완전한 장면(complete scene)을 위하여
이진명 / 책임큐레이터, 대구미술관
영화 ‘존 윅(John Wick)’ 시리즈가 열풍과 같은 지지를 얻고 있다. 최근에 근대 미술이 현대 미술보다 더욱 각광받고 있다. 이와 같은 현상의 이면에 아날로그에 대한 동시대 사람들의 향수가 자리한다. 아날로그는 과도기의 산물이다. 그것은 손으로 필사하고 손으로 그림 그리던 예술의 시대, 좀더 구체적으로 표현하면 낭만주의적 세계관을 혜성의 꼬리에 두고, 또 0과 1로 세상의 모든 현상을 가두고 정리할 수 있는 슈퍼컴퓨터의 디지털 문화가 타오르는 혜성의 머리 노릇을 하는 시간 추이에서 막간에 존재했던 사춘기 소년과 같았던 시절이었다. 아날로그는 도구주의적 이성을 기반으로 변화무쌍한 족적을 남겼다. 그러나 디지털 가상이라는 절대영역을 만나면서 차츰 좌초되었다.
아날로그 문화의 대표적인 매체는 축음기, 영화, 타자기다. 독일의 미디어 철학자 프리드리히 키틀러(Friedrich Kittler)의 진단이다. 키틀러에 의하면 이 세 가지 매체는 낭만주의 세계관을 산산이 붕괴시킨 매체이다. 낭만주의 세계관을 구성하는 문화 역시 세 가지가 대표적이다. 손으로 작성한 악보, 손으로 그린 그림, 필사한 문학이 그것이다. 우선 소리에 대해서 생각해보자. 우리는 모든 소리를 들을 수 없다. 무언가 선택해서 듣는다. 집밖에서 우는 매미소리와 집안에서 들리는 라디오 소리를 동시에 들을 수 없다. 우리가 듣는 소리는 선택된 소리다. 낭만주의의 악보 역시 선택적 소리만 기록한다. 그런데 축음기는 모든 소리를 동시에 녹음해서 우리에게 들려주었다. 이 매체 덕분에 우리는 소리의 본질을, 그리고 소리에 반응하는 우리의 매커니즘의 실체에 대해 알게 되었다. 키틀러는 라캉의 이론을 수용해서 축음기가 만든 세계를 실재계라고 진단했다.
낭만주의 시대에 숭고한 대상으로 찬사 받았던 회화도 변화를 맞이했다. 회화는 평면에 3차원적 환영을 구성해서 이야기를 전개한 예술형식이었다. 평면이라는 한계상황에 불가능한 모험을 감행하면서 더욱 그럴듯한 환영의 형식과 붓질 테크닉을 고도화시키면서 숭고의 차원으로까지 미의식을 확장시킨 것이 회화의 역사였다. 그런데 회화는 영화가 개발되면서 가치가 붕괴되었다. 1초에 24커트의 프레임이 얹혀져 연속적으로 움직이는 영화가 아무래도 더욱 풍부한 이야기를 담을 수 있었고 더욱 많은 상상력을 가능하게 했기 때문이다. (사진기의 발명이 회화의 붕괴를 야기시킨 측면은 생각보다 미미하다.) 영화가 만든 세계를 키틀러는 상상계라고 했다.
낭만주의 시대의 최고의 매체는 문학이었다. 인간 감정의 희로애락, 인간의 목적, 인간 역사의 서사성, 사건, 사물의 묘사, 그 모든 것을 오롯이 표현할 수 있는 것은 문학이었다. 어릴 적 어머니의 무릎에 앉아서 듣곤 했던, 듣다가 잠에 들곤 했던 이야기는 어느덧 소년에게 체화된다. 소년은 자라고 나서도 어머니의 목소리에 기탁해서 문학을 받아들인다. 문학은 어머니의 목소리다. 우리는 누구나 그리스 고전과 독일 낭만주의를 어머니의 목소리로 읽는다. 문학이 숭고한 이유이다. 프랑스 자연주의 문학을 읽을 때에도 여전히 어머니의 목소리로 읽는다. 어머니의 육성으로 문자를 소리 내어 읽음으로써 이야기에 완전히 몰입된다. 이때 독자는 울림을 얻고 세계를 알게 된다. 물론 헤르만 헤세나 토마스 만과 같은 성장소설(교양소설)이나 귄터 그라스와 같은 사회 고발 문학을 읽을 때에도 마찬가지이다. 이들 작가의 육필 원고는 거대한 아우라를 지닌다. 손으로 쓴 육필 문학은 타자기가 만들어낸 문학과 종류를 달리한다. 타자기는 일률적인 라인에 조판을 구성해서 문자를 다룬다. 따라서 저자의 완벽한 아우라를 더 이상 담아낼 수 없다. 타자기로 조합한 문자는 세계의 전체적 상을 페이소스로 다루기 어렵다. 매체적 특성상 타자기의 글쓰기는 분절적이고 분석적이며 드라이한 이야기에 매몰되기 쉽다. 20세기 문학이 분절적이고 분석적인 묘사에 그치거나 실험적 방향으로 갈 수밖에 없었던 이유는 매체적 특성과 연관되어 있다. 그럼에도 불구하고 19세기에 태어나 20세기에 절정을 이룬 아날로그 세계는 기술발전으로 어제보다 더 나은 오늘을 열 수 있다는 희망이 있었다. 기계적이고 도구주의적 이성이 낭만주의의 신화를 좌초시켰더라도 여전히 이성의 주인은 인간 자신이었기 때문이다. 그러나 슈퍼컴퓨터가 창출해낸 디지털 문명의 도래하고 우리는 인간 문명의 종착점을 예견하기 시작했다. 디지털 문명이 정점을 이룰 순간을 우리는 서서히 목도하고 있다. 그리고 불안해한다. 인공지능, 즉 인간을 넘어선 로봇의 등장이 세계 내에서 절대적 주권을 누리던 인간을 위협할지도 모르기 때문이다. 물론 로봇이 인간의 모든 문제를 해결해줄 수 있다는 진보적인 시각과 로봇이 인간을 로봇 아래 종속시킨다는 비관주의적 시각이 현재 첨예하게 대립되어있다. 다만 전자의 시각이 주도적으로 미래를 이끌어갈 것이라는 의견에 좀더 무게가 실린다.
우리는 이제부터 미술 이야기를 해야 한다. 지금까지 서술한 것은 박인성 작가의 작업을 설명하기 위한 보족의 수단에 불과하다. 도구주의적 이성이 모든 것을 지배하던 시절에, 즉 아날로그 시절에 회화는 사진과 영화에 대항하지 않고 전혀 다른 서사를 개발했다. 그리스 고전부터 낭만주의 시대까지, 아니면 더욱 좁혀서 르네상스부터 낭만주의 시대까지의 회화는 거울에 비춘 화면이 무엇인지 탐구했다. 19세기 인상주의부터는 거울 자체가 무엇인지 철학적으로 사유하기 시작했다. 즉 회화라는 매체의 본질을 탐구하기 시작했다. 사진이나 필름에게 넘겨준 재현 방법을 매체에 대한 성찰로 방향을 틀면서 지평을 넓혀나간 것이다. 회화의 본질은 그것이 평면이라는 사실에 있다. 회화는 평평하다. 따라서 구상에서 반구상, 반구상에서 추상, 추상에서 붓질 자체로 가는 과정의 역사를 연출했다. 이것이 20세기 미술의 모습이다. 그런데 사진 예술은 사진기 매커니즘을 개발한 개발자 프로그램의 한계를 넘어설 수 없다. 사진이 추상예술처럼 보이게 만든 작품이 있더라도 그것은 현대 회화의 레퍼런스를 차용한 것이지 사진의 역사가 필연적으로 도출해낸 결과가 아니다.
박인성 작가는 사진기 필름 자체를 오리고 붙여서 일차적 조형 세계를 만든다. 이 필름은 아날로그 시대의 산물이다. 이 조합된 필름의 형상은 흡사 현대 회화를 연상시킨다. 회화는 현대라는 시간 축으로 이행했음에도 여전히 낭만주의적 요소를 지닌다. 원본성(originality)이 그것이다. 아니면 자서적 속성(autographic property)이라고 표현할 수도 있다. 박인성 작가가 사진 필름을 분절시키고 해체해서 다시 조합하고 구성해낸 1차적 결과물은 사진을 통한 낭만주의 세계관의 재구축이라 할 수 있다. 그런데 이를 다시 촬영해서 디지털 화면으로 인화시킨다. 이때 자서적 성격의 1차적 매체는 대서적 속성(allographic property)으로 탈바꿈한다. 작가는 낭만주의에서 모더니즘까지 유지되었던 회화의 원본성의 가치를 사진 매체에 투영한 다음 다시금 디지털 시대의 무한 복제 가능성의 세계로 유영(游泳)시킨 것이다. 그런데 박인성 작가의 진취성은 더 깊은 곳에서 확립된다. 앞에서 회화의 역사가 거울에 비춘 이미지(재현)에서 거울 자체(매체의 본질주의)로 가는 이행 과정이었다는 사실을 이미 말했다. 작가는 회화의 역사 과정을 추적하면서 사진이라는 매체도 역사적 내러티브나 본질주의 같은 것이 있다고 생각해보았을 것이다. 그렇다면 당연히 사진의 미래가 어떠한 모습으로 진보할 것인가 궁금했을 것이다. 사진은 사진 찍는 사람의 지성과 상상력, 그리고 감수성과 무관하게 사진기에 귀속된 프로그램의 지배를 받게 된다. 사진기에 내재된 프로그램의 한계에 매몰될 수밖에 없다. 형상이 심하게 왜곡되어 추상적으로 보이는 사진이 있다고 해도, 사물의 경계가 지워져 반추상으로 보이는 사진이 있다 해도, 모두 재현의 영역에서 변형된 것이다. 근본적으로 사진은 모두 재현이라는 범주에 묶여있다. 박인성 작가는 모더니즘 회화가들이 벌였던 거대한 관념의 모험을 사진 매체에 투영시킨다. 사진이라는 매체 자체를 사유한 것이다. 재현이라는 한계를 넘기 위해서는 사진 매체의 본질이 무엇인지 따져봐야 했다. 사진은 렌즈에 들어온 광원의 미묘한 분산을 감광물질이 처리된 필름에 가두는 것이다. 따라서 사진의 근본은 필름 자체에 있다. 작가가 필름에 맺힌 형상에 주목하지 않고 필름 자체를 문제 삼은 것은 매우 의미심장하다. 더욱이 필름을 스캔하고 오리고 붙이고 조합하는 과정으로 탄생한 원형의 틀은 모더니즘의 형식주의와 상궤를 함께 한다. 그것은 의도된 것이다. 매우 진보적인 사고 방법은 내용이야 훌륭하지만 형식을 간과하게 된다. 사고 자체에 치우치다 자칫 미적 카테고리를 놓쳐버리기 십상이다. 박인성 작가는 전환적인 사고에 엄격하게 정제된 형식주의를 대입시켰는데, 탁월한 기상(奇想)이라고 할만하다.
나아가 박인성 작가가 사진의 본질을 필름 자체로 파악한 근저에는 무언가 더 깊은 뜻이 자리하고 있다. 매체에 대한 세계관은 수도 없이 많지만, 크게 두 가지 시각으로 양분된다. 하나는 마샬 매클루언(Marshall McLuhan)이 매체를 가리켜 “인간 감각의 연장”이라고 정의했던 시각이다. 이 시각이 옳다면, 지렛대는 인간의 손이 연장된 것이며 망원경이나 현미경은 인간의 눈이 연장된 것이다. 인간이 자기 감각의 확장을 꾀하기 위해서 자기 이성으로 끊임없이 매체를 진화시키고 개발했다는 것이다. 또 하나로 상반된 프리드리히 키틀러의 시각이 있다. 키틀러는 악명 높은 명제를 우리에게 내던졌다. “매체가 우리의 상황을 결정한다.” 키틀러에 의하면, 매체는 인간의 숭고한 노력이나 의지로 창조한 것이 아니라 사회, 역사적 조건에 맞추어 스스로 발전한다. 그리고 인간은 매체 덕분에 세계관을 나은 쪽으로 재정립해왔다. ‘기술결정론’이라는 뜻이 바로 그것이다. 예를 들면, 축음기가 등장하고 나서야 소리에 대한 진정한 사유를 꾀할 수 있게 되었다. 타자기가 나오고 나서야 현대적 글쓰기가 가능해졌다. 사진기가 나오고 나서야 시각 문화의 본질을 생각할 수 있게 되었다. 박인성 작가는 아무래도 키틀러의 후예에 가깝다고 본다. 작가 역시 사진이라는 매체를 연구하면서, 그 매체 덕분에 인간이 창출한 시각문화의 거대한 흐름을 파악할 수 있게 되었다.
그렇다면 박인성 작가가 추구하려는 완전한 장면(complete scene)이란 과연 어떤 것일 까? 낭만주의 시대의 신화(독창성)와 모더니즘의 엄격함(형식주의)을 여전히 살리면서도 동시에 미래의 입구를 조금이라도 넓히려는 모험심이 활발발(活潑潑) 샘솟는다. 급기야 디지털 시대가 창출해낸 대서적 범람(汎濫)이 몰고 오는 공포 속에도 기꺼이 몸을 맡길 수 있는 자신감을 작가는 우리에게 보여준다. 쉽게 이야기하면 박인성 작가가 보여주는 일련의 화면 속에는, 서구 문화사의 간단(間斷) 없었던 투쟁과 화해의 담론이 응축되어있다. 작가의 촘촘한 의도대로 작품 속에는 낭만주의, 모더니즘, 아날로그, 디지털이라는 상반된 요소가 긴장 상태를 유지하면서 서로를 떠받쳐준다. 작가가 추구한 완전한 장면이란 바로 시각문화의 과거와 현재, 그리고 미래를 동시에 성찰하고 예견할 수 있도록 현시시켜주는 시각 사유(visual thinking)를 가리킨다. 작가의 시각 사유는 이제 물꼬가 트였다. 그래서 작가가 곧 지류를 넘고 장대한 본류에 안착하여 멋진 흐름타기에 성공하기를 간절히 바란다. 그리고 그 흐름은 멀지 않은 시간 안에 도달할 것이라 내다본다.
For a complete scene
Art critic Lee Jin-myeong
The movie ‘John Wick’ series is gaining craze-like support. Recently, modern art has been receiving more attention than contemporary art. Behind this phenomenon lies the nostalgia of contemporary people for analog. Analog is a product of transition. It was the era of art where hand-copying and hand-drawing were done. To be more specific, it was the era of the digital culture of supercomputers that placed the romantic world view on the tail of a comet and could confine and organize all the world's phenomena into 0s and 1s. It was a time when I was like an adolescent boy who existed as an interlude in the time transition of being the head of Comet. Analog has left an ever-changing mark based on instrumental reason. However, as we encountered the absolute realm of digital virtuality, we gradually became stranded.
Representative media of analog culture are the gramophone, film, and typewriter. This is the diagnosis of German media philosopher Friedrich Kittler. According to Kittler, these three media are the media that shattered the Romantic worldview. There are three representative cultures that make up the romantic worldview. These include hand-written musical scores, hand-drawn pictures, and transcribed literature. First, let's think about sound. We cannot hear all sounds. Choose something and listen to it. You can't hear the cicadas outside your house and the radio inside your house at the same time. The sounds we hear are selected sounds. Romantic scores also record only selective sounds. But the gramophone recorded all the sounds at the same time and played them to us. Thanks to this medium, we have learned about the nature of sound and the true nature of our mechanisms for responding to sound. Kittler accepted Lacan's theory and diagnosed the world created by the gramophone as the real world.
Painting, which was praised as a sublime object during the Romantic era, also experienced changes. Painting was an art form that told a story by creating a three-dimensional illusion on a flat surface. The history of painting was about expanding aesthetic consciousness to the level of the sublime by taking impossible risks in the limiting situation of a flat surface, developing more plausible illusionary forms and brushing techniques, and sophisticating them. However, the value of paintings collapsed as movies developed. This is because a movie that moves continuously with 24 frames per second was able to contain a richer story and enabled more imagination. (The aspect of the invention of the camera that caused the collapse of painting was smaller than expected.) Kittler called the world created by film an imaginary world.
The best medium of the Romantic era was literature. It was literature that could express all of the joys and sorrows of human emotions, human purpose, the narrative of human history, events, and descriptions of objects. The story he used to listen to while sitting on his mother's lap as a child and fall asleep while listening to it is now embodied in the boy. Even as the boy grows up, he accepts literature by listening to his mother's voice. Literature is the mother's voice. We all read Greek classics and German Romanticism in our mothers' voices. This is why literature is noble. Even when I read French naturalistic literature, I still read it in my mother's voice. By reading the text out loud under the guidance of your mother, you become completely immersed in the story. At this time, the reader feels a resonance and learns about the world. Of course, the same applies when reading bildungsroman (bildungsroman) such as Hermann Hesse or Thomas Mann, or social accusation literature such as Günter Grass. These authors' handwritten manuscripts have a huge aura. Handwritten literature is different from literature created by typewriters. A typewriter handles letters by organizing typesetting into uniform lines. Therefore, the author's perfect aura can no longer be captured. It is difficult to treat the overall picture of the world as pathos with letters assembled by typewriter. Due to the nature of the medium, typewriter writing is segmented, analytical, and prone to being buried in dry stories. The reason why 20th century literature had no choice but to stop at segmented and analytical descriptions or go in an experimental direction is related to the characteristics of the medium. Nevertheless, there was hope that the analog world, which was born in the 19th century and reached its peak in the 20th century, could usher in a better today than yesterday through technological advancement. Even if mechanical and instrumental reason left the myth of romanticism aground, the master of reason was still humans themselves. However, with the advent of digital civilization created by supercomputers, we began to predict the end point of human civilization. We are slowly witnessing the moment when digital civilization will reach its peak. And I feel anxious. This is because the emergence of artificial intelligence, or robots that surpass humans, may threaten humans who enjoy absolute sovereignty within the world. Of course, there is currently a sharp conflict between the progressive view that robots can solve all human problems and the pessimistic view that robots subordinate humans to robots. However, more weight is given to the opinion that the former perspective will lead the future.
We must talk about art from now on. What has been described so far is merely a supplementary means of explaining the work of artist Park In-seong. In the days when instrumental reason ruled everything, that is, in the analog days, painting did not compete with photography and film, but developed a completely different narrative. Painting from Classical Greece to the Romantic period, or even more narrowly from the Renaissance to the Romantic period, explored what the mirrored picture was like. Beginning with Impressionism in the 19th century, people began to think philosophically about what the mirror itself was. In other words, I began to explore the essence of the medium called painting. The horizons were expanded by turning the method of representation that had been handed over to photography or film into reflection on the medium. The essence of painting lies in the fact that it is flat. The painting is flat. Therefore, the history of the process from figuration to hemisphere, from hemisphere to abstraction, and from abstraction to the brushstroke itself was produced. This is what 20th century art looks like. However, the art of photography cannot go beyond the limitations of the developer program that developed the camera mechanism. Even if there is a work that makes photography look like abstract art, it is a reference to modern painting and is not an inevitable result of the history of photography.
Artist Park In-seong creates a primary formative world by cutting and pasting the camera film itself. This film is a product of the analog era. The shape of this combined film is reminiscent of a modern painting. Even though painting has moved to the modern time axis, it still has romantic elements. That is originality. Alternatively, it can be expressed as an autographic property. The primary result of artist Park In-seong's segmentation and disassembly of photographic film and reassembly and composition can be said to be the reconstruction of a romantic worldview through photography. However, this is filmed again and printed on a digital screen. At this time, the primary medium of an autobiographical nature is transformed into an allographic property. The artist projected the value of originality in painting, which was maintained from Romanticism to Modernism, onto the photographic medium and then brought it into the world of infinite replicability in the digital age. However, artist Park In-seong’s progressiveness is established at a deeper level. He has already said that the history of painting was a transitional process from the image reflected in the mirror (reproduction) to the mirror itself (essentialism of the medium). While tracing the historical process of painting, the author may have thought that the medium of photography also has something like historical narrative or essentialism. So, of course, you would have been curious about how the future of photography will progress. Photographs are governed by the program attached to the camera, regardless of the intellect, imagination, and sensitivity of the person taking the photograph. There is no choice but to be buried in the limitations of the program inherent in the camera. Even if there are photos that look abstract because their shapes are severely distorted, or photos that look semi-abstract because the boundaries of objects are erased, they are all transformed in the realm of representation. Fundamentally, all photographs are bound to the category of representation. Artist Park In-seong projects the grand conceptual adventures of modernist painters into the medium of photography. It is about thinking about the medium of photography itself. In order to overcome the limitations of representation, it was necessary to examine the essence of the photographic medium. Photography involves confining the subtle dispersion of the light source that enters the lens into film treated with a photosensitive material. Therefore, the basis of photography lies in the film itself. It is very significant that the author did not focus on the images formed on the film, but took issue with the film itself. Moreover, the circular frame created through the process of scanning, cutting, pasting, and combining film is in line with the formalism of modernism. That's by design. A very progressive way of thinking is that the content is great, but the form is overlooked. It is easy to focus on the thinking itself and miss out on the aesthetic category. Author Park In-seong applied rigorously refined formalism to transformative thinking, which can be said to be an outstanding idea.
Furthermore, there is a deeper meaning behind Park In-seong's understanding of the essence of photography as film itself. There are countless worldviews about media, but they are largely divided into two perspectives. One is the view that Marshall McLuhan defined as “an extension of human senses.” If this view is correct, a lever is an extension of the human hand, and a telescope or microscope is an extension of the human eye. It is said that humans have continuously evolved and developed media through their own reason in order to expand their sense of self. Another conflicting view is that of Friedrich Kittler. Kittler throws at us an infamous proposition: He said, “The media determines our situation.” According to Kittler, media are not created by human efforts or will, but develop on their own in accordance with social and historical conditions. And thanks to the media, humans have redefined their worldview for the better. That is what ‘technological determinism’ means. For example, it was not until the gramophone appeared that it became possible to truly think about sound. Modern writing became possible only with the advent of the typewriter. It was not until the advent of the camera that it became possible to think about the nature of visual culture. I think writer Park In-seong is closer to Kittler's descendant. As the author also studied the medium of photography, he was able to grasp the huge flow of visual culture created by humans thanks to that medium.
So what exactly is the complete scene that writer Park In-seong is pursuing? While still maintaining the mythology (originality) of the Romantic era and the rigor (formalism) of modernism, at the same time, a spirit of adventure is emerging to widen the entrance to the future even a little. In the end, the author shows us the confidence to willingly submit oneself to the fear brought about by the flood of books created by the digital age. To put it simply, the discourse of struggle and reconciliation that has never been simpler in Western cultural history is condensed in a series of screens shown by artist Park In-seong. As per the artist's detailed intention, the conflicting elements of romanticism, modernism, analog, and digital maintain a state of tension and support each other in the work. The complete scene pursued by the artist refers to visual thinking that allows the past, present, and future of visual culture to be reflected and predicted at the same time. The artist's visual thinking has now opened its doors. So, I sincerely hope that the author will soon overcome the tributary stream, land on the majestic main stream, and succeed in riding the wonderful flow. And it is predicted that this trend will arrive in the not too distant future.
Representative media of analog culture are the gramophone, film, and typewriter. This is the diagnosis of German media philosopher Friedrich Kittler. According to Kittler, these three media are the media that shattered the Romantic worldview. There are three representative cultures that make up the romantic worldview. These include hand-written musical scores, hand-drawn pictures, and transcribed literature. First, let's think about sound. We cannot hear all sounds. Choose something and listen to it. You can't hear the cicadas outside your house and the radio inside your house at the same time. The sounds we hear are selected sounds. Romantic scores also record only selective sounds. But the gramophone recorded all the sounds at the same time and played them to us. Thanks to this medium, we have learned about the nature of sound and the true nature of our mechanisms for responding to sound. Kittler accepted Lacan's theory and diagnosed the world created by the gramophone as the real world.
Painting, which was praised as a sublime object during the Romantic era, also experienced changes. Painting was an art form that told a story by creating a three-dimensional illusion on a flat surface. The history of painting was about expanding aesthetic consciousness to the level of the sublime by taking impossible risks in the limiting situation of a flat surface, developing more plausible illusionary forms and brushing techniques, and sophisticating them. However, the value of paintings collapsed as movies developed. This is because a movie that moves continuously with 24 frames per second was able to contain a richer story and enabled more imagination. (The aspect of the invention of the camera that caused the collapse of painting was smaller than expected.) Kittler called the world created by film an imaginary world.
The best medium of the Romantic era was literature. It was literature that could express all of the joys and sorrows of human emotions, human purpose, the narrative of human history, events, and descriptions of objects. The story he used to listen to while sitting on his mother's lap as a child and fall asleep while listening to it is now embodied in the boy. Even as the boy grows up, he accepts literature by listening to his mother's voice. Literature is the mother's voice. We all read Greek classics and German Romanticism in our mothers' voices. This is why literature is noble. Even when I read French naturalistic literature, I still read it in my mother's voice. By reading the text out loud under the guidance of your mother, you become completely immersed in the story. At this time, the reader feels a resonance and learns about the world. Of course, the same applies when reading bildungsroman (bildungsroman) such as Hermann Hesse or Thomas Mann, or social accusation literature such as Günter Grass. These authors' handwritten manuscripts have a huge aura. Handwritten literature is different from literature created by typewriters. A typewriter handles letters by organizing typesetting into uniform lines. Therefore, the author's perfect aura can no longer be captured. It is difficult to treat the overall picture of the world as pathos with letters assembled by typewriter. Due to the nature of the medium, typewriter writing is segmented, analytical, and prone to being buried in dry stories. The reason why 20th century literature had no choice but to stop at segmented and analytical descriptions or go in an experimental direction is related to the characteristics of the medium. Nevertheless, there was hope that the analog world, which was born in the 19th century and reached its peak in the 20th century, could usher in a better today than yesterday through technological advancement. Even if mechanical and instrumental reason left the myth of romanticism aground, the master of reason was still humans themselves. However, with the advent of digital civilization created by supercomputers, we began to predict the end point of human civilization. We are slowly witnessing the moment when digital civilization will reach its peak. And I feel anxious. This is because the emergence of artificial intelligence, or robots that surpass humans, may threaten humans who enjoy absolute sovereignty within the world. Of course, there is currently a sharp conflict between the progressive view that robots can solve all human problems and the pessimistic view that robots subordinate humans to robots. However, more weight is given to the opinion that the former perspective will lead the future.
We must talk about art from now on. What has been described so far is merely a supplementary means of explaining the work of artist Park In-seong. In the days when instrumental reason ruled everything, that is, in the analog days, painting did not compete with photography and film, but developed a completely different narrative. Painting from Classical Greece to the Romantic period, or even more narrowly from the Renaissance to the Romantic period, explored what the mirrored picture was like. Beginning with Impressionism in the 19th century, people began to think philosophically about what the mirror itself was. In other words, I began to explore the essence of the medium called painting. The horizons were expanded by turning the method of representation that had been handed over to photography or film into reflection on the medium. The essence of painting lies in the fact that it is flat. The painting is flat. Therefore, the history of the process from figuration to hemisphere, from hemisphere to abstraction, and from abstraction to the brushstroke itself was produced. This is what 20th century art looks like. However, the art of photography cannot go beyond the limitations of the developer program that developed the camera mechanism. Even if there is a work that makes photography look like abstract art, it is a reference to modern painting and is not an inevitable result of the history of photography.
Artist Park In-seong creates a primary formative world by cutting and pasting the camera film itself. This film is a product of the analog era. The shape of this combined film is reminiscent of a modern painting. Even though painting has moved to the modern time axis, it still has romantic elements. That is originality. Alternatively, it can be expressed as an autographic property. The primary result of artist Park In-seong's segmentation and disassembly of photographic film and reassembly and composition can be said to be the reconstruction of a romantic worldview through photography. However, this is filmed again and printed on a digital screen. At this time, the primary medium of an autobiographical nature is transformed into an allographic property. The artist projected the value of originality in painting, which was maintained from Romanticism to Modernism, onto the photographic medium and then brought it into the world of infinite replicability in the digital age. However, artist Park In-seong’s progressiveness is established at a deeper level. He has already said that the history of painting was a transitional process from the image reflected in the mirror (reproduction) to the mirror itself (essentialism of the medium). While tracing the historical process of painting, the author may have thought that the medium of photography also has something like historical narrative or essentialism. So, of course, you would have been curious about how the future of photography will progress. Photographs are governed by the program attached to the camera, regardless of the intellect, imagination, and sensitivity of the person taking the photograph. There is no choice but to be buried in the limitations of the program inherent in the camera. Even if there are photos that look abstract because their shapes are severely distorted, or photos that look semi-abstract because the boundaries of objects are erased, they are all transformed in the realm of representation. Fundamentally, all photographs are bound to the category of representation. Artist Park In-seong projects the grand conceptual adventures of modernist painters into the medium of photography. It is about thinking about the medium of photography itself. In order to overcome the limitations of representation, it was necessary to examine the essence of the photographic medium. Photography involves confining the subtle dispersion of the light source that enters the lens into film treated with a photosensitive material. Therefore, the basis of photography lies in the film itself. It is very significant that the author did not focus on the images formed on the film, but took issue with the film itself. Moreover, the circular frame created through the process of scanning, cutting, pasting, and combining film is in line with the formalism of modernism. That's by design. A very progressive way of thinking is that the content is great, but the form is overlooked. It is easy to focus on the thinking itself and miss out on the aesthetic category. Author Park In-seong applied rigorously refined formalism to transformative thinking, which can be said to be an outstanding idea.
Furthermore, there is a deeper meaning behind Park In-seong's understanding of the essence of photography as film itself. There are countless worldviews about media, but they are largely divided into two perspectives. One is the view that Marshall McLuhan defined as “an extension of human senses.” If this view is correct, a lever is an extension of the human hand, and a telescope or microscope is an extension of the human eye. It is said that humans have continuously evolved and developed media through their own reason in order to expand their sense of self. Another conflicting view is that of Friedrich Kittler. Kittler throws at us an infamous proposition: He said, “The media determines our situation.” According to Kittler, media are not created by human efforts or will, but develop on their own in accordance with social and historical conditions. And thanks to the media, humans have redefined their worldview for the better. That is what ‘technological determinism’ means. For example, it was not until the gramophone appeared that it became possible to truly think about sound. Modern writing became possible only with the advent of the typewriter. It was not until the advent of the camera that it became possible to think about the nature of visual culture. I think writer Park In-seong is closer to Kittler's descendant. As the author also studied the medium of photography, he was able to grasp the huge flow of visual culture created by humans thanks to that medium.
So what exactly is the complete scene that writer Park In-seong is pursuing? While still maintaining the mythology (originality) of the Romantic era and the rigor (formalism) of modernism, at the same time, a spirit of adventure is emerging to widen the entrance to the future even a little. In the end, the author shows us the confidence to willingly submit oneself to the fear brought about by the flood of books created by the digital age. To put it simply, the discourse of struggle and reconciliation that has never been simpler in Western cultural history is condensed in a series of screens shown by artist Park In-seong. As per the artist's detailed intention, the conflicting elements of romanticism, modernism, analog, and digital maintain a state of tension and support each other in the work. The complete scene pursued by the artist refers to visual thinking that allows the past, present, and future of visual culture to be reflected and predicted at the same time. The artist's visual thinking has now opened its doors. So, I sincerely hope that the author will soon overcome the tributary stream, land on the majestic main stream, and succeed in riding the wonderful flow. And it is predicted that this trend will arrive in the not too distant future.