Quick Cultural Updates – Seoul

[ EXHIBITION ]

The BFA Graduation exhibition was held successfully during October.  the website is at

http://www.mixthemoment.com/

Here are few photos of projects I liked:

Difference by Sanghwa Hong

Mirror by Jaehyuk & Wansul

Flow by Heeyun & Soyoung

I’ve been busy starting soooo many experimental research projects at the Digital Media Public Art Research Center.  It involves lots of LEDs and different materials and some feedback of ideas.  I will post it in my project site (www.absurdee.com) once they are almost complete.   Meanwhile I wrote two research papers and waiting to get them published in some journals in Korea.  I’m not sure if they will *get* my paper.

<Recent Cultural Exploration in Seoul>

Exhibition 신호탄 at KIMUSA was pretty good.  I was really happy that I made it two days before they closed.  It’s a group exhition of Korean Contemporary artists who are well recognized.  It’s not as fresh as Seoul Platform last fall at the same location but, there were few interesting projects.

Ramen Village

from 신호탄, KIMUSA

뽕짝 - KIMUSA (Note MP's shields in pink)

[ FILM ]

<Breaking Embrace>

I’ve heard that it’s playing somewhere and realized that there was a special screening of films of Almodova (English subtitled as a plus) at near by theater, Cine Cube.   On Sunday morning, in the midst of writing research paper for the deadline, I had to get out of my apt and walk to the theater and watch a early afternoon movie, ‘Breaking Embrace’ It was really good. I left the theater with a strong yearning impression.  I liked it so much better than ‘Volver‘  It reminded me of ‘Talk to Her‘   Also, scenes that shows a part of ‘A Woman on the Verge of Nervous Breakdown’ really made me want to watch that movie again.  It’s been a while since I watched that movie.

[ BOOK ]

<1Q84 by Haruki Murakami>

With so many work schedule, I had to wait few months to read Murakami’s new novel, ‘1Q84′  As the semester ends, finally I could get my hands on the hard cover books (there are two of them)  I couldn’t stop reading it so I finished reading them in three days.  I thought about a yougn man who went to cats’ world and lost his way back and I thought about how it would be to look at two moons. Even, like one of my student’s project ‘Moon’, I thought about looking at the same moon with someone in distant land.  Will that be possible?  If even, how do I know?

Unfortunately, I heard that English version will be released in 2011.  You have to either wait until 2011 or learn how to read in Korean or Japanese.

 

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.

 

Some Personal Updates from Seoul

After my brother’s wedding in Manhattan Beach, CA (oh, I haven’t even blogged about it!) I returned to Seoul two days before the first day of Spring semester. A year starts in spring semester in Korean universities so I usually get fresh new faces in my classes. Some have become more mature during winter break or their 1 or 2 year long breaks. It’s a big trend that Sophomore or Junior students taking few years off to travel the world or get some professional experience, it’s prominent as about 40% of students don’t come back after winter break every year. Of course there are about 40% returning from their long absence or military services.

March passed in a light speed but, painstakingly busy so it felt like 36 hrs a day. First week greeted me with WCU (government funding research proposal for 4 years) application for the second round. The budget has been cut to like 30% of what it used to be but, still it’s a decent amount so we had to re-estimate detailed 4 year budget lists. The good news is that we passed the first round review so that, chance of getting it has increased. After handing the application, my mother has arrived in Korea to get some health exams in hospitals. She is over 60 years old and with her dependent personality, it requires a lot of care from my side for her to stay with me in my small apt. After about one month, she finally gave me some break by visiting my uncle for next 10 days. whew! Finally, I can sleep better for a while. With on going project in New York & some upcoming proposals, I don’t get any good sleep from sundays to thursday s every week. It’s not surprising that my stomach has been ruined (again) and I’m losing weight every week. I really need to find time to exercise. Do I sound cranky?  It’s all from lack of sleep.

Among these stressful schedule, there are some lovely time still. It’s always nice to see or hear from my former students whether they are preparing for the exhibition or getting into grad schools in NYC or Germany. There was a gallery reception for Suh few weeks ago. It was like DMD(Digital Media Design) alumni gathering. There were alums from 2003-last year + current students filled the cafe above the gallery space. I met former students from 2007 – my first batch of students who got graduated. Some close students has stayed with the kind gallery owner who let us use the cafe as our own livingroom and we drank wine until 2 am. They told me what it really worked and how valuable learning they found and thanked me for exposing them to stuff, which I find very grateful and cute. I was thinking about my own college years. How was I?

Beside advising a team of physical game design team outside of class, I’ve been planning for the presentation about a book, “The Botany of Desire” by Michael Pollen as I was re-writing an interactive online solution proposal for a PBS documentary film. In my department, every Monday morning at 8:30 am, we have a professors seminar for 1 and half hours. Each professor take a turn to present about anything they read or watch or research. It’s my turn again. Beside taking 6:40 am train to school, now I have to prepare for 1 & half hour presentation for the other professors – right after a weekend trip with 200 students. Yeap, it’s that time of the year, M. T. trip! I just returned yesterday from Jeollado. It was quite fun this time joking with colleagues and students all the time although I stayed up all night working for the website soft launch in NYC a night before. Naturally, I fell asleep right after I was back in my apt yesterday even it was like 5 pm in the afternoon and it was a coma-like sleep. I slept through morning and it was delicious and sweet.

I’m a night owl and teaching life style doesn’t allow me to indulge that. It only leads me to unbalance of sleeping consumption. I want my beauty sleep back!

 

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

 

Park(ing) Day

http://parkingdaynyc.org/

It was last weekend when I was working with my leftover energy to run a UbiComp workshop after a long nights of a proposal writing.  Since the workshop was about sustainability in Ubiquitous computing, the subject headline of the alumni list caught my eyes. If you are not familiar with The Park(ing) Day, please click on the link above. I think it’s beautiful. I wish I could hang out in NYC street in a small park in a parking lot.

Then, I thought how lovely it would be to have a parking spot turned into a small park here in Seoul. It would be tough though. There aren’t street meter parking lots here much. Well, I haven’t seen one. The parking lots in Seoul city are generally run privately instead by city. The only possible parking lot in the street is the one in the Hongik university area in Seoul. It’s usually packed with cars and people until 2 am but, if some people decided to leave their cars home and decorate the parking spots into a series of parks, it would look lovely and artsy as the neighborhood stands for.

People in Korea, some of them(many) own cars to show their status, not because they really need them. The public transportation here excels. You can get anywhere basically – faster and reliable and inexpensive. However, people prefer to bring their fancy cars to small streets of traffic jams so they can feel better about themselves. I’ve got asked several times why I don’t own a car like I should have one because of my profession. They almost think it’s not cool that I don’t own a car. Not that would effect me how I feel about having a car in a city where is full of air pollution and traffic jams. I usually answer them like this, “One less person with a car would be good for the environment and for the city.”

I have a driving license and if I really feel the need, I would drive. For example, if I live somewhere I won’t have public transportation and if driving is the only option of getting somewhere. Beside I can always rent a car if I want to drive.

 

Yearbook Yourself

OK, I’m supposed to write this 200 page long, 5 year plan research application but, I’m posting this quickly BECAUSE it’s cool & I haven’t posted for a while. (I know, I know – blame this long ass proposal but, I hope we get it so we can design research all the cool interactive physical computing projects with talented peers!)

This site, www.yearbookyourself.com is very simple but, brilliant.

It let you upload your own photo and composite with the hairstyles of the typical yearbook of different years in America, 1968 – 1988 or something like that. The above photo is if I graduated the highschool in 1968. So far my favorite but, I will play with it more when I procrastinating again… this thing is addictive.

Since when did yearbook became submedia online? Am I allowed to call it ‘Convergence Media’ or ‘Convergence Culture’?

 

A new citizen

A new citizen’s brunch

With Friends at The Magician celebrating my citizenship. (Sonia’s photo set)

OK. I did my oath ceremony in the morning of July 18th, 2008 in South District Court in New York City. I finally belong to somewhere because I’m legally a US citizen now. (Please note that I’ve been holding two different alien’s registration cards in both countries.) The process took about 6-12 months but, in order for me to make a decision to give up a citizenship where I no longer lived for the most of my life but, was born was still a hard one since it took me over 20 years. While waiting about 3 hrs at the oath ceremony, you realize that it’s a significant change. Obviously, it won’t change who I am nor where I came from but, it’s an action I took with a serious responsibility & it’s a significant change of my status. Now I will be saying I’m an american instead of saying a korean.

Beside some sentimental notes on being a new citizen passing my mind, I celebrated with some good friends who were able to make it to The Magician in LES, NY. Due to my frequent small to medium accidents and my nature of clumsiness, some were very nervous about me getting hurt again once I set up for another T.N.O.(Thursday Night Out) gathering. Sonia offered me to stay at her place to watch me over & she made me all american brunch with flags and banners, mmm, stars. (see above photo) The weather was scorching hot and we had no intention of walking more than two blocks out so we made some more ‘Bloody Hudson’ (a sweet Bloody Mary cocktail version by Hudson Hotel & she got the recipe!) Well, Bloody Mary is a full blog entry to write about one day. I’m just enjoying various kind of Bloody Mary in the US as it’s a rare find in Seoul to taste a good Bloody Mary.

 

wordle of this blog

A nifty java applet that can randomize your words.  I guess I’ve been using a word “see” & a korean word, “없는” a lot.

 

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.