The far side of the moon
LEE Jinmyeong / Art critic & Doctor of Philosophy
The moon faces us towards the front at all times. Therefore, it is called “the near side of the moon” and is translated as “the front of the moon” in Korean. When it comes to the lunar orbit, it always revolves with the same side facing us. Hence, Wonhyo (617-686) from the Silla Dynasty, Choi Jeu (1824-1864) from the Joseon Dynasty and citizens of Gyeongju living today altogether look at the same side of the moon. Recently, we often hear a song <The moonlit night of Silla> playing. At the same time, we could notice that the Buddhist monk Hyecho (704-787) was from Silla through the last verse called “on the roadside of Namcheonchukguk” in <Wang Ocheonchukguk Jeon> singing, “Observing the way leading to my home under the moonlight… who would ever flap the wings towards Gyerim (Silla)?” On the other hand, the Silla people named many areas with reference to the moon (“wol”), such as Wolseong, Wolji, Woljeonggyo, Sinwolseong, and Manwolseong. Moreover, Silla's high priest Wolmyeongsa (?-?) whose poems <Jemangmaega> and <Dosolga> are well-known used to play the flute on the main road in front of the gate on calm moonlit nights, and even the moon suspended its usual movement along the melody. This episode gave rise to the name of the road “Wolmyeongri.” Altogether, Gyeongju deserves the name, “the City of the Moon.” Everyone without exception has all spent thousands and tens of thousands of years looking at the same side of the moon. If so, why has no one talked about the far (back) side of the moon? What we see is only 18% of the far side of the moon that is momentarily visible due to a phenomenon called “libration” in lunar astronomy. The rest 82% could not be observed until 1959. Finally the whole aspect was first photographed by the Soviet spacecraft Luna 3. China's Chang'e 4 was the first spacecraft to land on the far side of the moon in 2019. Of course, it was by astronauts on Apollo 8 in 1969 when humans reached the far side of the moon for the first time.
PARK Inseong (1985- ) speaks about the history of our perception, which has moved from a mythic moon to a poetic moon and then again switched to a scientific moon. According to the French aesthetician Hubert Damisch (1928-2017), the first painting originated from the will to heal the absence. The supernatural or divine power of painting gave power to the secular dimension to elevate concepts equivalent to resurrection and survival, while figure painting became a tool to be served as a remarkable invention. Since certain paintings were highly estimated to such an extent that some gods became jealous of them, painting was finally regarded as a being inseparable from deities. In this context, the person appearing in the painting becomes a god. Painting became one with religion, and it was unavoidable for painting separated from religion to be transformed into poetic painting (this is the case for modernist painting). Nevertheless, the development of photography and lens-based media forced scientific painting, that is, analytical and synthetic painting. Paradoxically, however, the only mechanism that can visually express divinity is painting even today, in the scientific era. This is because the desire to remember the source instinctively casts back to the origin of painting.[1] For this reason, the moon that PARK Inseong intends to address is a metaphor for our perception and experience of art.
The nomenclature of his serial works such as <Stuffed Moments> and <Behind the Veil> precisely demonstrates what this is all about. The artist superimposes pencil, acrylic, resin, and printed paper collage on canvas. Superimposition is synonymous with accumulation, and accumulation is what makes light or color opaque. The opaque surfaces of his serials works, <Stuffed Moments> and <Behind the Veil> are reminiscent of the far side of the moon. It is an opacity, which is entirely unfamiliar to us. In its stratum, the age of mythology, the age of poetry, and the age of science are dissolved in conjunction. What is the era in which we live like? First, it regards the value of the Western Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, as the uppermost proposition. The Age of Reason is equivalent to the Age of History. Reason signifies a structure of thinking that tries to interpret all situations as the flow of time. Based on a requisite structure of introduction, development, turn, and conclusion as well as birth, stay, change and extinction, an explicit explanation of cause and effect has to be constituted to establish the concept of reason, in the way of recognizing events and situations. However, an excessive development of this reason can lead to the confinement of things and situations to the realm of equations, or alphanumeric codes, that is, alphanumericals. Such codes automatically replace all things and objects with numbers. The answer that AI offers us is an immense accumulation of numbers. The selfies we see are nothing but numbers.
Second, there is mythological thinking. Nations, peoples, cultures, religions and politics all belong to mythology. It is a system of beliefs. Mythological thinking is synonymous with magical thinking. At first, we started painting in the Lascaux Cave (France), the Altamira Cave (Spain) or Bangudae (Korea). In the first painting, humans performed a miracle by changing the absence of animals into their existence. The painting (existence) of animals is a firm promise to make the absent animals appear alive. This is the moment when the community members in the present of starvation can expect the future of satiation. Therefore, painting was inseparable from reality, and people could not (and were not allowed to) distinguish between reality and painting. This is magical thinking, so magic (art) was considered both politics and religion.
Third, the structure of thinking that has always existed since the day people began to exist on earth is poetic thinking. Aboriginal Australians, people from Gojoseon, current New Yorkers, the Assyrian people, and the Bushmen in the Namib Desert all have poetic thinking. Putting in the most concise way, poetic thinking is an insight that flows in the secrets of the universe and life. Thus, Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) referred to the truth of poetry as “the splendor of the simple.” [2] Through only a few words made of the simplest poetic words, the hard-shelled matrix in which people live rapidly dissolves. At least during the moment when we are reading a poem, the matrix of our lives instantaneously melts. This is called “a poetic time.”
In the series of <Behind the Veil>, we can appreciate the far side of the moon. It is never possible for us to see the far side of the moon no matter how much time passes. Whether through photography or media, the far side of the moon is nothing but an accumulation of numbers. However, no value can be gained by approaching the far side of the moon with deductive reasoning while relying on reason. Nevertheless, with a poetic insight, we can catch sight of the far side of the moon. When it comes to the far side of the moon, people in Korea probably think that the rabbit is sleeping there, while Europeans might dream of a woman with a beautiful profile. On the other hand, the same place would easily remind Peruvians of a toad. Due to the moonlight and the amazingly beautiful images reflected onto the moonlight, people can calmy look back on themselves after being exalted and elevated on the earth of reality where they still stand on their feet.
By encompassing the present represented by media and digital, the Enlightenment of reasonable thinking, and the mythical era in which religion, politics, and art were unseparated in the form of a history of media, PARK Inseong talks about unquietness of an opaque era by collaging media that symbolize each era (drawings, photographic paper, paper, paint), and establishing them again on an opaque screen. In our time, the meaning of art can be revealed through the method of reconstructing beauty, constructing spectacle owned by digital, or registering a name on the list of commercial art in pursuit of sensationalism. However, what PARK Inseong does is to opaquely erase all the surfaces that had been built through history, and hint at the meaning of history leaving its vague traces only. By the way, what is the effort of looking at the far side of the moon in a photograph for? What is the discovery of the goddess Artemis on the moon for? Only the act itself of looking at the moon is the invariable truth. Through the series of <Behind the Veil>, PARK Inseong mentions this. Only the act of performing art is the everlastingly unchanging value of art, and this is called “Kunstwollen (the artistic will).” Consequently, the only thing that is never unchangeable is the orientation towards art. That is the very truth hidden behind the veil of art. In this context, the French philosopher Simone Weil (1909-1943) states as follows:
Extreme attention is what constitutes the creative faculty in man and the only extreme attention is religious. The amount of creative genius in any period is strictly in proportion to the amount of extreme attention and thus of authentic religion at that period. [3]
PARK Inseong believes that the act of revealing this era while living in this era is the precise mission of art, and the artist is well aware that this era is formed from memories and understanding of the past. The artist's yearning for new art is intense, and the perspective of the world understood by the artist is tranquil. Therefore, the thinking inherent in <Behind the Veil> is not limited to a mere media experiment. This is because it is not only a reflection of the present through the history of the past, but also a question asking about my life by mirroring the present. Through incessant questions, a will can be created and new art can come into being. This is the very path that PARK Inseong takes as an artist. ◈
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[1] Damisch, Hubert, The Inventor of Painting, Oxford Art Journal, Vol. 33, No. 3 (2010), p. 302.
[2] Heidegger, Martin, Poetry, Language, Thought. (tr.) Albert Hofstadter (New York: Harper and Row, 1971): pp.7-12.
[3] Veil, Simon, Gravity and Grace (London: Routledge, 2002), p. 117.