b2project

b2project entrance
B2Project is a gallery / cafe house in the quiet alley of Dahak-ro (Haehwa-dong), Seoul; next to traditional old houses (한옥) that are few left in that area. It’s owned by my friends, sisters.  Its interior is full of different kind of lightings, large plant and the German vintage objects and furniture.  The gallery is located in the basement and I’m planning to fill that space with interactive media art projects eventually.

Anna & I often use this lovely quiet cafe (with free wifi) as our design office & the owner always greets us warmly and we chat about daily stuff.  I also admit that I got hooked to their cheese cake that has an ice cream filling.  mmmmmmm~

Anna and I secretly want to keep this space only to ourselves since it’s really a rare gem in Seoul…. but, I believe in sharing and open-community & I would like to see this space beoming artists’ communial space.  One weekend, I’ve invited media artists colleague from my research lab to introduce them to each other.  Somebody once called me “Nokia – connector” — If I’m profiled as in “Tipping Point” by Cromwell, I would belong to Connectors.

Outside of the back alley, from the broad street, Dahak-ro may seem like a very caotic place, just like Time Square in NYC.  This area is called ‘Theater District’ and you can imagine lines of people to watch all sort of plays, musicals and many bars and restaurants….drunk people.  However, if you don’t mind walking deeper into the back toward hill, you will find artsy bars, cafe and galleries.  There is also a Robot Museum. 

From my childhood memory, Dahak-ro used to be a major place for college protesters.  Yes, I grew up in a neighborhood not so far from here.

 

NYC summer update

(this kind of murals were on several walls in west village)

I went to another US tour this summer and now I’m back.  I guess it’s a time to post a new blog about it.

I’ve went to Seattle (my sister  & Microsoft Campus visit for Window 7 UX design) > Portland (my family) > New York (my home city and I pretend to live there still) > New Orleans (SIGGRAPH 2009  – we had a presentation at Research Challenge – we got 2nd place!) > New York (caught up with some more friends) > LA (my brother) > back to Seoul (3 nights ago)

As you could imagine, I’m pretty weary so I will be short and sweet and only will focus on NYC.

High Line

I had to check out High Line, a new city park in Chelsea area on the railroad (about three store high looking over Hudson River.)  It’s beautifully planned and built. (photo below) I especially appreciated wooden floor of the park & the benches.  It was great to recline in the bench and drink a cup of coffee looking at the New Jersey side over Hudson river.  Wait a min, when these new interesting looking buildings were built?  cityscape around chelsea has definitely changed.

PS1 MoMA, Warm Up!

It’s been years since I went to Warm Up! at PS1 so I’ve decided to check out the exhibition and the crowd.

(bottom:  Art Installation, Pool)

The Tea Room, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York

This spacious restaurant has a long list of teas but, also good mimosa, wine and trout dish.

‘24 Hour Party People’ Film Screen, McCarren Park, Williamsburg, New York

Perfect movie, perfect location and perfect crowd.

(If you love 80’s music, I highly recommend to watch it if you haven’t.)

Mojitto at Rice, D.U.M.B.O., Brooklyn, NY

Rice is an awesome fusion rice restaurant with Thai and Cuban flavor & they never failed me.  Also delightly surprised with good Mojitto.  D.U.M.B.O. is a great place to stroll and has the best view of Manhattan.

My friend Andrew’s Art Studio, East Village, New York

It was great to catch up with this upcoming artist from New York.  He was in Netherland for artist residency so it’s been many years since I’ve seen his latest work.  His collection showed Dutch influence definitely!  I’ve decided to be a fan of his art.  Hopefully, he will have a show in Seoul one day.

 

The Submarines @ Mercury Lounge

Some of you might have heard their song on iPhone commercial. Two members(there are three memebers) of The submarines are Blake and John and they are good friends of my good friend so I have seen their performances few times here in NY. The first, at the Joe’s Pub (2004?) and the second time at the Mercury Lounge last summer. I like how they always remembered my name and pronounced it perfectly. Last summer when I was visiting NYC, my friend told me they are in town and we went to see them performing for our catch up. They just released their new album and it was great.

Again, we’ve been trying to find a time to catch up again during my visit to NYC this winter, and he sent me an email that The Submarines are playing at the Mercury Lounge. I thought, wow, again? They tend to be in town at the same time I’m! The shows were all sold out and it was very crowded and I could see they got even more fan this time. The performance was great as usual and they are really cute people. If you talk to them, you will know what I mean.

They said my name out loud with a joy when they saw me and were very glad to see me and their good friend(my friend) who kept catching up with me during their performances like it’s a routine. Well, to be fair, he didn’t know they were in town until the last minute and I didn’t mind at all. I love live music & it was lovely to see them. They will be heading back to LA after tour and so am I next week. GO THE SUBMARINES!

If you haven’t seen them performing live, here is youtube video of them singing. It’s better to see them live of course. Enjoy!

 

Seoul Media Art Biennale 2008

‘Expense of Spirit in a Waste of Shame’ by Suzann Victor

A week ago, I decided to bike to Seoul Museum of Art near Duksu Palace since I finally had a real day off + weekend. It was to go see Seoul Media Art Biennale for the second time after the opening ceremony I went two weeks ago. It’s always lovely to walk by the old palace wall. How should I explain it? it’s narrow and curvy with stone wall one side and park like street the other side. It’s just a very cute path and the museum is on the hill where it ends. It was a warm autumn day so by the time I parked my small bike, I was sweating already. Uh-oh, I hope I won’t meet anyone I know.

The selection of arts are very impressive at exhibition, titled “Turn & Widen”. It’s very well curated and well displayed. (The curators are Maarten Bertheus, Raul Zamudio, Tohru Mtsumoto and Andreas Broeckmann.) I liked how they carefully laid out how people move art piece to piece. Media arts are exhibited in 3 floors and it is definitely worth to visit at least once if not twice. There are several art projects that I really found interesting.

(will get back with more writing here…)

Meanwhile I’m posting some of art installations that I was able to grab with my small digital camera. I biked back and didn’t bump into anyone I know…

“Augmented sculpture series” by pablo valbuena

 

US Summer Update – Seattle>SF>NY

I guess I’m due for some simple updates on my summer in this blog. The end of semester went by really insanely fast as usual. I had no idea how I packed & left Seoul. It’s been already 2 weeks since I arrived in Seattle, drove down to Portland with my sister’s family to see my parents, playing 9 hole golf & flew to San Francisco for a weekend visit then, arrived New York City last Sunday. Somehow, during last a week or so, everyone around me wanted to go see artworks… I have no complain but, 4 exhibitions in a week is a bit a lot to take, don’t you think? Anyway, let me summarize a bit about them now.

Museum of Glass Arts, Tacoma, WA

My sister insisted that we visit this museum on the way to Portland, OR. I had no idea since when she had great interests in glass arts but, I was all up for it! Here is one photo of installation I liked. (it was hard but, I’ve managed to take a sneak shot of it.) They also have a stage where you can see glass masters in action. Yeap, it’s warm filled with heat.

ps. I’m still dumb founded about the fact that museum clerk asked me if I’m under 18 years old still. jeez.

San Francisco, Bay area

As all my family members live by the west coast, I begin to think about any place to live in the west coast. It’s a hard thought to be away from NYC but, since I am away from NYC now, it might be a good transition to think of SF as a future option? It’s cold during July though. The hills don’t bother me that much since I’m used to hills in Seoul. (Imagine hills like SF during winter time with snow & ice!)

Since I was visiting an itp friend, of course I ended up meeting other ITP peeps. Some I had classes with, some I’ve known the names. The thing is that everyone I met during this short visit were from New York. All of them! It’s like a course you take after New York or something? Anyway, it was chillest 4th of July I’ve ever had in the US. The San Francisco people told me that July is the chillest in Bay area, SF. Who knew? Beside unchanging weather which could be very boring, I really liked the Bay area, SF.

PS1, Elevator Installation

As a friend of mine was involved with this cool elevator installation artwork & he only said, ‘I built a button’ I had to see it with my own eyes. The light installation is on the ceiling of the elevator and you do see a large red button in the middle which is to stop this colorful movement of lights.

The last day of Takashi Murakami at Brooklyn Museum

O.K. I had to admit it that when my friend told me let’s go see Murakami Exhbition at Brooklyn Museum since it’s the last day of the exhibition, I was hesitant. Because I went to exhibitions two days in a row and it would be three days in a row and my feet were hurting apparently. But, I do like Murakami’s artwork so I dragged myself to meet up with my friend at the Brooklyn Museum. Wow, they changed fascade, lobby… it’s been over a decade since I’ve been there, shame to myself. (O.K. Brookland is a pain to travel to during weekend as we all know!) Not surprisingly, my friend got stuck in the subway station for over one hour on the way to the museum and I who hates waiting without deadlines were extremely annoyed. The show was about to close in one hour & I had to make a hard decision. To go in & meet him later. As it turns out, he just made it to the exhibition 50 min to close and we were able to find each other inside of gallery rooms.

I really loved this show. No wonder there were lines like a Disney Land ride line but, I didn’t mind at all because there were 2 floors of amazing paintings, murals, statues by Murakami. It was a through retrospective of Murakami. His vivid colors are very hard to transfer in a small camera but, here are some images. Happy ending.

 

BFA students project, “Hope” – a marionette project

“Hope” a marionette project by Joohyun Jin, Laewoo Kang (Digital Media Design dept. BFA, Hongik University)

This movie is a low resolution with lots of noise (as it was raining cats and dogs during the final presentation in Interaction Design Studio) but, you will get the idea. Below is their project site that has a better presentation. “Hope” by Joohyun Jin & Laewoo Kang

A little description about this project. The marrionette is hand-sewn by Joohyun Jin & the project was a collaboration between two students. The translated abstract is below.

사람과 사람사이의 갈등,
치유할수 없는 상처

슬픔과 악몽의 수확자,
그래서 깨어날수 없는 존재의 슬픔.

Conflict among people

untreatable wounds

Receiver of sadness and nightmares

Tragedy of un-wake-able being

I see that this project can be improved by more dramatic expression in sound on what they are trying express & cleaner mechanical presentation. However, over all it was an interesting project.

It was frightening to watch it move on late afternoon with pouring rain outside.

 

“Happier Tears” a guerilla exhibition by some of my students

I’ve been thinking about showcasing some of my students’ work at my blog… as we are running multiple community blogs as they are documenting their design process for requirement.

This afternoon, I’ve gotten a delightful email from a student of mine which starting as, “how’s your weekend? ….” He is graduating this semester and he is running a weekly physical computing workshop among students at Digital Media Design department. I’m aware that they also started a weekly discussion meetings. Good kids. All they needed was a little motivation.

Anyway, I was delightfully happy to see the first result. After introducing arduino workshop last semester (thanks, David & Tom for your support!) students got really excited for different possibilities. Now, from sophomores to seniors are gathering on their own to create something at their physical computing workshop. For design school where students mostly depended on their visual art abilities, this is a significant change and for interaction designers who design for 5 senses, it’s a good direction to go.

Their first group project is called, “Happier Tears” A simple group portrait. <see above movie> It was hung in 4th floor hallway of our building without any approval ahead of time – a guerrilla exhibition. Go students! I told to Leo(leader of this group) that he can throw a guerrilla exhibition in front of my office.

* Note about “Happier Tears” - I think, this title is based on “Happy Tears” by Roy Lichtenstein which has become a scandalously famous art piece in Korea by Roy Lichtenstein because of recent incident regarding Samsung Group’s Executive’s wife’s purchase of “Happy Tears” which raised a suspicion of money laundering. Read this article if you are not sure what this is about.

 

some updates on cultural exploration in Seoul

Samsung Leeum Museum of Art

I’ve been thinking about visiting this Samsung Leeum Museum for months. It is conveniently located in downtown Seoul, considerably near my place. Anyway, Anna and I decided to go this friday… of course, I forgot about it until she brought it up on Thursday… I’m so forgetful these days that I can’t remember anything I said after 20 min. This is what happens when you fly 14 hrs of round trip flights three times in two months. (that’s not including 3-6 hrs of domestic flights)I’ve heard that this museum is all about architecture so I guessed that it would be worth just for that. Most of my friends weren’t impressed with their collections so I didn’t expect much.

However, I actually liked their contemporary arts selection… the quality and quantity are no near LA Museum of Contemporary Arts but, I was surprised to find Damian Hurst’s, Mattew Barney and other renouned artists. I really liked the entrance piece by an Indian artist but, I don’t recall his name. They had Damian’s piece with pills which I really liked. That reminds me of the medical cabinet piece in LAMCA – also ‘Crown of Glory’ from a series of stainglass art-like piece that are made of dead butterflies. They were also showing curated exhibition that is titled “void” They meant to emphasize on “negative space” in artworks – which is a very eastern characteristic but, using a word, “void” seems to be misleading. Anyway, below is the photo of installation by contemporary artist. The was wet and oily… I made Anna touch it & she was discussed by its oily feel. That was a great birthday gift, thanks anna. If you want to learn a bit more about Leeum museum, read her insightful blog.

Itaewon & Food

Since Leeum Museum was near Itaewon, I got to go to this really cute pancake house, “Flying Pancake” Itaewon is a neighborhood where many foreigners live, shop and hang around. They have international school so you will see more foreigners than Koreans in that neighborhood. I’ve heard about the foreign cusines there but, I needed to research before I look for good Indian, Turkish and French restaurant in that neighborhood. I was surprised to see shishikabab stand in the street there…Back to Flying Pancake, this restaurant has not only cozy atmosphere but, the pancakes were amazingly delicious! One of the best pancakes… I’ve had pancakes in numerous brunch restaurants in NYC and LA so you just have to take my words for it. I drank a glass of wine and my friend drank a cup of macchiato. I found their Latte Art was elaborate but, coffee cup on the cafe? We were laughing as it reminded me of “TV Buddha” by Namjun Paek in Leeum- one of my favorite artwork by Mr. Paek.

more food in Hongdae area

It was raining Saturday night. What a yucky night! After watching “The Other Boylan Girl” (I have nothing to say about that movie, btw) we decided to move to Hongdae (Hongik University) area so I suggested this cute Japanese restaurant once my NYU sunbae took me. It’s near Saamzie Art Space but, you have to cross the street and walk to the alley it seems like nothing would be open there as right side is a large construction fence and left are all residential houses. But I was proud to find that place in that rainy night, although I couldn’t recall what it was called.It’s called “Gwang” It’s the same character for “star” you see in whatoo (Korean Gostop cards ) The weather was yucky so there were several seats available. (it’s really tiny so it’s possible that you have to leave if there isn’t any seats.) I drank two full glasses of warm sake, “Wallgaegwan” and some oden from oden bar, salmon sashimi with capers… It was a cozy night & I think I drank the most since I arrived in Seoul. Deliciousness.

* after note: Surprisingly, I lost like 1 Kg in one week despite of indulging yummy foods like these.