• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.17 no.7
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• pp.22-30
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• 2017

CGI not only performed a crucial role to make cinema and animation evolved into digital cinema and digital animation but also CGI, an important visual format, settled realism-centric spectacle image culture in public commercial cinema and animation. The fact that CGI visual format could be structuralized in three different view points is discovered through Iconicity, photorealism, verisimilitude, uncanny valley, hyperrealism, and spectacular realism discourse research which explain image culture. First, a formative viewpoint that comes up in an iconic difference between drawing and photograph. Secondly, a cognitive viewpoint that sees visually perceived naturalness and abnormality as a realistic probability issue. Lastly, a customary viewpoint which is rooted in aesthetic tradition of cinema and animation. After that, the features of CGI which is used in the movie 'jungle book'(2016) were analyzed using the structured visual format. Consequently, this movie has hyper-realistic photographic iconicity on the base of realistic probability. Also, by following image-aesthetic convention which uses overstated and amplified narrative as a visual format, at the same time, the movie also has sufficient image-aesthetic convention in animation by personified animal character.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.47
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• pp.81-101
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• 2017

The present study argues that film director Lee Ae-rim animation works depict the world of the grotesque and not only are important sociocultural phenomena but also hold the significance of humor and subversion. The grotesque exhibits the intriguing characteristics of expressing a perspective critical of the existing society through the sensibilities of minorities and is used broadly as a term not only in the aesthetic sense but also designating sociocultural phenomena. Although discussed separately in terms of Mikhail Bakhtin's carnival grotesque and Mary Russo's uncanny grotesque, the grotesque fundamentally rejects existing order and conventions and is externalized through unique expressions, thus opening up a rich possibility for rejection, humor, satire, transformation, and deconstruction of and regarding the authority of the mainstream. Although they constitute a fictional medium, animation films are social products as well so that they are affected by society, culture, and history and stand as important texts that must be interpreted in terms of the relationships between humans' instinctive desires and society and between the overall culture and artistic media. However, the rarity of grotesque portrayals in South Korean animation films also proves that it is a society where even problems that are in themselves sensitive must be manifested ingeniously on a conventional level. South Korean society has a unique history of colonialism and national division and is simultaneously in the unique situation of a society that has undergone growth at a nearly unprecedented rate. Consequently, the society exhibits closed yet dynamic particularity where everyday tension and rigidity, wariness of others and extreme competition are intertwined in a complex manner. Intensively analyzed in the present discussions, director Lee's animation films and are characterized mainly by grotesque images, nonlinear narratives, and vivid depictions. In such a context, these works not only are artistic products of South Korean society but also rejections of a rigid society and share the significance of the aesthetics of the carnival grotesque, which consists of subversive expressions directed at a new world.

• Journal of Korean Theatre Studies Association
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• no.53
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• pp.57-87
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• 2014

This article re-reads the messages of the text, 'Incendies', the uncanny actions and the strange words of protagonist Nawal, through the ideas of Jacques Lacan, particularly his notion of sexuation with posing questions about most of the previous reviews which are based on femininity or motherhood. For Lacan, masculinity and femininity are not biological essences but symbolic positions, and the assumption of one of these two positions is fundamental to the construction of subjectivity. So 'man' and 'woman' are merely signifiers that stand for these two subjective positions. Each side is defined by both an affirmation and a negation of the phallic function, by both an inclusion and exclusion of absolute non-phallic jouissance. Unlike the man, the woman is 'not-all' identified with the phallic function, demonstrating the undecidability and impossibility of totalising the woman. Although the woman is bound to do castration through being subject to the phallic function, she is also related to the signifier of the barred Other, S(Ⱥ) which stands for a gap or lack in the Other. Thus, as a consequence of not being entirely within the symbolic, she has an Other Jouissance, Feminine Jouissance, because it's possible to face emptiness of the Symbolic, the Real only in the place of the woman for new Ethics/Politics. This paper finds that Nawal is not completely defined by the phallic function and she is a subject of death drive that practices the signifying cut with passing through the fantasy as a screen for the desire of the Other. Nawal is situated on the position of the woman as 'not-all' unlike masculinity in Lacanian sexuation. This article shows that her strange acts are love, that is the true ethical acts. Above all her acts are related to the ethics of pure desire beyond the ethics of the Good of Aristotle. In that sense the character of Nawal of 'Incendies' is similar to the one of 'Antigone' as a character in all aspects. In psychoanalysis they all are true subjects that face a void, emptiness in a symbolic structure. They assume underlying impossibility of being/the Symbolic. They don't represent the images of compromise and peace in the normally accepted meaning of the word. A love that they show is not compassion but blind recognition of the excluded, embracing uniqueness of the excluded. This thesis finds resultingly Nawal's acts which can't be understood from viewpoint of feminism practice the ethics of the real, the politics of the real.

• Journal of Popular Narrative
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.181-209
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• 2019

The purpose of this article is to compare zombie narratives in relation to the Other. In previous research, the view of zombies as post-capitalist soulless consumers or workers has been frequently expressed. But in this article, I wanted to look at zombies as the main cause of the collapse of the world and a new future. First, zombies do not only mean the representation of the consumer in the late capitalist era. Rather, it is an awakening subject desiring the outside of the system. As you can see from the Uncanny's point of view, zombies are something that we should oppress as freaks and monsters that threatened the Other. To be a zombie in this way is to meet one's other self, the "Fundamentals of Humanity," and it is the moment when everything becomes the subject ex nihilo, the new beginning. Second, the concept of infection shows a new ethic. Zombie cannibalism is different from the selfish love of a vampire who sucks a worker's blood. Zombie cannibalism is an infection, which is a model of Christian love for one's neighbor. It is a moment of awakening and the beginning of solidarity. It is on the waiting for the solidarity that the zombie hangs in such a way, and the attack on the human being is an active illusion. Third, the situation of the end of a zombie narrative is another event for newness. The anger of a zombie serves not just to show monsters, but acts as a catalyst that accelerates the world's catastrophes. The anger of zombies is the messianic violence that stops the false world, and presents a new way. The emergence of zombies and the popular response to them embody a desire for the possibility of a new subject and world.

• Journal of Popular Narrative
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.135-158
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• 2019

The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the characteristics that make Guillermo del Toro's film Pan's Labyrinth (2006) a fantasy film, and the meaning and function of the labyrinth motifs closely related to it. Tzvetan Todorov defined the 'fantastic' as the hesitation between natural and supernatural interpretations in the face of supernatural events that invade reality. In Pan's Labyrinth, the fantastic continues to be seen, because the film does not allow the hesitation to disappear; thus, the fantastic does not enter the 'uncanny' genre or 'marvelous' genre, and because it keeps its fantastic state. In this case, the labyrinth symbolizes art as a passage into the fantastic world and a space that represents it. Rosemary Jackson saw the fantasy as a "literature of desire to compensate for a lack resulting from cultural constraints" and thus repeatedly dealing with unconscious materials. Del Toro's film shows the character of the fantastic as an expression of desire by allowing 'family romance' to take place in the fantastic world. In this case, the labyrinth symbolizes the mind as a place of desire. Kathryn Hume defined fantasy as a reaction to reality, like mimesis, and 'departure from consensus reality.' The film, operating in a 'vision' genre, satisfies its definition by allowing the fantastic world to illuminate the reality world through 'contrastive' technique, and brings out the fantastic it has. In this case, the labyrinth symbolizes the world as a mirror of the world of reality. Thus, Pan's Labyrinth is representative of fantastic film in that the fantastic functions very effectively, and the labyrinth appearing in this film can be evaluated as a motif that is full of meaning by symbolizing all three elements of art, world and mind. The significance of this paper is to shed light on how a motif works in a particular genre through the above considerations.

• Journal of Korea Entertainment Industry Association
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.45-53
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• 2021

Digital morph expresses the imaginary beyond the representation of reality by expressing the narrative effect characteristically. In particular, the effect of affect can be considered to be a characteristic of digital cinema as a post-cinema. In (2013), Morphing image prominently shows the characteristics of post-cinema. By actively utilizing software technology, this film gives a shocking effect by expressing the magical image. Paying attention to the post-cinematic characteristics of morphing different from classical film, this article treated the characteristics of digital morphing. The digital morphing presents the flow of affect visualizing uncanny phenomenon of body transformation. This evokes concept of neuro-image which Patricia Pisters distinguished the neuropsychiatric pathology that appears actively on the contemporary digital screen. The Neuro-image goes beyond the temporality of Deleuze's time-image presenting future. Allegedly, the morphing of presents the neuro-images when Nina's body changed to hybrid body with black swan. Digital Morphing technique provides a shocking effect, showing delirium when the body bizarrely deformed while dancing ballet. This is different from the attraction of the morphing in film, it expresses the emotion of the neoliberal era beyond representation. In conclusion, the digital morphing presents the neuro-image system modulating the shock. This shows the characteristics of digital film which interacting and controling the shock effect as post-cinema.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.37
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• pp.439-461
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• 2014

Art has evolved into remarkable changes in its art form maintaining a close link with the contemporary scientific technologies that gave birth to new tools of expression in each era. Animation is an art form in an inextricable connection with technological aspects because it was spawned by the technical background like movies. In this regard, animation is often viewed very strongly by technical advancements in terms of an aesthetic approach. John Whitney Sr., one of the pioneers in computer graphics arts, turned his attention to the new technology called computer graphics as a means to visualize images and movement. The advent of a new medium had a strong influence not only on tools and means for novel expression but also on the gradual shift in thinking about arts and even the audiences' taste. In the 1980s, animation was combined with computer technology and the rapid progress of computer graphic technology opened up the era of new visual aesthetics, Today, the development of digital technology presents a different dimension of realism, either advocating hyperrealism by digital actors or presenting new illusionism by classic cartoon characters emphasized in a distortion or metamorphosis from a real life in order to consolidate animation realism. Based on the two perspectives mentioned above, this study can identify methods of digital character appropriation focused on the works of the ACM SIGGRAPH Asia and find how the relationship between art and technology has changed the digital realism and evolved the digital character as the digital technology has developed.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.77
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• pp.137-163
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• 2016

In the early 1900, photography, magic lantern and cinema were simultaneously introduced and experienced until the mid-1910s as mysterious and magical symbol of modern science and technology. The technology of vision, cinema in particular demonstrated its commercially expandable potentials through serial films in the mid-1910s, silent cinema in the 1920s and talkies in 1930s. I argue that a metaphor 'like a movie' which was would be spoken out by peoples as a cliche ever since the late 1910s whenever they encountered something uncanny, mysterious, and looking wholly new phenomena informs how cinematic technology worked in colonial society at the turning point to the early 20th century. Mass in colonial society accepted cinema and other visual technologies not only as an advanced science of the times but as texts of modernity that is the reason why cinema had so quickly taken cultural hegemony over the colony. Until the mid-1920s, discourse on cinema focused not on cinema itself, rather more on the theatre matters such as hygiene, facilities for public use, disturbance, quarrels and fights, theft, and etc. Since the mid-1920s and especially in wartime 1930s, discourses about negative influences and effects of cinema on behavior, mind and spirit of masses, bodily health, morality and crime were articulated and delivered by Japanese authorities and agencies like as police, newspapers and magazines, and collaborate Korean intellectuals. Theories and research reports stemming from disciplines of psychology, sociology, and mass-psychology that emphasized vulnerability and susceptibility of the crowd and mass consumers who would be exposed to visual images, spectacles and strong toxic stimulus in everyday lives. Those negative discourse on influences and effects of cinema was intimately associated with fear of the crowd and mass as well as new technology which does not allow clear understanding about how it works in future. The fact that cinema as a technology of vision could be used as an apparatus of ideology and propaganda stirred up doubts and pessimistic perspectives on cinema influence. Discourse on visual technology cinema constructed under colonial governance is doomed to be technology of mass control for empire's own sake.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.30
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• pp.245-262
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• 2013

This paper analyzes three feature films that are based on Brothers Grimm's "Snow White": Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Tarsem Singh's Mirror Mirror (2012), and Rupert Sanders' Snow White and the Huntsman (2012). Disney's animation, not the original literature, is the archetype of the later films. Grimm's fairy tail does not include the kiss of Prince Charming that saved Snow White which is, in fact, borrowed from "Sleeping Beauty", nor Snow White's rapport with animals. In Snow White and the Huntsman 's case, the costume of protagonist is similar with Disney's film and some shots are almost identical with Disney's version in terms of composition and angles. Nevertheless, these films show their originality with markedly different visual styles. Mirror Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsman have achieved reasonable success at the box office despite of relatively simple and predictable narratives due to the power of spectacle. While Disney's Snow White displays the model of witch that later becomes prototype of many movies, Mirror Mirror represents the unique magical world, a trompe-l'oell that can only done by director Tarsem, and Snow White and the Huntsman successfully visualizes Freudian concept of 'the uncanny' itself.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.50
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• pp.31-51
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• 2018

The concept of 'monsters' have become popular, again, in recent times. A number of 'monster narratives' that discuss monsters such as zombies, humanoids, viruses, extraterrestrials, and serial killers have been made and re-made in popular media. Noting such an interesting cultural context, this article attempts, first, to find out some essential prototypical elements of a monster narrative and, second, to relate it with a catastrophic narrative. Correspondingly, the word 'monster' has been used as a conceptual prototype category that denies universal and clear definition, which makes it as one of the most widely used and familiar subjects of the use of metaphor. The prototypical meanings of various monster figures can be converged on a certain creature of being in this way held out as bizarre, curious, and abnormal. The monster figure that surpasses existing normality is also connected to 'abjection,' such as something that is cast aside from the body such as the bodily functions seen in its associated blood, tears, vomit, excrement, or semen, and so on. Nevertheless, both the monster figure and abjection produce disgust and horror in the minds of ordinary spectators or readers of media using this metaphor to heighten excitement for the viewers. The abject characteristic of the monster figure also has something in common with the posthuman figure, meaning to apply to a category of inhuman others who are held outside of the normal category of human beings. In the similar vein, it is natural that the most typical monster figures in our times are posthuman creatures embodied in such forms as seen with zombies, humanoids, cyborgs, robots, and so on. In short, the monster figure includes all of the creatures and beings that disarray normalized humanist categories and values. The monster narrative, in the same sense, is a type of story that tells about others outside modern, anthropocentric, male-centered, and Westernized categories of thought. It can be argued that a catastrophic narrative, a literary genre which depicts the world where a series of catastrophic events demolish the existing human civilization, ought to be seen as a typical modern-day monster narrative, because it also discounts and criticizes normalized humanist categories and values as is the result of the monster narrative. Going beyond the prevailing humanist realist narrative that are so familiar with existing values, the catastrophic narrative is not only a monster narrative per se, but also a monstrous narrative which disrupts and reinvents currently mainstream narratives and ways of thinking.