• The Journal of Art Theory & Practice
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• no.10
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• pp.105-118
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• 2010

This study discusses the community of participants in new media-based art of Taeyoon Choi, Wafaa Bilal and Mushon Zer-Aviv in relation to current discourses on social functions of art by Nicolas Bourriaud and Jacques Ranciere. Focusing on these artists' participatory projects which aim to provide alternative perspectives on wars between countries, to raise awareness about expanding surveillance systems in city spaces, or to create new public spaces on the web, this paper argues that their works hybridize entertainment culture and political activism to suggest a new model for political art.

• 지역과문화
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.1-20
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• 2020

The purpose of this study is to find methods for building the community in poor residential environments. We analyze the public art project, "The Rose of Sharon Blooms," in Daejeon. To understand the project we interviewed artists, curators, local residents, and visitors, about three aspects of public art: visuality, speciality, and communication with citizens. These stakeholder interviews yielded valuable knowledge and insights: First, artworks created from the residents' recycled junk effectively harmonizes and unifies the citizens and their environment. Second, managing a gallery in the neighborhood symbolically values and explicates the public art project and thus enhanced the local identity. Third, public workshops in the neighborhood provide a venue for local citizens to communicate with visitors about the public arts, which eventually led to the welcoming atmosphere of the community. However, we found relatively little awareness of the need for partnership aspects among our interviewees, which suggests the importance of ongoing cooperation with other arts institutions and researchers to build vital cultural linkages and introduce varied art forms.

• The Journal of Art Theory & Practice
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• no.10
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• pp.85-103
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• 2010

Mona Hatoum and community make unlikely bedfellows. From her beginnings as a teenage exile to her maturity as an internationally celebrated artistic nomad, Hatoum defies classification within any single geographical or cultural community. Attempting, however, to locate specific points of contact between her and certain communities in terms of artist-in-residence projects in which she participated might be a particularly fruitful way of circumventing her notorious critical resistance to identity and her refusal of homogeneity. This paper starts with Miwon Kwon's critique of contemporary practices in community-based art, which locate an essentialising force that isolates a single point of commonality and overlooks authentic differences. It then turns to Jean-Luc Nancy's reconceptualization of community as 'unworked' and 'being-in-common' to provide analytical tools for avoiding the dangers of essentialism. By examining the three residencies that Hatoum accepted in the mid-1990s in the light of Nancy's observations and theories, and by bringing the idea of artistic nomadism and that of community into juxtaposition, we hope to show that Hatoum succeeds in finding an equilibrium between art and community, and that this sheds new light on the issues raised in recent discussions on such relationship.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.118-134
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• 2013

This paper analyzes the pubic nature of New Genre Public Arts. It is very sensitive to the social issues and supports democracy and communities with the diverse civic participation. Therefore, it is be widely known without doubt that new genre public arts is more public in nature compared to the previous public arts. This research observes the practices of new genre public art and focuses on the problems of the revealing nature of new genre public art through the analysis of the interrelations among government, artists, and the residents by through observation on the , Seoul City Gallery project from October 2008 to January 2009. The implementation of the project is divided into three constituent parts: local government for funding, artists for planning and implementing, and residents. Local government supports and commands the public art works to create more competitive and harmonious city. Artists emphasize the revitalization of community and take the residents as the passive objects of enlightenment. Whereas, the residents hope to use the funds to improve economic conditions. Artists accept the top-down commands of government, whereas residents tend to passively participate and become objects for enlightenment by artists, after all, might be alienated by the project. These kinds of communications and relationships raise the issue of the possibility of failure of public arts projects.

• International Area Studies Review
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.205-225
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• 2016

Many cities have instituted public art projects for the purpose of urban regeneration. The main objective of these projects is to revitalize an abandoned area through the culture of art. This endeavor however, seems to have become standardized, a one-time event, as institutionalized Public Art. The Maeulmisul Art Project has served as a complement to these problems, strengthening local identity and restoring community through use of local assets and artistic contributions of residents. There have also been areas in which the Maeulmisul Art Projects was taken as an opportunity to revitalize an area through linkage with other projects. This study examines the process of the formation of local identity and recovery of community through site-specific art of the Maeulmisul Art Projects. I would like to explore the possibility of implementing regional regeneration through use of the Public Art Project.

• The Journal of Art Theory & Practice
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• no.9
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• pp.7-31
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• 2010

In this paper, I examine the development of the second stage of Chicano muralism and compare it with the first stage of the Chicano Mural Movement that was born out of the Civil Rights Movement. I then discuss the different aspects of the first stage in relation to the birth of institutionalized public art and question how Chicano murals influenced public art and, conversely, how mainstream public art transformed some of the attitudes and practices of Chicano muralism. Chicano murals initially functioned as a political mouthpiece for Chicano's human rights and as a tool to recover the Chicano people's cultural pride and legacy. However, the murals gradually developed into public art projects supported by the city or federal governments, who regarded them as an economic way to effectively communicate with the community. In this process of institutionalization, muralists became increasingly concerned with aesthetic quality and began to work more systematically. For example, amateur artists or community participants who produced the earlier murals were transformed into mural experts. Chicano essentialism and the politically volatile themes used previously were phased out and the new murals began to incorporate diverse subjects and people, for example, native culture, Blacks, and women. This phenomenon reflected the changing emphasis on multicultural understanding. This kind of institutionalization did not always draw positive results. Inadequate funds were the primary concern over the actual subject and creation of the mural work. Artists reduced the strong political metaphors and aestheticized the mural forms. However, their work was productive as well: thorough research on wall conditions and painting techniques was conducted and new processes and designs were developed. This paper examines the murals created for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games, Judy Baca's works, and the Balmy Alley Mural Environment project in San Francisco's Mission District. Works by Las Mujeres Muralistas in Mission District, in particular, show case colorful patterns and the Latin American indigenous culture, exploring new interpretations of old icons and design. They challenged the stereotypical depictions of females and presented alternative visual languages that revised the male-centered mural aesthetics and elaborated on the aesthetics of Rasquachismo.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.197-202
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• 2021

This paper focuses on the situation in which, as pluralistic democracy spreads globally from the mid-20th century, the concept of publicness, the reason for the existence of traditional public art, is not limited to the physicality of occupying public space or the conditions for creation by public funds, but is seeking a new direction and examine the social significance of these changes. For this purpose, the main body of this paper analyzes the major public art projects of Freee Art Collective who were active in the UK in the early 2000s. Freee performed various public art projects in which individuals constituting a community critically reflect on political, social, and economic issues related to public goods and provide a discourse space for democratic discussion. Their practice suggested a methodology for socially-engaged public art that resists the "Third Way" cultural policy of the New Labour administration. Therefore, this paper argues that Freee's public art seeks alternatives to publicness in that it allows one to resistively think about problematic aspects of hegemonic cultural production of neoliberal cultural policy that pursues political consensus and social harmony. This research about Freee's public art would be significant in that it can serve as an opportunity for critical reflection on the contemplative form and public role of contemporary public art.

• The Journal of Art Theory & Practice
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• no.16
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• pp.71-103
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• 2013

This paper explores the key figure of minjung misul ("the people's art"), Kim Bongjun, and the art collective Dureong in the relationship between 'dialogue' and the dissidents' structural critique of Korea's modernities. During the 1980s' prodemocracy movement, the minjung artists and other dissident intellectuals used the notion of dialogue as metaphor for and allegory of democracy to articulate not only Koreans' experience of modern history, which they saw as "alienating" and "inhumane," but also the discrepancies between Koreans' predicaments and their political aspirations and their working toward the fulfillment of those ideals. Envisioning alternative forms of modernities, Kim Bongjun and other Dureong members paid attention to the fundamental elements of art, which consist of art as a modern institution, as well as the everyday lives of people as the very site of Koreans' modernities. They endeavored to create "art of life," which presumes its being part of people's lives, based on the cultural and spiritual traditions of the agrarian community. They also participated in the national culture movement, the minjung church, and the alternative-life movement to radically envision everyday lives through the indigenous reinterpretation of democratic values. Despite the significant role played by the church mission and its community involvement, its effects on minjung misul have received little attention in the relevant studies. Thus, I consider in particular the minjung church's and the alternative-life movement's confluence of multiple cultural and social constituencies in relation to Kim and the Dureong collective's vision of a new art and community.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.24
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• pp.199-222
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• 2011

While Korea has actively discussed the fields of comics and animation, with an aim toward public art and publicity for cultural welfare, research on public cultural content for the underprivileged and their regions is in fact lacking. The Korean government has also tried to improve Korea's cultural welfare, but its benefits have failed to be evenly given to the underprivileged. Therefore, we need to take greater interest in the underprivileged and their regions. Korea should work to correct the unbalance among regions in the field of cultural welfare (cultural differences between the capital area and other regions, and between new towns and old), as well as improve the living environments of isolated areas. For this reason, such a public art project should be conducted from two directions. First, the underprivileged living in poor conditions should be allowed to live in clean and cultural environments. And second, public art, comics, and storytelling through animation should be formed with an eye on urban culture. This project aims to focus on improving "the quality of citizens' lives" through creating the unique characteristics and landscape of the city. It will be presented through the use of public art, which presents the elements of the city with charm and vitality. The two directions stated above are our urgent tasks. Public art, comics, and animation storytelling regarding the history, culture, and natural resources of the region will develop with the affection and pride of the citizens, and public art will help create an environment that allows people to discuss their issues. In addition, it will be cultural environments that will allow all citizens to enjoy beautiful streets and events. This project will be an opportunity to realize cultural democracy by pursuing social values such as publicity, communication, equality, and participation.

• The Journal of Art Theory & Practice
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• no.14
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• pp.87-124
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• 2012

This paper focuses on the social implication of new media art, which has evolved with the advance of technology. To understand the notion of human-computer interactivity in media art, it examines the meaning of "cybernetics" theory invented by Norbert Wiener just after WWII, who provided "control and communication" as central components of his theory of messages. It goes on to investigate the application of cybernetics theory onto art since the 1960s, to which Roy Ascott made a significant contribution by developing telematic art, utilizing the network of telecommunication. This paper underlines the significance of the relationship between human and machine, art and technology in transforming the work of art as a site of communication and experience. The interactivity in new media art transforms the viewer into the user of the work, who is now provided free will to make decisions on his or her action with the work. The artist is no longer a godlike figure who determines the meaning of the work, yet becomes another user of his or her own work, with which to interact. This paper believes that the interaction between man and machine, art and technology can lead to various ways of interaction between humans, thereby restoring a sense of community while liberating humans from conventional limitations on their creativity. This paper considers the development of new media art more than a mere invention of new aesthetic styles employing advanced technology. Rather, new media art provides a critical shift in subverting the modernist autonomy that advocates the medium specificity. New media art envisions a new art, which would embrace impurity into art, allowing the coexistence of autonomy and heteronomy, embracing a technological other, thereby expanding human relations. By enabling the birth of the user in experiencing the work, interactive new media art produces an open arena, in which the user can create the work while communicating with the work and other users. The user now has freedom to visit the work, to take a journey on his or her own, and to make decisions on what to choose and what to do with the work. This paper contends that there is a significant parallel between new media artists' interest in creating new experiences of the art and Jacques Ranci$\grave{e}$re's concept of the aesthetic regime of art. In his argument for eliminating hierarchy in art and for embracing impurity, Ranci$\grave{e}$re provides a vision for art, which is related to life and ultimately reshapes life. Ranci$\grave{e}$re's critique of both formalist modernism and Jean-Francois Lyotard's postmodern view underlines the social implication of new media art practices, which seek to form "the common of a community."