SeMA Biennale Mediacity Seoul 2014
? GyeongGi Cultural Foundation Conference
23 October ? 30 October, 2014
SeMA Biennale Mediacity Seoul 2014 and GyeongGi Cultural Foundation’s International Workshop and Academy is co-organizing a multi-faceted conference, ‘Miracles, Violence, Disorders and Spirits,’ with lectures, workshops, performances. Through the keywords ‘Ghosts, Spies, Grandmothers,’ SeMA Biennale Mediacity Seoul 2014 and the GyeongGi Cultural Foundation invite you to explore their common realm of interest, Asian history and culture.
Miracles, Violence, Disorders and Spirits
Seoul Museum of Art
Kaywon University of Art and Design, Fine Art Building
Confucius told us to avoid discussions of ‘Miracles, Violence, Disorders and Spirits,’ but in modern society, where violence and disaster are daily occurrences, such themes emerge as major issue. Rather than presenting academic proof on a grand theme, this conference aims to be a liberal discussion, a platform for sharing opinions on specific topics and cases related to bizarre, violent, chaotic, spiritual incidents. ‘Miracles, Violence, Disorders and Spirits’ is co-hosted by Mediacity Seoul 2014 and the GyeongGi Cultural Foundation.
* Application of program at Kaywon University of Art and Design is available in GyeongGi Cultural Foundation website.
[Link]
* All programs are conducted in Korean.
* Consecutive interpretation will be provided from either English and Chinese to Korean.
Theme 1
Why Ghosts, Spies and Grandmothers?
The first session, opening the conference, aims to foresee the direction of subsequent debates. Park Chan-kyong will touch upon the themes of
Mediacity Seoul 2014 and ‘Miracles, Violence, Disorders and Spirits’ one by one. Haegue Yang and Doryun Chong will discuss the aesthetic curation of recent works by Haegue Yang that incorporate bells. Vladimir Tikhonov will explore the actuality of the Cold War/Hot War in Asia beginning with the case of ‘Spy Sorge’ and through present time. Tikhonov’s lecture will help us understand Yoneda Tomoko’s photography series work
The Parallel Lives of Others ? Encounter with the Sorge Spy Ring.
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Theme 2
Miracles, Violence, Disorders and Spirits
Novelist Li Ang, who had experienced the history of colonialism, is dubbed the ‘Spirit of Taiwan.’ Li Ang tells us the background story of writing the novel Visible Ghosts, in which Taiwanese modern history is described from the viewpoint of a female ghost. Che Onejoon talks about how North Korean Mansudae Art Studio deals with the North Korean culture of ‘closed dictatorship’ from an international perspective through the construction of monuments in different African countries. The author of
North Korea, The Theater State, Heonik Kwon, discusses the ethics of sympathy on a large scale created by such a little phenomenon called ‘Ba Ba Linh’, the old female ghost of Vietnam.
[Miracles, Violence, Disorders and Spirits 1]
[Miracles, Violence, Disorders and Spirits 2]
Theme 3
From the Other Side of Voice
This session is a platform to listen to and discuss female speech, song and voice. Producer Sang-il Choi and writer Jiyeon Kim, famous for their radio program
On the Journey Looking for Our Songs, recompose elderly ladies’ songs accompanying their labor hours, folk songs, chats, shaman songs and share with the audience the power and time spent by women who exist on the other side of these voices. Siren Eun Young Jung interprets the constant struggle shaking up the hierarchal mentality at the time set in the pansori (a Korean opera-style genre) Choonhyang-ga into a new form of musical. Yongwoo Lee carves out a new space for the criticism of ‘auditory sense-modernity’ through a micro-chronology of Kim Chuja and other Asian Divas. David Teh studies phantoms of the Cold War era, focusing on Southeast Asian media art.
[From the Other Side of Voice 1]
[From the Other Side of Voice 2]
Theme 4
Old Media
Discarding the myth of the ‘High-Tech’ that has been clinging to media art, this session is dedicated to pondering the long time frame required of a medium (spiritual intermediary). Kim Yong-eon explores the way elderly women had been represented in film and political culture, and describes femininity within the fear and hysteria of tearing away the clich? ‘grandmother’ image and escaping from it. Chien-hung Huang discusses Taiwanese media art through the lens of ‘aphasia.’ Chung Seoyoung reveals a series of aesthetic processes applied in her recent works and in her exhibit at
Mediacity Seoul 2014 titled
Old Problems Gathered in a Temporary Manner. Siren Eun Young Jung’s Fencers is a ‘lecture-performance’ based on Korean female opera, violating the ‘naturalized’ norm regarding gender and searching for new possibilities for gender politics. Park Chan-kyong conducts a workshop on reconstructing historical statements of art and arranging memory and information.
[Old Media 1]
[Old Media 2]
Theme 5
East Asian Mythology, Education and Art
Pedagogist Kim In-whoe recorded on video major
gut (shamanistic ritual) performances throughout the 80s in Korea. What kind of educational value and alternative did the rituals suggest to him? Mythologist Jung Jae-Seo introduces the goddess Xi Wangmu (Queen Mother of the West) and talks about the politics of imagination, with East Asian myths as the main subject. Starting here, we search for an East Asian discourse on the art of a ‘fusion of feelings with the natural setting’ based on the sensibility related to sorcery. In this session, there will be a special talk on painting, separate from these themes, between Min Joung-Ki, Choi Gene-uk, Jina Park.
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Theme 6
The Art of Oral Statement and Record
Writing and drawing in the manner of personal oral history brings history close to our bodies through rich details. Novelist Gong Sun Ok brings to our attention the memory of a special encounter with an old woman who could have been a spy or a ghost. Modern history told by Haejun Jo and his father conveys the power and value of a polyphonic historical narrative. It resists modern narrative that compulsively demands generality and objectivity. Park Chan-kyong and Gim Jong-gil discuss the strategy of art in Korea and Asia represented in Biennale curatorship.
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Venue
Seoul Museum of Art
61, Deoksugung-gil, Jung-gu, Seoul, Korea
sema.seoul.go.kr
Kaywon University of Art and Design, Fine Art Building
66, Gyewondaehak-ro, Uiwang-si, Gyeonggi-do, Korea
www.kaywon.ac.kr