• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.40
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• pp.177-209
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• 2015

The purpose of this study is to determine the meaning and function of black and white in the comic strip, which are mounted on the book pages. The role of space in comic strip, compared to the role of time in the cinema, enable to feel the role of the time in the book. Therefore storytelling of comic strip has been placed in the inseparable relationship with space. My aim is to think about the black and white meaning in the visual media, especially the use of black and white which is highlighted in the comic strip. Black and white doesn't mean a loss of color in the comic strip but it works around 2 important notions : readability, modernity (with minimalism). In comic strip, 'black and white' is not a true colour but it is complex items which indicate symbolic significances. Moreover it is also a notion which enhance 'existence and absence' and 'visible and invisible'. That's why to analyze and to understand how the space is organized in comic strip page, i chose several examples extract from black and white comic strip.

• Korean Journal of Cognitive Science
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.343-384
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• 2014

In order to unravel the problems of the mind, today's cognitive science has expanded its perspective from the narrow framework of the past computer model or neuronal network model to the wider frameworks of interaction with the brain in interaction with the body in interaction with their environments. The theories of 'the extended mind', 'embodied mind', or 'enactive mind' appeared through such processes are working on a way to move into the environments while the problem to unravel the complex process of interactions between the mind, the body and the environments are left alone. This problem can be traced back as far as to Gibson and Maturana & Varela who tried at first to unravel the problem of the mind in terms of interaction between the brain, the body and there environments in 1960~70s. It's because Gibson stressed the importance of the 'affordance' provided by the environment while Maturana & Varela emphasized the 'autonomy' of auto-poiesis of life. However, it will be proper to say that there are invariants in the affordances provided by the environment as well as the autonomy of life in the state of structural coupling of the environment's variants and life's openness toward the environment. In this case, the confrontational points between Gibson and Maturana & Varela will be resolved. In this article, I propose Benjamin's theory of mimesis as a mediator of both theories. Because Benjamin's concept of mimesis has the process of making a constellation of the embodiment of the affordance and the enaction of new affordance into the environment at the same time, Gibson's concept of the affordance and Maturana & Varela's concept of embodiment and enaction will be so smoothly interconnected to circulate through the medium of Benjamin's concept of mimesis.

• Journal of KIISE:Software and Applications
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.235-247
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• 2002

For an efficient indexing and retrieval of digital video data, research on video caption extraction and recognition is required. This paper proposes methods for extracting artificial captions from video data and enhancing their image quality for an accurate Hangul and English character recognition. In the proposed methods, we first find locations of beginning and ending frames of the same caption contents and combine those multiple frames in each group by logical operation to remove background noises. During this process an evaluation is performed for detecting the integrated results with different caption images. After the multiple video frames are integrated, four different image enhancement techniques are applied to the image: resolution enhancement, contrast enhancement, stroke-based binarization, and morphological smoothing operations. By applying these operations to the video frames we can even improve the image quality of phonemes with complex strokes. Finding the beginning and ending locations of the frames with the same caption contents can be effectively used for the digital video indexing and browsing. We have tested the proposed methods with the video caption images containing both Hangul and English characters from cinema, and obtained the improved results of the character recognition.

• Korean Association for Visual Culture
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• v.17
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• pp.65-92
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• 2011

This thesis investigates the complex functions of the magic lantern in illusionism and enlightment which was the most popular visual media and the direct ancestor of cinema. Especially, the thesis focuses on the characteristics of magic lantern's images which had been varied with the scientific and technological development. During the early period of the magic lantern, from the late 18th century to the beginning of the 19th century, it frightened viewers by showing magic images with ghosts and spectres, 'phantasmagoria', and wondered with images of natural catastropes and interesting stories like fables and fairy tales, which fulfilled the entertainment function. Since the mid 19th century the magic lantern began to show not only pictures of the 'scientific themes' on the earth, nature and human, but also them of the ethnological on the far, exotic worlds like Africa, Amazon and Syberia etc. from the European perspective. These contents conducted the educative function and contributed to the process of Enlightment to the peoples in the pre-modern age. The two functions of the magic lantern such as entertainment and education had been neither historically followed, nor clearly divided, but the one was predominant according to the development of lantern techniques as well as the changes of the world view and the culture of the time. The entertainment function of the magic lantern based on the visual fantacy did exist in the late 19th century further, and also in the late industrial society, even in the age of highly developed science and technology, viewers want rather 're-enchantment' by illusionism than facts and truths on the reality. This is an essential characteristic of the moving image media, as it had already been presented in the images of the magic lantern.

• Journal of Popular Narrative
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.9-41
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• 2020

Park Jong-won's debut film "Guro Arirang," based on a short story of the same title by Lee Moon-yeol, is the first commercial film to deal with labor struggles from a worker's point of view in the wake of the 1987 democratic movement, and a pioneering work in terms of representing female workers the Korean cinema has traditionally turned away from. In this film Park Jong-won tried to win the sympathy of the middle class for labor movement in spite of the red scare which still stood firm in the Korean society at that time. To convey its progressive message in a form acceptable to the middle class public, the film portrays labor issues in the light of universal humanity and ethics, not in terms of class hostility or struggle. Park Jong-won calls this point of view "common sense of normal people" and emphasizes its universality and objectivity. This study critically examines the cinematic strategies to deal with labor issues in a form acceptable to the public in a conventional and commercial film and the ideological implications of the "common sense of normal people" reflected in such strategies. The first chapter of the study reveals that the film destroys the irony of the original story and reduces the complex constellation of the characters to the conflict between pure good and evil, creating a melodramatic composition in which the good falls victim to evil. The tragedies suffered by the workers in the film are of course intended to arouse the audience's strong sympathy and solidarity with them. The second chapter shows that the film's various scenes and episodes converge on the them of compassion and grief, and are mostly based on cultural and real experiences and events that caused great public sensations at that time. Especially in the last decisive scene of the movie, the memory of the June 1987 uprising is strongly recalled. So "Guro Arirang" can be seen as a patchwork of proven cases of compassion and grief. The third chapter examines the implications of the scene where the workers turn back demands for wages and put the issues of human treatment and trust to the forefront at the crucial moment of their struggle. It appeals to universal moral values and sentiments that everyone has to acknowledge and removes the political dimension from the workers' campaign. While the film tends to become a pure story of humanity marginalizing irreconcilable conflicts of class interest, the workers fall to the position of passive victims who can be deeply sympathetic on the one hand, and on the other, are idealized as leaders with noble attitude keeping themselves aloof from the hard reality. As a result, the movie loses its realistic ground and weakens its narrative probability. The scenes reminiscent of the 1987 uprising which evoke the solidarity between working and middle class fail to integrate harmoniously into the whole story of the film and remain only as fragmentary parts of the patchwork of compassion and grief.