• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
• /
• v.10 no.2
• /
• pp.323-331
• /
• 2024

The concept of 'Han' is a psychological characteristic formed by Koreans through long-lasting national hardships. It has deeply influenced every Korean as a form of collective unconscious and has merged with various forms of art over time. Director Bong Joon-ho's works, rich in social consciousness, symbolically visualize sensitive issues like social class, presenting harsh satire on class oppression. His movies continuously emphasize human desires, the homogeneity of good and evil, insurmountable class barriers, and moral decay caused by desires. They produce a wealth of symbols filled with layers and power dynamics. Bong Joon-ho dramatically portrays and directs various forms of symbols. The metaphorical symbols in his movies provide a unique research value for delving into the deeper meanings of the films.This study examines the theme of 'class Han' in six of Bong Joon-ho's films, exploring the 'Han culture' of Korea. It applies semiotic concepts by categorizing into character and non-character symbols for an in-depth analysis of the films. The representative works from the late 1990s to the late 2010s articulate the class layers of the 'visible' and the 'invisible' through a blend of realism and surrealism. The study analyzes Bong Joon-ho's films in the sequence of 'satire-exposure-hope', examining the culturally critical nature of 'Han culture' on class and its psychological and cultural impact on the general public.

• Journal of Science of Art and Design
• /
• v.3
• /
• pp.145-177
• /
• 2001

The artist's interest has been captivated by ecological phenomena in Nature. Her keen captivation has then been focused into plastic art depicting the image of primitive life. The wide sweep of her work encompasses the totality of nature which consists of the human's subconscious power and imagination which she then portrays by organic images. These organic images are in contrast to scientific, mathematical and logical inference and consciousness. This research examines the character of the organic images in modern art by her analysis of some representative works by others. The image is an essential concept in the art which appeared in very different ways and in different perspectives. The image in the artwork appears to be the realistic expression until the early part of the 20th Century. Well into the 20th Century, it began being expressed in various ways such as combined images by imagination which is combined or rejected in the story of artwork. It also began being expressed by transferred images by changed original conditions. It is the main purpose of this research is to study of various expressions of organic images in the artwork of the Post-Modernism era. The character and meaning of organic image painting helps people to approach the human instinct more easily to find out the natural essence. It is also an objective of the organic image to tenderise our human sensibilities, thus helping us to regain vitality and recover our poor humanity in the barren wilderness of modern society. 'Life communion with nature' is a meeting point and common ground for Oriental Philosophy and organic image painting. Through this research, organic image painting is characterised in the four following ways : 1st) Organic image painting seeks regularity and perfection of outer shapes, in contrast to disordered and deformed nature, resulting in organic and biotic formalistic mode of plastic art. 2nd) Organic image painting seeks the formative. 3rd) Organic image painting pursues the priceless dignity of life by researching the formatted arrangement and figure, which contains primitive power of life. 4th) Organic image painting makes crystal clear the power of human and nature, which is a historic and biological phenomenon. This, in turn, exposes the humanistic view of the world from modern society best characterised in lost self-understanding, isolation and materialism. The representative organic image painting artists are Elizabeth Murray, Kusama Yayoi, and Niki do Saint Phalle. Elizabeth Murray used shaped canvas and a round construction of relief works. Kusama Yayoi used Automatistic expressionism originating from the realms of unconsciousness and which is represented by the mass and shape of a water drop. Niki do Saint Phalle shows the transcendence of universal life and anti-life to respect the dignity of life and the eco-friendliness relationship of human and nature in the post-modernism in art history. This is accomplished by surrealistic, symbolic, fantastic and humoristic expression. These three artists' works express the spirit of the organic image in contemporary art. It contains the stream of nature and life to seek not only the state of materialism in the reality, but also the harmonized world of nature and human which has almost lost the important meaning in modern times. Finally, this organic image is the plastic language of the majestic life. It is the romantic idea that the intimacy of nature and the universe and Surrealism, which emphasizes the unconsciousness , is the source of truth and spirit. Also it is influenced by primitive art and abstract art. According to this research, the subject 'Research About Organic Images' is not only an important element in the plastic arts from primitive society to the present, but is also fundamental to an true understanding of Post-Modernism.

• Journal of Science of Art and Design
• /
• v.10
• /
• pp.161-181
• /
• 2006

The words which appeared in my theoretical study and work are image transformation to digital painting, simulation, heterologie and transfiguration, etc. Firstly, let's look into 'digital era' or 'new media era'. Nowadays, the image world including painting within the rapid social and cultural change, which is called as digital era, is having the dramatic change. Together with the development of scientific technology, large number of events which was deemed to be impossible is happening as real in image world Moreover, these changes in image world is greatly influencing to our life. The word which compresses this change of image world and shows is 'digital'. Digit, which means fingers in Latin, indicates separately changing signal, and to be more narrow, it indicates the continual signal of '0' and ' 1' in computer. The opposite word is 'analogue'. As analogue is the word meaning 'infer' or 'similarity', it indicates the signal or form which continuously changes along the series of time when it is compared to digital. Instead of analogue, digital is embossed as a major ruler along the whole area of our current culture. In whole culture and art area, and in whole generalscience, digital is appearing as it has the modernism and importance. The prefix, 'digital', e.g. digital media, digital culture, digital design, digital philosophy, etc, is treated as the synonym of modernism and something new. This advent of digital results the innovative change to the image world, creates the new beauty experience which we could not experience before, and forecasts the formation of advanced art and expansion of creative area. Various intellectual activities using computer is developing the whole world with making the infrastructure. Computer in painting work immediately accomplishes the idea of painters, takes part in simulation work, contingency such as abrupt reversal, extraction, twisting, shaking, obscureness, overlapping, etc, and timing to stimulate the creativity of painters, and provides digital formative language which enables new visual experience to the audience. When the change of digital era, the image appeared in my work is shown in 'transfiguration' like drawing. The word, 'transfiguration' does not indicate the completed and fixed real substance but indicate endlessly moving and floating shape. Thus, this concept is opposite to the substantial consideration, so that various concepts which is able to replace this in accordance with the similar cases are also exist such as change, deterioration, mutation, deformity of appearance and morphing which is frequently used in computer as a technical word. These concepts are not clearly classified, and variably and complicatedly related. Transfiguration basically means the denial of "objectivity' and '(continual) stagnation' or deviation from those. This phenomenon is appeared through the all art schools of art ever since the realism is denied in the 19th century. It is called as 'deformation' in case of expressionism, futurism, cubism, etc, in the beginning of the century, which its former indication is mostly preserved within the process of structural deviation and which has the realistic limit which should be preserved. On the contrary, dramatic transfiguration which has been showing in the modern era through surrealism is different in the point that dramatic transfiguration tends to show the deterioration and deviation rather than the preservation of indicated object. From this point, transfiguration coming out from morphing using computer deteriorates and hides the reality and furthermore, it replaces the 'reality'. Moreover, transfiguration is closely approached to the world of fake or 'imaginary' simulation world of Baudrillard. According to Baudrillard, the image hides and deteriorates the reality, and furthermore, expresses 'not existing' to 'imaginary' under the name of transfiguration. Certain reality, that is, image which is absent from the reality is created and overflowed, so that it finally replaces the reality. This is simulation as it is said by Baudrillard. In turn, Georges Bataille discusses about the image which is produced by digital technology in terms of heterologie. Image of heterologie is the visual signal which is established with the media. Image of media is to have the continuous characteristics of produce, extinction, and transformation, and its clear boundary between images becomes meaningless. The meaning of composition, excess, violation, etc of digital image is explained to heterological study or heteologie suggested as important meaning of Georges Bataille who is a heretic philosopher. As the form and image of mutation shows the shape in accordance with mechanical production, heterologie is introduced as very low materialism (or bas materialisme), in this theory. Heterologie as low materialism which is gradually changing is developing as a different concept and analysis because of the change of time in the late 20s century beside high or low meaning. Including my image, all images non-standardizes and transforms the code. However, reappearance and non-standardization of this code does not seem to be simple. The problem of transformation caused by transfiguration which appears in my digital drawing painting, simulation, heterologie, etc, are the continual problems. Moreover, the subject such as existence of human being, distance from the real life, politics and social problems are being extended to actual research and various expressing work. Especially, individual image world is established by digital painting transfiguration technique, and its change and review start to have the durability. The consciousness of observers who look at the image is changing the subject. Together with theoretical research, researchers are to establish the first step to approach to various image change of digital era painting through transfiguration technique using our realistic and historical image.

• The Journal of Art Theory & Practice
• /
• no.4
• /
• pp.57-76
• /
• 2006

From the late 1920s to the 1930s, Korea's fine art community focused on traditional viewpoints as their main topic. The traditional viewpoints were discussed mainly by Korean students studying in Japan, especially oil painters. Such discussions on tradition can be divided into two separate halves, namely the pre- and post-Sino-Japanese War (1937) periods. Before the war, the modernists among Korea's fine art community tried to gain a fuller understanding of contemporary Western modern art, namely, expressionism, futurism, surrealism, and so forth, on the basis of Orientalism, and borrow from these schools' in order to create their own works. Furthermore, proponents of Joseon's avant-garde fine arts and artists of the pro-fine art school triggered debate on the traditional viewpoints. After the Sino-Japanese War, these artists continued to embrace Western modern art on the basis of Orientalism. However, since Western modern fine art was regressing into Oriental fine art during this period, Korean artists did not need to research Western modern fine art, but sought to study Joseon's classics and create Joseon's own avant- garde fine art in a movement led by the Munjang group. This research reviews the traditional view espoused by the Munjang group, which represented the avant-garde fine art movement of the post-war period. Advocating Joseon's own current of avant-garde fine art through the Munjang literary magazine, Gil Jin - seop, Kim Yong-jun and others accepted the Japanese fine art community's methodology for the restoration of classicism, but refused Orientalism as an ideology, and attempted to renew their perception of Joseon tradition. The advocation of the restoration of classicism by Gil Jin-seop and Kim Yong-jun appears to be similar to that of the Yasuda Yojuro-style restoration of classicism. However, Gil Jin-seop and Kim Yong-jun did not seek their sources of classicism from the Three-Kingdoms and Unified Silla periods, which Japan had promoted as a symbol of unity among the Joseon people; instead they sought classicism from the Joseon fine art which the Japanese had criticized as a hotbed of decadence. It was the Joseon period that the Munjang group chose as classicism when Japan was upholding Fascism as a contemporary extremism, and when Hangeul (Korean writing system) was banned from schools. The group highly evaluated literature written in the style of women, especially women's writings on the royal court, as represented by Hanjungnok (A Story of Sorrowful Days). In the area of fine art, the group renewed the evaluation of not only literary paintings, but also of the authentic landscape paintings refused by, and the values of the Chusa school criticized as decadent by, the colonial bureaucratic artists, there by making great progress in promoting the traditional viewpoint. Kim Yong-jun embraced a painting philosophy based on the painting techniques of Sasaeng (sketching), because he paid keen attention to the tradition of literary paintings, authentic landscape paintings and genre paintings. The literary painting theory of the 20th century, which was highly developed, could naturally shed both the colonial historical viewpoint which regarded Joseon fine art as heteronomical, and the traditional viewpoint which regarded Joseon fine art as decadent. As such, the Munjang group was able to embrace the Joseon period as the source of classicism amid the prevalent colonial historical viewpoint, presumably as it had accumulated first-hand experience in appreciating curios of paintings and calligraphic works, instead of taking a logical approach. Kim Yong-jun, in his fine art theory, defined artistic forms as the expression of mind, and noted that such an artistic mind could be attained by the appreciation of nature and life. This is because, for the Munjang group, the experience of appreciating nature and life begins with the appreciation of curios of paintings and calligraphic works. Furthermore, for the members of the Munjang group, who were purists who valued artistic style, the concept of individuality presumably was an engine that protected them from falling into the then totalitarian world view represented by the Nishita philosophy. Such a 20th century literary painting theory espoused by the Munjang group concurred with the contemporary traditional viewpoint spearheaded by Oh Se-chang in the 1910s. This theory had a great influence on South and North Korea's fine art theories and circles through the Fine Art College of Seoul National University and Pyongyang Fine Art School in the wake of Korea's liberation. In this sense, the significance of the theory should be re-evaluated.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
• /
• s.39
• /
• pp.59-83
• /
• 2015

Magical realism, blooming and improving in Latin America, opened the new vision about reality and rationalism, coming out from the out-styled frame of past. While having common points with unrealistic literature, which uses fantastical components, magical realism is different from Surrealism and fantasy literature that is focusing on reality and realizing reality intensely. In the early stage of this research, magical realism was restricted by the characteristics of literature of Latin America, but the research of magical realism is expanding in planning Post-Modernism nowadays. Lately, the influence of magical realism is identified in literatures, arts, films, and animations over the world; according to the research, however, research about magical realism in animations was not done in Korea before. A Korean independent animation "A coffee vending machine and its sword" was evaluated positively in many international film festivals is valuable as the research of magical realism. Throughout this study, this animation "A coffee vending machine and its sword" was analyzed by its narrative and images. The analysis of narrative consists two parts. One is about the form of narrative and the other is about contents through the story. Analysis of Image is also divided into two parts: background image and character image. In this animation, the protagonist is narrating about the fantastic accidents in his life and his own feelings towards it. The narration leads audience to understand his situation and feelings in meta-fiction. On the surface, audience watches the love story of a normal girl and coffee vending machine in this artwork, but deep inside the animation, it is visible that the directors tried to make audiences think about the life of 880,000-won Generation in Korea. The background image was represented as real places in Seoul including the landmark of Seoul, making mimesis of reality in Korea. The character image has two conflicting aspects with reincarnated warrior, Jinyoungyoung and a coffee vending machine. It is a hybrid-character transmogrifying between two characters. Likewise, "A coffee vending machine and its sword" has the characteristics of Korean magical realism through form, content and image. Through analyzing the Korean independent animation "A coffee vending machine and its sword", this research tried to find a way of using factors of fantasy, of representing reality as a dramatic device and of using magical realism of Korean animation for bond of sympathy with audience.