Yangachi. In any discussion regarding ‘important’ Korean digital media artists, this artist’s name always receives first mention. Surprising perhaps, considering his run-of-the-mill academic credentials with a degree in sculpture. Furthermore, it is not as if he was specially gifted with technical prowess in programming, coding, or other innovative use of technology. He recently received the annual Hermes Art Award, and thereby extending his outreach beyond the bounds of media art. Despite his breakthrough, the title ‘media artist’ continues to precede his name. This may be a testament to the fact that, as opposed to delving deep into technology, his attitude towards media has remained fundamentally congruent with the essential nature of media art.
Yangachi’s first serious efforts as a media artist can be traced back to the exhibition entitled, Yangachi Guild, at Ilju Art House in 2002. The artist described this particular work as an attempt to depict ‘Korean-ness’ as found on the Internet. Although the piece itself consisted of a simple website, the terms it conveyed were anything but straightforward. ‘Chaebol’, ‘Hyundai’, ‘Mount Geumgang’: loaded words both politically and socially in South Korea at the time, were displayed on the website as items for sale, although not actually on offer. However, Yangachi’s media art was neither jubilant in its use of technology nor content with facile optimism. His exhibition lingers in the viewer’s consciousness due to the mere fact that he used technology to discuss worldly issues and communicate with a wider world.
Such trends in his work can be seen with greater clarity in the eGovernment project (2003, Insa Art Space). As the artist himself reveals, eGovernment discusses the concept of ‘surveillance’, which is noteworthy as it appears as a recurring keyword throughout Yangachi’s work. Foucault reminds us that in a society where everything is neatly stored away somewhere in a database, there may come a point when technology will be used as a tool of totalitarian authority; a concept which he illuminated through Jeremy Bentham’s conception of a panoptic society. Through the eGovernment project, Yangachi similarly highlighted and voiced his concerns over the progression of digital technology along with the problematics of a panoptic phenomenon culminating from such developments. Momentarily bypassing the question of whether the artist managed to infect his audience with a sense of urgency that he attempted to deliver, Yangachi succeeded in launching an earnest discussion about systemic surveillance. In this regard, the eGovernment project must not be omitted from the chronology of Yangachi’s works, as it is the first project to seriously raise issues regarding ‘nation-state’ systems--a concept that he would later go on to discuss in subsequent projects such as Middle Korea.
Yangachi’s Middle Korea: Yangachi Episode series consisted of an innovative narrative format. Originality often times breeds confusion. The first viewings caused confusion amongst people in the art community as well as from the general public. The reaction was a confusion mixed with disappointment as the artist who had been the very first to engage the web in his art had seemingly regressed into the more traditional media of installation and sculpture. Moreover, there was also grievances that the undersupplied pool of media artists in the Korean art world would lose one of its most promising artist. However, such worries stemmed from a misunderstanding caused by a lack of a comprehensive overview of the progression in Yangachi’s work. In essence, the Middle Korea trilogy, subtitled Yangachi Episode, treated themes that were essentially revised versions from earlier projects such as Yangachi Guild and eGovernment. The emergence of more complex narratives and the diversity of narrators used by the artist grew too immense to be captured in one complete visual piece. As a result, it would be no exaggeration to suggest that the Middle Korea trilogy, comprised of photographs, installations and storybooks, was a unique and necessary means of portraying the intended topic, an original form of media, if you will. In summary, Yangachi endeavored to discover ‘new media’ to express his content.
To the artist Yangachi, media is a vessel through which his is able to more effectively communicate his views. Indeed, it is a ‘medium’ and in that sense, it is only natural that he would choose not to dwell within one particular medium but rather continually challenge himself through new media and genres. Even Yangachi himself must be prepared to surmount genre limitations and wholeheartedly adopt any medium that proves most appropriate to capture a particular situation or reflect an aspect of society.
In this context, the surveillance camera is another medium pioneered by Yangachi. His experimental use of closed circuit television began in 2007 with Surveillance Drama: Purpose of Love, which was created by hacking into a wireless CCTV overlooking a bank parking lot in the Jongro district of downtown Seoul. Subsequently, Yangachi began to focus on using surveillance cameras as an art medium in planning and developing the Surveillance Drama series, which includes such works as Surveillance Drama: Kill Bill and Surveillance Drama: 007. Closed circuit television served as the vehicle to most clearly depict Yangachi’s interest in surveillance systems, or in other terms, the panoptic world. Especially when considering the Korean government’s fervor for installing CCTVs for public safety purposes, there could have been no other media more fit for Yangachi’s exploration of regional issues. Through the use of CCTVs in the Surveillance Drama series, Yangachi began to approach the realm of performance art; or rather his works began to capture a spirit of realism. Although the Surveillance Drama series did not continue over an extensive period, it must be noted that it played a critical role in his transition into the recent Bright DoveHyunsook series, which captured the key traits of Yangachi’s work.
When Yangachi first released Bright DoveHyunsook, the audience was perplexed, much as with their initial reaction to Middle Korea: Yangachi Episode. Just as they had familiarized themselves with the storytelling method of Middle Korea, the artist abruptly announced that Middle Korea: Yangachi Episode was the terminating conclusion of a trilogy, and precipitously launching into the tales of Hyunsook, assimilating performance art and surveillance cameras.
The initial episode of the Hyunsook series, Bright Dove Hyunsook, Gyeongseong, borrowed its central motif from both the above-mentioned Surveillance Drama series (2007) and Girl Possessed (2009). In particular, the character Hyunsook possessed no consistent identity as she is derived from the central figure in Girl Possessed. Due to the absence of identity, the character repeatedly projects the fragmented views of multiple others and the world of the doves as if her own. This not only renders the character rather disquieting at first, it is also difficult to comprehend her fragmented narratives. Viewed from a slightly different angle, however, Hyunsook may be representative of humanity today. Those of us operating under the delusion that ideas drawn from diverse channels are actually our own do not differ significantly from the fragmented identity of Hyunsook as she internalizes the world of the doves and the thoughts of others as her own.
A further interesting point is that Yangachi never repeats a theme in the Hyunsook series. Bright DoveHyunsook, Gyeongseong, exhibited at the Media City Seoul 2010, is staged in the vicinity of the Seoul Museum of Art and Deoksu Palace. On the way from her home to the Seoul Museum of Art, DoveHyunsook passes through Gwanghwamun Square, Chondong Theater and Deoksu Palace. With a stuffed pigeon perched upon her helmet, she performs ridiculous movements like a bird flapping its wings, set to the voice of a female narrator describing the gestures, movements and various situations of different characters from the artist’s works. Stories of historical but unfamiliar figures are delivered via the peculiar character of Hyunsook: Youngsook Choi, a pioneering woman of the Joseon Dynasty who received a bachelor’s degree in economics from Stockholm University in 1931; Marquis Taek Yeong Yun, the father of the consort of Emperor Yunghui, Empress Sunjeong; and obscure individuals such as Giyeong An, Yeoseok Sin, Indeok Park and Soda Gaichi. This is the essential structure of DoveHyunsook which spans a variety of mutually exclusive features from history and fiction, performance and video, and narration.
DoveHyunsook has appeared in a range of stories in different versions such as Elle and Saokjeong. Of course, the fundamental structure is to follow the flow of Hyunsook’s voyages with a stuffed pigeon perched on her helmet, flickering constantly between the past and the present depending on the site at which the shooting (or the performance) takes place. For example, Bright DoveHyunsook: Elle was filmed at Corso Como, an exclusive designer store in the Gangnam region, and portrayed local points of interest such as the Chungdam High School, the Galleria Department Store and fashion. The episode ends with a scene where Hyunsook lifts her eyes toward the Trinity Place building. Meanwhile, Bright DoveHyunsook: Saokjeong is a drama set in the Seoul Art Space Mullae.
Yangachi’s Hyunsook series is a collection of artistic techniques that he introduced in previous works: the alternation in time between sites and events originate from Middle Korea: Yangachi Episode, the unique form of performance adopted in Surveillance Drama mentioned earlier is reflected in the performance of Hyunsook. If this diversity of features had been fragmented in his previous works, they later appear to be falling into place, effective and stabilized, in the Hyunsook series.
What remains now is the question of the bird. The bird in the DoveHyunsook series is imbued with multiple layers of meanings. The first is to show the social position of the most common city bird through the character of Hyunsook. Just as ubiquitous as these birds, Hyunsook is not a representation of one character, but rather a manifestation of the typical contemporary persona. What’s interesting is the position that the doves have assumed in our urban environment. Once an emblem of peace, they are now considered a source of urban pollution. As seen in Yangachi’s other output, the features that make up his works invariably get slightly twisted from conventional layers of meaning. A pigeon, however, is a bird in all aspects — a bird freely flying in the sky. Flying up into the air is a metaphor for freedom. The aerial view is not for Hyunsook but for the birds. Coincidentally, a birds’ eye view is almost parallel to that of surveillance cameras - the cameras looking down upon us from high above. Security cameras are not brought to the fore in the Hyunsook series, but pigeons, birds and surveillance cameras can be considered to have a parallel level of perspective, and thus a similar layer of meaning.
In this way, Yangachi’s works always veer away from the predictable, typical use of media, and from our anticipated story line. The story is told in a unique fashion, freely oscillating between the past and the present. The ‘Yangachi style’ of narrative structure and progression is unfettered by genre boundaries defining exhibition and installation, video and performance. That’s why he is able to recount to us an entirely novel story unheard before. To continue producing such unfamiliar stories, Yangachi will remain in search of personalized forms of media. His public is similarly looking forward with great expectation to further experiencing more ‘Yangachi style’ media brimming with entirely novel stories and experimental artistic techniques.