrial facilities, which show stronger presence in darkness, indicate a sleepless night of people living in modern society. As the moth is attracted to the light to the point of burning itself, the artist wandering around in darkness alone is captured by night lights that imprint existence and leads to self-destruction.

 

Meanwhile, in <Tracking> series embracing his physical traces, the artist followed the traces of light dancing on a canvas of 'night.' <Urban Light> indicates an urban expansion on land through the scattering of 'sedimented light' using long exposures, whereas <Tracking> re-visualizes the surface of land hidden in darkness through the artist's physical intervention. To that end, Mr. Park chose an expression method to track lights traveling disorderly in darkness. In <Tracking> series, Park imprinted the trace of his body onto the black canvas. While maintaining his previous formality of contemplation and moderation, he acts in a aggressive manner. In this work, light waves, which is hard to guess where they came from, repeat flowing, overlapping and crossing in a dark world. The surface of the world filled with darkness is becoming a predictable territory through the traces of light of his physical movement. Darkness is a vague realm that our perception cannot reach and a subconscious dimension where uncoded meanings settle. The nature of the world, unrecognizable by the brightness of sunlight, is exposed through the trace of lights overflowing out of direction and pattern.

 

Park Bu-gon's light traces incarnate time. In his book 'Slowness (1995),' Milan Kundera portrayed limitless speed as the form of ecstasy the technical revolution has bestowed on man beyond physical limitations. Likewise, in <Tracking> the speed of the artist is assimilated to the speed of light, but it is slow. That is because the light was created by a person, not by a machine or nature. The trails of light, left by his body, confine a finite human body fighting against to the speed, and indicate a physical body to adapt to reality at the same time. The chaos of the light is not only a trace of excess, but also a rough cacophony, which was marked on the layer of night by heart beats of 'an existent being,' who dreams of escaping from mechanic deployment and division. In this way, the artist becomes 'light' and a 'tactile constituent,' beyond perceiving the world passively.

 

<The Land of Evolution> embraces a harsh journey of a person who wants to return to the origin of the world, as well as archival value with documentary photographs of construction in progress nationwide. In his photographic works, land is a basic component of the world and the foundation of all materials to realize utopian dreams and prospects. From his perspective for the last four years, land is a sad portrait with its original form lost through the repeated development processes. In <The Land> documenting changes in land, <Urban Light> with strange but impressive night views, and <Tracking> of abstract light traces, we can witness the dark side, like Janus face, which is created inevitably by the gap between reality and a utopia. The utopia, aspired by modernists in the past, had been incomplete with breakage, discontinuity and different speeds and rhythms, rather than a perfect model with continuity. Through a somewhat abstract object of land, the artist discloses the aspect of exclusion and imbalance beneath the glamour of development and advancement. All values in the world should not be taken within the scope of modernity, development and advances humans pursue. To spirits of forest, ocean, land, sky and wind, and even Gaia (Goddess of the land), this world is a living thing by itself. Park's <The Land of Evolution> shows not only the transformation of a real world but a virtual landscape for the upcoming future. The artist expresses longing and nostalgia for the world of today and origin through the basic elements of the world - land, night and light.

In his photographic works, I found heavy responsibilities of documenting - a long tradition of photography - and authenticity. It is evident that the practical method of classic photography has to be useful from the graveness of subject he scrutinizes. His adamant challenge to unearth the structure and nature of this world may turn out to be an empty dream, but his photographs are characterized by his perfect immersion in the numerous traces left by once existent beings and objects on land.

 

 

                                     - Hyung-geun Park (Photographer) / May 2012

 

 

 

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Some Origins, and a Faraway Perspective

 

At dawn with blue light still lingering, beams of light are stretched out, like lightening, on the misty embankment. The light, which waves into two strips and fades out, creates rupture in the transparent layer of air because of its intensity beyond the limits of exposure in the air. In his latest work 'Tracking (2014),' Park Bookon navigates an unknown world, as if flying and dancing with the wings of experimental formality and his characteristic way of taking action. Even in the photograph taken in a dark night, the subtle beams of light appear like energy, moving slowly but rising to the brim. Because of this, the two-dimensional domain of the photograph turns into a squishy space with unfathomable depths like magic in Park's work - maybe the first time ever. As phantoms vanishing after a short stay in a camera obscura remain permanently on the silver sensitive plate, the artist's trial to carve images onto the surface of the world by using light reminds me of ‘Heliography (1827),’ the sun painting, which was made impossible without the holiness and eagerness of God. In this era flooded with digital pictures, Park is committed to creating quite genuine photographs with a focus on 'what is photography?' and the characteristics of the medium, not just taking pictures.

 

Park Bookon's 'Open Landscape (2014)' consists of photographs of Gyeongin Ara Waterway that have been taken since 2009 and a new series of 'Tracking (2014).' His efforts to shed light on the problems of development vs. destruction, ideals vs. reality and recognition vs. interpretation behind modern society and ways of embracing through photography are still underway in the 'Open Landscape (2014)', following 'The Land of Evolution (2012).' His earlier 'Tracking (2012)' works laid the foundation of formality and concept, while his artworks in this exhibition focus on the elaboration and expansion of thoughts. In 'Tracking (2014),' the artist again chose spaces dominated by darkness, or artificially created spaces by development and segmentation. He enters a set territory while maintaining an analog attitude of 'flashlight' and 'walking' - his own way of approaching the world. Thus, executing it cannot help but to be intuitive. 'Tracking' means to the artist 'freely moving along the structure and layers of a certain space/place.' The space/place is dark and lacks light, which is a periphery area or construction site where urban light does not reach. In this 'Tracking (2014)' work, he made an unusual attempt to use a large-format camera and a video camera at the same time in taking pictures of the same scene. His recent works, including ‘Tracking-18.1.2,’ ‘Tracking-9.1.2' and ‘Tracking-6.1.2,’ are captured in similar but different colors and angles. (The artist used films manufactured by different companies, as well as a camera equipped with the lens of the same angle of view.) It is unnatural to provide two eyes to a camera that usually has the optical system of a single vanishing point. As shown in the result, a matrix of straight lines stretched from two perspectives cross and collide with each other, creating a dissimilar image. Time difference from even just a miniscule difference of angles transformed the world inside the frame into a significantly twisted structured or distorted space. Meanwhile, disparity and mismatch of the two images appear more outstanding rather in darkness, an invisible world – in other words, a diagram of subconscious dimension. In the ‘Tracking 7, 8,’ the physical properties of darkness act as a visual material in order to visualize the laws of gravity and inertia. Darkness exists inside the camera and our eyes and everywhere around the world. It is where light begins and fades away at the same time. In Park’s photographs, darkness means something absolute that does not disappear even by light – the formidable and gigantic structure of the world that an individual cannot approach. In this sense, the world is a fully filled space, not empty. In the pitch black space, the artist continues to move to the direction of consciousness with dim light using as a ‘tentacle.’ It might be impossible to predict the result of such an action, but this usually ends up with some rules and patterns as proven by his photographs. His flow of movement that he intended to go straight, though in a staggering and rolling manner, becomes curved. We can realize soon that it is not coincidental but inevitable.

In ‘Tracking (2014),’ the artist is a stroller at night, or a brave man who is willing to go into darkness with dim light. However, he becomes a cultural being who accepts the given order and rules as soon as he takes a step, depending on light. In this context, light is a tentacle of primitive origin and body itself. His action of groping and wandering in pitch-black darkness indicates a blind-folded person, an escapee attempting to escape from the transcendental matter and a lone disciplinant who tries to return to the origin of perception. In ‘Tracking 14, 15’ where four photographs are displayed in a row, the tolerance and endurance of the film is brutally shattered by the intensity of condensed light. The light shone against the camera lens fiercely crashes within the camera and suddenly vanishes in pieces. The light that burns itself in the dark space and returns to its original state is phantasmagoria, a trace of light in the beginning that was imprinted on the retina of our eyes.

‘Tracking (2014),’in which the artist travels along a long-winding road for a long time and returns back, was documented in a totally different style as photographic and video works. If I compare the works of two different media, the former is abstract and the latter is realistic. Photography produces unrealistic images from the layers of compressed and accumulated time and space, whereas video directly shows the movement of light and the flow of time and thus emphasizes reality. Video work can be ‘more visible’ through being ‘invisible’ by expressing darkness in the filming location as it is, which is remarkably amazing. During the period of more than 20 minutes, repeated appearance and disappearance of light, radiance even before noticing the existence of the artist and music play as a catalyst to open the closed senses and subsequently propose a relative and subjective experience of time to us as we are outside the absolute time frame (duration of video). The speed of light in ‘Tracking (2014)’ is slower than eternity, but can be faster than one second.

 

The photographs of Gyeongin Ara Waterway, serving as another pillar of this exhibition, are an extension of the concept following ‘The Land (2012)’ series. The outside world has been always subject to exploitation and consumption as a requisite for implementing modernization and industrialization. Belief in development and progress still ongoing in the 21st century has turned landscape gradually into something completely different. As portrayed in ‘The Land of Evolution(2012),’ land is a holy thing for Park Bookon. It is also a field of engagement and embracement, free from all opposing relationships. It can be said that observing the construction site of the grand canal on land is equivalent to initiating a rite of entering a new horizon of landscape.

If the miracle performed by Moses of Exodus in the Bible was an incident done by the power of Almighty God, the artificial waterway displayed before us is the result of the conveniences of cutting-edge technology. The most noticeable in ‘Open Landscape (2014)’ are the clean-cut land and blue water filled in it. The water, which exists for industrial purposes unlike river or stream water, lies on the cultural context, away from the natural structure. The high-angle shots of the waterway show a monotonous structure despite its gigantic scale. The artist produced special results by paying several visits to and taking pictures of places and subjects, between whose images it is hard to tell the difference. The photographic works of ‘Gyulhyun Dock (2013),’ 'Moksang Bridge (2013),' and 'Danam Bridge (2014)' reveal not only the process of waterway construction but also the difference of images from changes of weather and season. The mysterious atmosphere in the photographs is not typical for urban landscape, in which the combination of the cold artificial structure and delicate water drops floating in the air represents harmony between incompatible things.

 

The artist's perspective is fairly objective and neutral in 'Open Landscape (2014).' As seen in the 'new topographic' photographs in the past, the neutral view includes cool-headed recognition of harsh realities and criticism. Likewise, the cold gaze and repeated use of formality in 'Open Landscape (2014)' can be powerful means to eventually stimulate rationality, rather than emotion. The interesting thing is where exactly the artist looks on the waterway, and strangely we get to imagine the invisible back side of the landscape through these photographs. At this moment, the 'vision' in the air changes from the machine's vision to Almighty God's. In addition, from a traditional perspective, the observer's view dominates in 'landscape.' Photography is also excellent means of observation and view. Park's photographs of Gyeongin Ara Waterway provide unlimited 'open landscape' (open both front and back), presenting the 'expansion and invisibility of landscape.' As Jonathan Crary argued in 'Techniques of the Observer,' the true opening of landscape may be possible when we are free from the camera’s linear optical system, fixed location, categories of inside and outside, the identification of perception with subject. ‘Opening’ indicates not just the emergence of a new spectacle and an attitude toward wonders, but also an opportunity to reflect on the ambivalent aspects of ‘landscape’ as a space that makes a dent in and offsets conflict between the main player and others.

'Ara Maru (2014),' in which the straight road looks outstanding in contrast to the dark blue waves, emphasizes the unreality of design in which human desires are projected through a screen split into two. In 'Gyeyang Bridge-2 (2013)' capturing a bridge pier engulfed in thick fog, red light spreading from side to side is quite grim. The aesthetic straight line, which was resulted from the artificial waterway, appears sharp and fierce as if people's attitude toward the surrounding environments. The grandeur-scale artificial waterway (18km in length, 80m in width and 6.3m in depth) - the subject of Park's work - has become a headache and useless in comparison to the intention of construction under the name of ideals and business feasibility.

The mismatch of ideals and outcome that often occurs in the process of a large-scale public project questions how unreal it is to execute the idealistic project based on prediction and imagination, like the already anticipated incorrect answers. Then, does the Gyeongin Ara Waterway that we are looking at really exist? Where is the waterway? Is the landscape indeed made open? Like a pessimistic warning of Paul Virilio, the landscape created by the new artificial waterway has degraded into a state of hubris as a result of visual and sensory loss - disappearing into the gigantic structure and machine. That is why landscape is not completely open over there, though Park's sophisticated landscape photographs are based on elaborate reproduction and contains plenty of information.

 

Given Oriental culture that stresses a virtue of living in harmony with nature from the traditional perspective, the devastated state of the world after modernization is shocking. Now we cannot deny stark reality that all kinds of industrial facilities and artificial materials dominate or replace nature. With regard to this situation and its progress, Park's work clearly shows that devices designed to build an ideal new world are, in fact, so unreal and incomplete. In ‘Tracking (2014),’ the camera, the most perfect device for reproduction, is an optical device and also a medium to adroitly twist the given intuitive order and structure in the world. The artist’s action to freely navigate the dark world or matrix is a gesture to change rhythms of conflict and reaction between the already given and experience to the waves of light.

Movement to traverse the inside of the invisible lattice (screen) in order to determine the issue of recognition and interpretation can be seen somewhat awkward and reckless, but ironically the resulting work is abundant and profound. Moreover, the process of engagement, implementation and imaging shown in the works of land artists in the mid to late 20th entury also appear in Park’s work, but his will to put artistic insight and moderation into practice is permeated into all over the work, which is sufficiently meaningful.

In the exhibition ‘Open Landscape (2014),’ Park has transformed himself to a transcendental and aesthetic person, mediator and conqueror of tunes. The artist who never discloses his true self carefully makes an approach and starts a conversation in person in a world of uncertainties. In this respect, it is inevitable that his glance, footsteps, breath and warmth vanish in the frame because this is the process of expressing awakening beyond dimensions or desires to return to the universe.

Designing the world as means to control the tentacles of sense as much as possible is an old habit in modern society. Now synesthetic communication with the outside world is possible only with the assistance of cutting-edge apparatus. In this regard, the world is still under the influence of darkness. Light shed light on the world, but lacked in reflecting on times of darkness. That is why the dynamic layers of contraction and expansion, division and integration, and wounds and healing of the world are now taking place in Park Bookon’s photography.

 

                           

                            <Techniques of the Observer, Jonathan Crary, The MIT Press, 1992 

                              p8,<L’Art a’ perte de vue>, Paul Virilio/Lee Jeong-ha, Yeolhwadang, 2008

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                                          - Park Hyoung-Geun / October 2014

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Another Organic World

 

Park Bookon pays attention to development sites. The construction sites, such as Youngjong-do, Gunpo Logistics Center, Gyeongin Ara Waterway and Dongtan New Town, are landscapes the artist captures and where particular events take place on the Korean peninsula.

Park begins with a question about existence of the ‘wounded’ land and identify of the evolving land. Beginning from 'The Land’ series, such a question led to capturing the site that created a sharp discourse of raising economic, particularly economic utility of land development, and social issues (Gyeongin Ara Waterway) in the ‘Open Landscape.’

He depicts artificial and random traces through the camera's long exposure setting by personally exploring the sites with a lantern, beyond the observation of the solid and vast land which was cultivated as a result of ideologies of land and capital in Korea – construction, development, industrialization and urban growth. Tracking series as part of such an experience convert the traces of development to accidental and instant imagery in the dark of night. The landscape resembles a natural flash of lightning shining in darkness or an artificial, chemical electric wavelengths.

The newly presented ‘Some Origins’ includes ‘Tracking-Revolution’ series - a revolving circular image that was taken with a post and rope installed and a camera illuminated by a lantern. The identity of space as a social and historic place that the artist takes notice is replaced by black light and the only traces, which were accumulated as a result of lights passing by, appear as a hole. This goes beyond the category of insightful and intuitive Oriental paintings like a stroke of brush or pen. There is no denying that we cannot help but face a philosophical landscape as if tracing back a mythical and ritualistic origin. In this regard, it does not seem that Park only focuses on the phenomenon (changes in the country's development) itself.

This shows a development process of dialectical thinking escalating to a higher level by way of the tangible and phenomenal description and exploration (The Land, Open Landscape), discovery of an organic structure (Mechanical City) and recognition of the subsequent pattern and thinking through the body (Tracking, Revolution). In particular, repeated walking in the construction sites appears to be a process of contemplative/meditative, internal thinking that materializes the transformation of the external environment. The traces of tottering lantern lights captured in the fog while strolling around the paths of home town, Hapcheon, Gyeongnam Province, in a repeated manner look like a phase of mental immersion in Taoism in which strolls can lead to harmony with the environments. It has something to do with deliberation and maturity of perspectives from outside to inside, from down to top and from material to mental. Such interest and pursuit are under way at the same time. It appears that we are faced with the essence of humans, the natural order, and the unconscious mythology and symbol existent from the beginning of the world.

It can be said that the environment the artist experienced is an artificially created nature by humans and a city appeared in the process of development. A series of photographs capturing this are similar to literary writing about reality and virtuality of a post-natural environment in the post-modern era and truth on vestiges and fiction. As for photography in the 21st century, Fred Ritchin prioritizes “the -artists' ”morethan“thefact-based,mechanicalqualities– in other words, a poetic turn. Such insights cause ambiguity and confusion on one hand, while arousing curiosity on the other hand, which encourages the audiences to immerse themselves, explore the meaning of photographs and pursue alternatives making their experience with photographs more abundant.1) Likewise, Park’s work takes an insightful perspective of embracing spirit and world order in the extended field of photography after the end of photography as an outlet to represent and record and in the context of ‘Logos.’ Photography is a matter of perspectives as to what environment and event to choose and thus a philosophical issue to understand the contemporary times.

His spaces shake our vision as if fantasy paintings, going beyond the actual spaces. In his works in ‘Mechanical City’ in which he explored the structures of construction, marvelous light or the event is revealed like the birth of baby Jesus, the common theme for Baroque art in the 17th century and historical and mythical beauty can be found like the Egyptian temples before Christ(BC). He experiences the development of imagination at the boundary between positivity and negativity that he faces in the space. It is noteworthy to see the artist's interest in a particular space or place going back and forth between macro and micro levels.

Space and locality, divided vertically and horizontally, advance into an infinite world, like Alice in Wonderland falling through a rabbit hole, and the ‘breathing’ world at the same time. Maybe the artist is looking at the site of industrialization and development as another organic world. Coincidentally, freeing us from our existence stuck in space and time and guiding us to our universal essence can be called imagination. Spaces like home recall a dim light of fantasy, lighting up our memories and, furthermore, a collection of origins like fire and water. 2)

Indeed, like intuitive images in Zen paintings, the artist presents experimental works visualizing order in the universe (the Earth's orbit around the Sun) in the 'Tracking-Revolution.' This contains abundant literary qualities that can be converted to narratives of unconsciousness from ancient times and primitive origins, though the iconic symbol, holiness and art of the circle are not emphasized. In the Hole series, Park explores space travel and the iconic womb as origin through the tunnel of the construction site that already contains direct metaphor. The sites of industrialization and urban development captured in his series of works show the environment constantly changing as an organic object and the artist's engagement with such an environment by exploring the meanings of post-modernism, such as difference, repetition, simulacra, amusing unstable traces and exclusion of values.

Artificial and structured industrial sites are the artist's place for living and artistic subject. The artist lives between gaps of social issues - i.e. nature and humans, tradition and (urban) development. His pursuit of coexistence that can help our lifestyle change and mature in the artificial environment (i.e. urban development) and his contemplation on better relationships and intrinsic identity will continue.

 

 

        1) Choi Jong-chul, 「Post-photography Era and Direction of Photography as Art」『 Art and Media』 Issue No. 13, November 2014, p.106

       2) Gaston Bachelard, 『The Poetics of Space』 Translated by Gwak Gwang-su, Dongmunsun, 2003

 

 

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                                                    - Park Ok-Saeng (Art critic, Gallery POS) / March 2016

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Evolution of Perspective, Or the Light Enveloping the Darkness

 

This essay is one attempt to interpret artist Bookon Park’s works from the perspective of Zhuangzi’s theory of qi(氣).

 

* Looking at things as they are

Artist Bookon Park reveals through his works the subject matter “as it is.” By showing in a straightforward manner the process by which our cities are being built, he invites spectators to communicate directly with the artwork. His unadorned style, juxtaposing human creations against vast expanses of land, might be taken as a statement that the cost of our illustrious urban civilization is the destruction of nature. Yet, as an artist, Park withholds judgment. In so doing, he removes the “limiting window of prejudice”—that is, his own subjective interpretations. He can be regarded as exceptional in that he grants spectators complete autonomy with regard to interpretation.

The works, which convey the changing state of things as they are, neither justifies the domination of nature by humans nor advocates an ecological stance. This apparent neutrality from the artist—his refusal to espouse a position—reflects a perspective much like that of nature herself. Nature is beyond judgment, beyond human likes and dislikes, beyond human perceptions of right and wrong or good and evil.

However, the artist did not hold that perspective at the outset. In the early stages of his work, Park heard the screams of an Earth being hurt and plundered in the service of development. In his early works, he made it clear that this magnificent urban architecture carried an unacceptable price—the sacrifice of Mother Earth, the giver of life. He spoke of the “savage violence of humans inflicted upon nature.”

His work at that time reflected a human perspective, one that viewed the world in black and white and adhered to one side of a “debate.” It was a view that dichotomized the changes occurring in the world, placing them into categories: human vs. nature, civilization vs. savagery, light vs. darkness, life vs. death, construction vs. destruction.

 

* Evolution of perspective

So how did the artist free himself from the limitations of his human perspective and take on the perspective of nature—or, to put it in Daoist terms, the perspective of “self so (自然)”? How did he come to realize that dualities such as civilization and savagery, human and nature, light and darkness were reflections of a greater force, one that defied artificial boundaries?

Park views the “construction and destruction” cycle, upon which urban civilization depends, to be on the same dimension as other natural cycles such as changes of season or transitions between night and day. Construction and destruction are unceasing processes that move in cycles, just like the seasons of the year. He gained this insight by looking at the changes in the world from what is reminiscent of the Daoist perspective mentioned above. He moved beyond the limitations of his human perspective, one that had been constraining him and leading him to judge the world in terms of false dichotomies.

In this way, the artist’s perspective came to transcend the human and reflect that of nature, to offer a view of reality “as is.” The destruction of nature means the creation of urban civilization, and the eradication of a civilization clears the way for further acts of creation through natural processes. This recalls the insight of Zhuangzi, who viewed birth and death, change, and the transformation of myriad things in terms of the collection and dispersal of material energy or life force, called qi.

 

* Qi, the material energy or life force

Zhuangzi did not judge the constantly changing world from the binary thinking of right and wrong or good and evil. He merely looked straight at the reality: The world is always going through phenomenal changes, births and deaths, existence and annihilation, endless phases in which qi builds up and is dispersed elsewhere. For Zhuangzi, human births and deaths were connected with other changes in the world and with the cycles of nature. All were part of the energy flow, the flow of qi. Phenomena that manifested dualistically as human and nature, civilization and savagery, construction and destruction, light and darkness were part of this flow too. Zhuangzi affirmed both parts of each dualism equally as necessary to sustain human life.

The perspective the artist has adopted leads him to affirm the destruction of nature and the construction of civilization, to put this on equal terms with the restoration of nature as civilizations decline. All this is part of the larger cyclic process of qi. This insight represents an evolution on the part of the artist, a shift from antagonism to magnanimity. This is the perspective of “the light enveloping the darkness.”

 

* A path is created by walking it (道行之而成)

Park achieved this evolution through his tracking practice. His practice consisted of three aspects: walking aimlessly, walking in straight lines, and walking in circles. In the dead of night, the artist wandered about the untrodden land in ruins with a lantern in his hand. The trajectory of the light, without any specific aim or direction at first, suddenly became fixed toward a goal. The artist’s desire to walk in straight lines toward a goal later dissolved as he realized the impossibility of walking in a straight line, and at last he found himself walking in circles.

The aimless wandering of Zhuangzi turned into cheerful play. The playful steps were light, lifting, pleasant, and joyful. However, the artist did not progress to that stage, to that sense of affirmation and positivity, with ease. His tracking practice reveals a failure to fulfill his desire to walk straight—it produced numerous ruptures and dislocations of light. We can see traces of his stubborn desire to walk in smooth, straight lines. Here, he is once again limited by his human perspective.

Walking in circles, as Park did, can be likened to a ritual or prayer. Park’s circles form a great circle of light, one that connects the traces of his ruptured straight lines. The loop of light that emerged out of the ruptures is reminiscent of Zhuangzi’s idea of qi, which contains numerous births and deaths. The ritual of walking in circles eventually extinguished the frustration caused by the impossibility of walking in straight lines. The artist’s tracking practice, which started with aimless steps, evolved into circles with the hope of being cured after his attempts to walk in straight lines had failed. Through this ritual, the land in ruins regained its primitive life force.

The artist’s tracking practice made possible the evolution from the human perspective to that of nature. It was a process in which he became one with nature through his direct encounter with the land, when he received the energy—that is, the qi—from the earth. However, his original desire to walk in straight lines also reflects his limitations as a human. Nonetheless, his works erase the individual body and complete a great circle of light by connecting the trajectories of his body’s movements. Where the individual vanishes, the primitive life force of the universe is revived symbolically. In terms of qi, nature and human are one. A human who exists beyond the perspective of the human is already one with nature. The artist appears in his works, but only in a way that signifies self-annihilation. At the site where his individual body has been erased, where his human values have vanished, the confrontation between human and nature or civilization and nature is dismantled, and the human becomes a part of the flow of qi that communicates with myriad things.

 

                                      - Gwak So-hyun / December 2016

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