Medium is genre; Film that failed to print
Journalist of Monthly Art / Bae Uri
‘Documentary’, which pursues ‘something similar to the truth’ (somehow related to justice), is the theme and topic of author Park In-seong’s work. He became interested in documentaries for a long time and concluded that he could not trust the reality they showed. As global art celebrity Hito Steyerl also mentioned, “Continuous skepticism is the defining characteristic of a documentary,” the artist’s attitude was quite natural. He eventually went so far as to say nothing because he wanted to find the ‘truth’. He said this: “(Digital platform era) is becoming more and more insubstantial.” It is a clear concept without any doubt. However, thanks to the writer delving into the gap between ‘media’ and ‘formatism’ (or the writer himself, who was unable to let go of his fundamentalist nature, which is close to Kantian), understanding the work has become a bit difficult. It is not a difficult problem if you think that he is suspicious of documentaries and focuses on the structural aspects of showing them rather than representational reality, but when you discover an artist who seems to be absorbed in formative experiments with the medium of painting while embracing the genre of documentary, confusion begins.
The gap between photography and painting
It is easy to see that Park In-seong's work, which uses cameras and film, is not representational photography as we generally understand it. It does not focus on photoresist or chemical reactions. He uniquely shows all the useless parts outside the film frame. For example, in the work, holes (perforations) in the film and serial numbers, which are rarely seen unless you are a film user, are exposed on the screen. It is not an ordinary ‘Parergon’. The artist placed the cut film on the screen and named it ‘scanography.’ However, in recent years, pictorial actions have been actively added to the film. Cutting and arranging film has become a series of ‘paintings’ that have gone from applying linear and area modeling on film to the point where film holes are barely visible. Unlike three years ago, when sculptural and visual attempts were made, the number of paintings is overwhelmingly high now. The two-dimensional works displayed at the Xi'an Art Museum are also two-dimensional paintings in which the rhythm of paint and the finish of resin form multiple layers. Is it his strategy to obscure the reality by immersing the film in fog-like paint and translucent medium?
On one wall of the Xi'an Art Museum is the 12-piece “Behind the Veil” series. This is a work that filmed one corner of the YouTube news live screen with a camera loaded with 24-cut film, wound the film upside down, filmed both sides of the film, printed the 12 cuts on canvas, and finished it as a “mixed media” work. The news that he filmed is completely unrecognizable in the work. As you may have noticed, of course it doesn't matter what content was filmed. Since documentaries do not guarantee the truth anyway, the only thing to focus on is the film itself. If there is anything the author gives meaning to, it is not the content that was filmed, but things like dust that stick to the film. To him, the dust that “exists in the same space and time as me” is ‘existence.’ What he ‘draws’ by spilling and spraying paint on film is an expansion of the existence before his eyes. Whether the paint obscures the truth of film, or whether the paint itself, drawn along the shape of reality, such as dust, becomes the truth, in both cases the truth becomes something unattainable. What shows this is the ‘Park In-seong style documentary’.
If you conclude by saying that not mentioning anything says everything and that you will be able to see the world differently after seeing this work, you will be depriving yourself of the opportunity to appreciate the work purely with the naked eye. It is impossible to just pass by the artist's abstract paintings. This is the confusing section. As the artist seems to enjoy painting itself, wouldn't it be possible to expose the true nature of documentary through painting alone, without showing the medium of film? 〈inscape〉, for which information on the film is difficult to find, appears to be a formative experiment in itself through color. It can be said that the artist's efforts to make the screen look better can be seen. Painting has been free from the responsibility of representation longer than photography, so wouldn’t it be okay to let go of film?
There is another series in the exhibition called 〈Stuffed Moment〉. The artist filled the screen by superimposing images reminiscent of the digital environment on analog film. Here, ‘resin’, one of the mixed media, appears. This ‘screen’ finished with synthetic resin is similar to a screen or camera lens in a digital environment. The digital age, in which it has become more difficult to face the truth due to the film being laid under the resin, overlaps simultaneously with the age in which the image propaganda of those in power targeting the public is in full swing. The author, who was “born in the analog era and immersed in the digital environment,” is completing a documentary that exposes the boundaries between the analog and digital eras through materials.
The artist confessed that he started thinking about the properties of resin after first using it in his work, but it would be more correct to say that as soon as he saw the materiality of resin, he unconsciously recalled other digital screens or films and experimented with them. Park In-seong's resin has come to represent digital images that are differentiated differently depending on the viewer or time and space. The questionable conversation that was not resolved before appears again. The physical properties of resin are sufficient on their own, but is the artist's sense needed? If we think about it differently, wouldn't it be possible to say that pre-painting and later (conceptual) calling actually show the artist's passion for painting? I have a feeling that the artist may soon turn to painting. When he used up all the film he had, when film companies stopped producing film, and when there were no used products left on the market. At that time, wouldn't we also criticize not only the false consciousness of some artist-style documentaries, but also those of 'pure' art fame who only pursue fame and money while talking about 'tao' and 'emptiness'? Even if it does not go to painting, it is clear that all plastic veil types are ‘film’, so the only thing left to do is to expand the artist’s range of freedom.
He seems to have to go back to the medium and finish with the painting problem. A few days ago, I heard from an art historian that he had been pondering for a long time what to do with the slide film that had all turned blurry and was no longer valuable as material. At that moment, the work of artist Park In-seong came to mind. What is ‘real’ to us may really be “only” the material called media and the actions of the moment. Events are bound to evaporate one way or another. The work he is doing is literally about something that remains that existing documentaries cannot talk about. It is difficult to refute the notion that Park In-seong's work, through its film and resin paintings alone, points to a situation in the early 21st century where analog and digital are mixed, and to a place outside the representation of reality. Nevertheless, I would like to hold off for a moment on this claim that author Park In-seong documents the medium itself. Because we cannot help but think about the material itself, showing the situation itself without the original.
The art historian mentioned earlier said that he kept the damaged film for more than 10 years and then revived the original using advanced equipment. If the film itself becomes an ‘archive’ without ‘events’ or ‘people’, it will only remain as the history of the manufacturer or owner (only celebrities can leave their names in the archive). In that case, wouldn't it be similar to the situation where all doubt disappears and only the authoritative documentarian who has nothing to do with the truth is left, which In-Sung Park was worried about from the beginning? Moreover, this fundamentalist's opinion is that his two-dimensional work, which has a high pictorial proportion and is quite good formatively, is more likely to be decoration rather than a trace of reality. Of course, the problem may be that this eye cannot see material as just material and looks for pretty things, but what can I do, his veil looks like a plausible modern painting. Park In-seong's first period was successful simply by bringing the outside of film into pure art. Wouldn’t the task of the next period be worrying about the gap between ‘media’ and ‘formatism’?
The author said that in his future video work, he will likely tell stories about the many Koreans who have been reduced to the level of foreign workers. He is still very interested in social phenomena and justice. Although it is tempting to tell this story, I just hope that Park In-sung's sense of formative experimentation is not obscured by the veil of this sense of duty.