Euyoung Hong

Politics of Space, Social Economy of Space - 고충환 미술평론가

• 2016Chung-Hwan Kho (Art Critic)A Study of the Space of Han Pyeong . The space of han pyeong is filled with variety of objects, such as a fan, a light, cups, water bottles and food containers, most of which are made from plastic resources, and some other objects, including an abandoned chair, a drying rack, a ladder, steel rods and clear plastic slate-roof. These objects can, at first glance, be seen as useless things, but each of them certainly has its particular use in our everyday life. The space of han pyeong is packed with these objects, presenting the cramped condition of the space. An interesting point in the work is that these objects keep their balance by using natural dynamics, such as forces of gravity or tension without support by any adhesive materials. The balance seems fragile, yet compacted. It is also random, yet precise. This compacted and precise balance defuses a highly charged tension. This precisely constructed system of balance can easily be destroyed, when the position of a small object is changed or lightly touched. It is obvious that we cannot think of a space without the concept of money in the age of capitalism. Space is money; and money is space. For most people, who live in this day and age, having one’s own space is the matter of existence. People can be pushed out of Seoul or the metropolitan area if they cannot afford to have a minimum space of han pyeong. Although a person may find a tiny space with difficulty, it is mostly a temporary expedient, whereby the space is, at least, required to provide a self-contained living system for his or her life. It is related to the tension created by the thorough use of a small space. The intensity of tension is too strong to be easily destroyed by a least chance from the outside. Spaces are destroyed; people’s lives are collapsed; and their existence falls. This installation work presents a social and psychological symptom of spatiality, tension and anxiety, which can be experienced by people, who live in the life of temporary expedient. Removal. Moving house became an ordinary course of event for the people who are always pushed. In these days, removal is considered one of professional business sectors, which provides a variety of special vans and vehicles. However, a 1,000 kg light truck still makes a certain connection with the idea of a pack for moving. Hong reconstructed a part of the load space of a 1,000kg light truck, transforming it into an aluminium structure and installed it on the wall like a picture frame with a hanging green mesh tarp on the structure. Inside the mesh tarp, a bundle of bricks, which seems a pack for moving, is covered with clear plastic sheet and a rubber band. Humanities in this age tells us about Maurice Blanchot’s the thought from outside and Gilles Deleuze’s nomadology. Related to these ideas, Hong’s installation work focuses on nomads in the age of capitalism, that is, the people who are pushed to the peripheries and have the idea of periphery, as well as the people who live against the established social and institutional systems or practice the writing of periphery or murmur to themselves. It emphasizes the ontology of the people who fall from human being to a mere thing in terms of the fetishism of capitalism and materialism. (Un)balancing. The large street flower pots, which are installed in public spaces for the purpose of street renewal, are vertically stacked, such as a form of tower. The situation of two flower towers, which put their upper ends together and are stacked on the slanted platforms, can be easily seen as being balanced, but it actually gives us instability, owning to the slanted sides. At least, balance, which is appeared outwardly, potentially possesses unbalance; and stability contains instability. In other words, it is a unbalanced balance and an instable stability. This is somehow familiar. It evokes Baroque aesthetics that establishes a balance through unbalancing, the dialectic that synthesizes different points of view through the medium of contradiction, and the estrangement effect of the Avant-Garde that allows us to face the substance of familiar things. Hong appropriates these points and elements of aesthetic achievement for constructing the politics of space. In other words, Hong’s work focuses on the reality of the role of large flower pots in public space, which actually functions as a different institutional apparatus, rather than practicising urban renewal. Like a division between sidewalks and driveways, it can be understood as the symbol of prohibition, surveillance and visible and invisible lines that are made by a system or a regime. However, it is not considered seriously, because the line is changeable and flexible. For example, the line can deeply invade inside the sidewalks in order to push homeless people on the street. Hong’ work discusses about the organic and botanic proxemics of urban system. Squeeze. Squeeze means to firmly press, manage to get into or through a restricted space, force out or by pressure and extort. Hong applies the idea of squeeze to the nature or a similar nature. Contemporary people exploit, press and force the nature by pressure. They even extort the nature for air purification, mental relaxation or decoration. (Pierre Bourdieu said that ornament is a crime.) For proving the return to nature or for testifying a seclusive life without any substance. Or for showing off the life. When there is nothing to exploit from the nature, it is squeezed at the corner. The flower pot is squeezed in the small space at the corner of the ceiling. The space seems enough for pens, rather than the planted flower pot. This installation work presents the places of others in capitalism, such as a corner, periphery and surplus. It provides a way of being or fatalism of things, which are abandoned and forgot by the fetishism of capitalism, commercializing the nature. Constructed Landscape (three-dimensional work). A variety of bottles are densely arranged on the out-dated table. This table represents the perception of contemporary people’s own spaces, self-consciousness or a desire. Also, four long legs which sustain the old table can be related to the instable perception of space as well as that of the present. The pile of bottles on the table can be viewed as a similar nature such as a mountain or a forest. The edges of the table draw a horizontal line, where the sky and the mountain meet. At large, the colour composed of green and brown bottles resembles the nature. It also satirizes the reality, in which the nature is easily replaced by the artificial skyline constructed by building forests.Only the pile of bottles evokes forest and building. Contemporary art is often called the technique of arrangement and display. Pragmatics supports the technique. It means that once arrangement and display are changed, the meaning is necessarily changed too. A meaning is determined in a context. It is certainly related to Roland Barthes’s idea, in which he argues that everything occurs in a text; therefore, there exists nothing outside the text. In Hong’s work, a table is changed into a space; bottles become a forest. An apartment complex becomes a mountain or the nature. It becomes the landscape of capitalism, fetishism and desire, which imitates and appropriates the actual. Constructed Landscape (two-dimensional work). Capitalist fetishism commercializes the nature and replaces it by an artificial nature, such as building forests and an apartment complex. Contemporary people consume this replaced and commercialized nature. These consumer goods include pleasure and recreation resorts, which are almost close to the original form of nature. Some of them are transferred into images, such as National Geographic or a postcard. The images of nature are frequently consumed. An example can be found in the construction site wall. Many different images are used for covering the construction site wall. A typical case is the image of nature. In a way, the image of nature is contrasted in order to hide the dark side of capitalism, such as profit fights in the reconstruction business and the terrible conditions of displaced people. Here, when the amount of profits or interests is larger and the situation of the residents is more serious, the images of nature should be shown more vivid and realistic. The politics of image and the industry of dream necessarily work well in the system.Hong’s work presents an image of forest. When we look at closely, a collaged landscape, which is composed of parts of forest images, can be found. When looking more closely, buildings are hidden behind the images. The images of buildings are also edited and collaged. On the surface, it can be seen as a forest, but the images of nature are mixed with the images of buildings or the desire of capitalism. Behind the image of nature, the construction site wall hides the dark side of capitalism. A Space Made by Thirty Water Containers. 30 white plastic water containers draw a triangular space, by following the edge lines. The installation of water containers may be created based on the idea of a certain kind of living art and everyday objects, such as an expedient barrier for preventing illegal parking. This presents the desire of contemporary people’s own space as well as a symbol of the desire of capitalism. This triangular space is seen as an edge space, the space of odds and ends and the surplus of space. A question is asked. Why does this work require thirty water containers? It reminds us of the Sewol Ferry disaster in South Korea in April, 2014, particularly a person who rescued 30 students or 30 innocent students who had a narrow escape from death. In this installation work, Hong uses the medium of space and appropriates the places of others in capitalism, which are related to the idea of edge, periphery and surplus. This work provides a new principle of space use, which is differentiated from the desire of capitalism. According to Georges Bataille, capitalism pushes the things that are economically infeasible to the peripheries. These things are called surpluses. These surpluses have a trauma, which is caused by the exclusive logic of capitalism and repressive desire; and they are called for testifying the trauma. In the work, 30 white water containers testify the death of the innocent students. Michel Foucault developed a way in which an idea is expressed spatially. In an extension line, the concepts of utopia and heterotopia were created. Utopia is a space, which exists only in people’s thoughts. On the contrary, heterotopia exists in the reality, but it is a place, which is not only erased from people’s consciousness, but also provides a new way of existence, distinct from a general concept of space. In relation to variable, temporary and potential space concepts, it is a place, through which the chance of repression and the operation of power parameterized in the space are exposed.Hong’s installation work can be understood through this kind of space concepts. Her previous works focused on the physiology of space that is constructed, added, deconstructed and restructured depending on living convenience, especially looking at space concepts, which work as potentiality, live like a plant and practice. Fragmented space, which is emphasized in the previous works, is not confined to the relationship between part and whole and is produced by the parts as a whole. Her recent works become more deepen and expanded by moving her interest to the politics of space and the social economy of space. In addition, realistic and narrative aspects are more clarified and emphasized in her works. Hong’s works can be seen as a formal experiment, which discovers a new possible place for heterotopia, crossing over the problem of power, which pervades space, place, territory and boundary, and Deleuze’s practical logic of de-territorialization, which opposes the program of territory. 공간의 정치학, 공간의 사회경제학 고충환(Kho, Chung-Hwan 미술평론) 한 평 공간에 대한 연구. 한 평 공간 속에 물건들이 잡다하다. 팬과 형광등, 물 컵과 생수통, 반찬용기 등 대개는 플라스틱 소재의 각종 용기들, 폐 의자와 빨래건조대, 간이 사다리와 철재 봉, 투명 플라스틱 슬레이트 등등. 얼핏 보면 잡동사니들 같지만, 사실은 하나하나가 쓰임새가 있는 일상용품들이다. 이 기물들이 한 평 공간이 좁다는 듯 빼곡한데, 특이한 것은 어떤 접착제도 사용하지 않은 채 순수한 역학(이를테면 중력이나 장력)만으로 균형을 잡고 있는 점이다. 그 균형은 허술한 것 같지만 빈틈이 없고 되는대로 같지만 엄밀하다. 이처럼 빈틈이 없고 엄밀한 균형에서 팽팽한 긴장감이 감돈다. 그 균형이 빈틈이 없고 엄밀한 것은 구조물 중 하나만 다르게 놓거나 심지어 살짝 건드리기만 해도 와르르 무너질 것 같고 아마도 실제로도 그렇다. 주지하다시피 자본주의 시대에 돈에 대한 개념 없이 공간에 대해서 생각할 수는 없다. 공간이 돈이고 돈이 공간이다. 이 시대를 사는 대부분의 사람들에게 자기만의 공간을 갖는다는 것은 생존이 걸린 문제다. 한 평 공간을 확보하지 못해 서울에서 밀려나고 수도권으로 밀려난다. 그렇게 밀려나다 어렵사리 확보한 한 평 공간마저 대개는 임시방편이기 쉽지만, 여하튼 그나마 그 속에서 자족적인 생활이 가능해야 한다. 한 치의 빈틈도 없는 공간 활용이 주는 팽팽한 긴장감은 바로 여기에 연유한다. 그 긴장감의 강도는 너무 팽팽한 것이어서 외부로부터의 최소한의 계기에도 여지없이 허물어지고 만다. 공간이 무너지고, 삶이 붕괴되고, 존재가 내려앉고 만다. 작가의 이 작업은 이런 임시방편의 삶의 질을 사는 대다수 사람들이 피부로 느끼는 공간감, 긴장감, 불안감의 사회심리학적 징후 같다. 이사. 그리고 그렇게 떠밀려 다니는 사람들에게 잦은 이사는 일상이다. 지금은 이사도 전문적인 업종이 되었고 제법 번듯한 이삿짐 전문차량도 있지만, 얼마 전까지만 해도 그리고 어쩌면 지금도 여전히 이삿짐하면 먼저 떠오르는 것이 1톤 트럭이다. 작가는 이 트럭의 공간수치 그대로 알루미늄 프레임으로 짠 것을 무슨 액자처럼 벽에 걸고, 그 위에 이삿짐을 싸는 그물망을 드리워놓았다. 그리고 그물망 안쪽에는 아마도 이삿짐에 해당할 벽돌꾸러미를 비닐과 고무 밴드를 이용해 꽁꽁 싸 놓았다. 이 시대의 인문학은 바깥의 사유(모리스 블랑쇼)에 대해서 말하고 유목주의(질 들뢰즈)에 대해서 말한다. 그리고 작가의 이 작업은 순수한 타의에 의해 변방으로 밀려난 사람들이며 변방의 의식을 가지게 된 사람들(반사회적이고 반제도적인 의식을 사는 사람들? 이미 변방의 글쓰기를 온 몸으로 실천해온 사람들? 혼잣말을 중얼거리는 사람들?), 자본주의 시대의 유목민에 대해서 말해준다. 인격으로부터 한갓 짐짝(자본의 페티시? 물신의 페티시?)으로 추락한 사람들의 존재론에 대해서 말해준다. 균형 잡기 혹은 불균형한. 거리정화를 목적으로 거리에 설치해 놓은 거대화분을 무슨 탑처럼 쌓아놓았다. 기우뚱한 지표면 위에 그렇게 쌓은 두 개의 화분 탑이 서로 머리를 맞대고 있는 형국이 외적으로 균형을 잡고 있는 것처럼 보이지만, 사실은 지표면 자체가 기울어져 있어서 불안한 느낌을 준다. 결국 외적으로 드러나 보이는 균형은 불균형을 잠재하고 있는 균형이며, 안정은 불안정을 잠재하고 있는 안정에 지나지 않는다. 불균형한 균형이며 불안정한 안정에 지나지가 않는다. 근데 이 대목이 왠지 낯설지가 않다. 불균형을 통해 균형을 추구한 바로크미학을 떠올리게 하고, 모순을 매개로 합에 이른 변증법을 떠올리게 하고, 낯설게 하기를 통해 친숙한 것의 실체와 대면하게 한 아방가르드의 소격효과를 떠올리게 만든다. 작가는 이 모든 미학적 성과들의 지점이며 성분들을 공간의 정치학을 위해 전유한다. 무슨 말인가. 작가는 이런 거리화분이 외적으로 거리정화를 수행하는 것 같지만, 사실은 다른 제도적인 장치를 수행하고 있는 것이 현실이라는 사실에 주목한다. 이를테면 인도와 차도를 구별하는 것과 같은. 그리고 그렇게 제도가 그어놓은 보이는 보이지 않는 선을, 금지를, 감시를 상징하는 것과 같은. 그렇다고 정색을 할 필요는 없다. 그 선은 가변적이고 유도리가 있기 때문이다. 다만 제도에게만 그렇지만. 이를테면 포장마차 철거를 위해서라면, 그리고 노숙자를 밀어내기 위해서라면 그 선은 인도 안쪽으로 깊숙하게 침범할 수도 있는 일이다. 작가의 이 작업은 바로 이런 제도의 유기적인 공간학이며 식물적인 공간학에 대해서 말해준다. Squeeze. 압착하다, 짜내다, 끼워 넣다, 쑤셔 넣다, 그리고 심지어 강요하다, 갈취하다 등의 의미를 가진다. 작가는 이 말을 자연(유사자연?)에다 적용한다. 현대인은 말하자면 자연을 압착하고, 짜내고, 끼워 넣고, 쑤셔 넣는다. 그리고 때로 강요하고, 갈취한다. 무슨 말인가. 현대인은 자연을 갈취한다. 공기정화를 위해서. 심신의 안정을 위해서. 장식을 위해서(피에르 부르디외는 장식이 죄악이라고 했다). 자연회귀사상을 증명하기 위해서. 은일하고 은거하는 삶을 증언하기 위해서. 증명? 증언? 실체를 결여한, 다만 전시적인 삶을 위해서. 그리고 더 이상 갈취할 게 없다 싶으면, 자연은 구석에 쑤셔 넣어진다. 쓱 봐도 불편하겠다 싶은 천장 쪽 구석 선반 위에. 화분보다는 팬이 있으면 적당하겠다 싶은 자리에. 이 작업은 구석, 변방, 잉여와 같은 자본주의의 타자들의 지점들을 예시해준다. 자연마저 상품화하는 자본주의의 물신에 의해 폐기된 것들이며 잊힌 것들의 존재방식이며 운명론을 예시해준다. 구축된 풍경(입체의 경우). 낡은 테이블 위에 소주병이며 맥주병 그리고 우유병과 기타 각종 음료수 병들이 첩첩이 쌓여있거나 배열돼 있다. 여기서 테이블은 아마도 현대인의 자기공간에 대한 인식 혹은 자의식 혹은 욕망을 상징하며, 이 낡은 테이블을 지지하고 있는 긴 네 개의 다리는 불안정한 공간인식이며 현실인식을 반영하고 있을 것이다. 그리고 테이블 위에 쌓인 병들이 산이나 숲과 같은 유사자연으로 제시되고, 그 가장자리 선이 산과 하늘이 맞닿는 의사 공지선을 그려 보인다. 아마도 크게는 녹색과 갈색 계열이 어우러진 음료수 병의 색깔이 자연의 그것을 닮아 있는 것에 착안한 것일 터이다. 그리고 여기에 인공적인 스카이라인을 만들어내는 빌딩숲이 자연을 흉내 내는(대체하는?) 현실을 풍자하고 있을 것이다. 다만 병을 쌓아놓은 것일 뿐인데, 그것이 숲을 연상시키고 빌딩을 떠올리게 만든다. 흔히 현대미술을 배열과 배치의 기술이라고 한다. 그리고 화용론이 그 기술을 뒷받침한다. 무슨 말이냐면, 배열과 배치가 달라지면 그 의미 또한 달라진다. 그리고 의미가 최종적으로 결정되는 지점은 다름 아닌 문맥 속에서이다. 모든 것은 텍스트 안에서의 일이며, 따라서 텍스트 밖에는 아무 것도 없다는 롤랑 바르트의 말은 그런 의미일 것이다. 그렇게 작가의 작업에서 테이블은 공간이 되고 병은 숲이 된다. 아파트촌이 산이 되고 자연이 된다. 실재를 흉내 내면서 현실을 전유하는 자본주의적 풍경, 물신적 풍경, 욕망풍경이 된다. 구축된 풍경(평면의 경우). 이처럼 자본주의 물신은 자연을 상품화하고, 빌딩숲과 아파트촌과 같은 인공자연으로 자연을 대체한다(대체자연?). 그리고 현대인은 그렇게 대체된 자연이며 상품화된 자연을 소비한다. 이 소비재들 중에는 유원지나 휴양지와 같은 비교적 자연의 원형에 가까운 것도 있고, 내셔널지오그래픽이나 엽서와 같은 이미지로 환원된 경우도 있다. 아마도 이런 자연 이미지야말로 가장 흔하게 소비될 것인데, 그 일면을 공사장 가림 막에서 볼 수 있다. 공사장 가림 막으로는 여러 이미지가 소용되지만, 그 중 전형적인 경우로 자연 이미지를 꼽을 수가 있을 것이다. 단순하게 공사장 가림 막은 공사현장을 가리기 위한 것이지만, 어떤 면에선 자본주의 기획의 치부(이를테면 재개발 현장에 맞물린 이권 같은. 삶의 터전에서 내몰리는 사람들의 처지 같은)를 가리기 위한 것일 수 있다. 그리고 이를 가리기 위해 자연 이미지가 대비된다. 여기서 이권의 크기가 클수록, 처지가 심각한 것일수록 자연 이미지는 더 생생해 보이고 더 그럴 듯해 보여야 한다. 이미지 정치학이며 꿈의 산업이 더 잘 가동되어져야 한다. 작가의 작업은 숲 이미지를 보여주고 있다. 자세히 보면 숲의 부분 이미지들이 하나의 화면 속에 콜라주 된 풍경이다. 그리고 잘 보면 그 속에 건물이 숨어 있는데, 건축 현장에 비치된 조감도 그대로 부분 이미지들을 편집하고 콜라주한 것이다. 물론 그 부분 이미지들은 공사장 가림 막에서 유래한 것이다. 표면적으로 숲 이미지지만, 사실은 그 속에 건물 한 채가 숨어있다. 겉으로 보기엔 자연 같지만, 잘 보면 그 이면에 숨겨진 자본주의의 욕망이 보인다. 마치 가림 막 자체는 자연 이미지를 보여주지만, 사실은 그 이면에 자본주의의 치부를 숨겨놓고 있는 것처럼. 30개의 물통이 만드는 공간. 각 20 리터의 물이 담긴 하얀 플라스틱 물통 30개가 가장자리 선을 따라 삼각형의 공간을 그려내고 있다. 여기서 물통은 아마도 주차금지와 같은 임시방편의 목적을 위해 급조해 만든 장애물, 일종의 생활미술이며 생활오브제에 착안한 것일 터이다. 그 자체 자기공간에 대한 현대인의 욕망이며 자본주의의 욕망을 상징한 것일 터이다. 그리고 그 물통들이 그려 보이는 삼각형은 모서리 공간이며 자투리 공간을, 잉여 공간 혹은 공간의 잉여를 상징할 것이다. 여기서 의문이 남는다. 왜 30개의 물통인가. 세월 호 현장에서 30명의 아이들을 구한 사람? 한 의인에 의해 구사일생으로 살아 돌아온 순진무구한(통처럼 하얀) 30명의 아이들? 이 작업에서 작가는 공간 개념을 매개로 모서리와 자투리 그리고 잉여로 나타난 자본주의의 타자들의 지점들을 전유하는 한편, 자본주의 욕망과는 구별되는 또 다른 공간 활용법을 예시해준다. 조르주 바타이유에 의하면 자본주의는 경제성이 없는 것들을 변방으로 내모는데, 그것들을 잉여라고 부른다. 그러므로 잉여는 자본주의의 배타적인 논리와 억압적인 욕망이 만든 외상을 간직하고 있고, 그 외상을 증언하기 위해서 호출된다. 그렇게 작가의 작업에서 30개의 하얀 물통들은 다시 돌아오지 못한 아이들의 주검을, 순진무구한 죽음을 증언하고 있었다. 미셀 푸코는 관념을 공간적으로 표현하는 것에 관심이 많다. 그 연장선에서 유토피아와 헤테로토피아 개념이 유래한다. 유토피아는 실제로는 없는, 다만 사람들의 관념에만 존재하는 공간이다. 이에 반해 헤테로토피아는 분명 실재하지만 사람들의 의식 속에서 지워진, 혹은 일반적인 공간개념과는 사뭇 다른 존재방식을 예시해주는 장소다. 가변적인 공간개념, 일시적인 공간개념, 잠재적인 공간개념, 공간에 매개된 억압의 계기와 권력의 작동을 폭로하는 장소다. 홍유영의 작업 역시 이런 공간개념에 의해 뒷받침된다. 처음엔 생활의 편의에 따라 그때그때 만들어지고 덧붙여지고 해체되고 재구조화되는 공간의 생리며 생태학에 관심이 많았다. 가능태로서의 공간개념, 식물처럼 살아있는 공간개념, 이행하는 공간개념에 관심이 많았다. 부분과 전체의 유기적인 관계에 종속되지 않는, 그 자체 전체인 부분이 만들어내는 파편화된 공간에 관심이 많았다. 그리고 근작에서 그 관심은 공간의 정치학이며 공간의 사회경제학 쪽으로 옮아가면서 심화되고 확장된다. 덩달아 현실적이고 서사적인 측면이 더 투명해지고 강조된다. 공간, 장소, 영역, 경계에 스며든 권력문제, 그리고 영토의 기획에 반하는 탈영토의 실천논리(질 들뢰즈)를 가로지르면서 넘나드는 이 일련의 작업들은 헤테로토피아에 대한 또 다른 가능한 지점을 짚는 형식실험일 수 있다.

Euyoung Hong `Fragmented Space` - 홍유영

• Youngeun Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea 9 April - 12 June, 2011Jienne Liu (Curator, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea)2011- This exhibition review was published in monthly Korean art magazine, Wolgan Misool, June, 2011. www.monthlyart.comThe exhibition Fragmented Space presented by Euyoung Hong comprehensively shows the artworks that the artist has been working on up to the present. Photographic works, Re-moved Space, which document a white emptied space and traces of lines on the walls, and the series of Fragmented Space 1, 2 and 3, constructed by utilizing real objects, are exhibited.An attractive point of this exhibition is that it provides a new sensibility of the object through each series of Fragmented Space. In series 1, such a spatial sampling is extracted from white walls: white painted objects are installed on the white walls. The impression of this work is that the everyday lives of human beings expressed in the space and the human feelings, such as joy, anger, sorrow and pleasure, which pervade it, are concealed. However, when we look at this work closely, the clues that can be discerned from the original texture, the form, and the colour of the objects, rather stimulate the viewers’ imagination. Fragmented Space 2 is also a part of space, painted in all white or grey, which emphasizes the accumulation of objects and the spatial fragmentation. This varied accumulation of objects, which appear to protrude from the wall, strongly reveals a surrealistic sensibility. The situation formed by the fragments of objects is definitely not the same as an ordinary scene of everyday life and provides a certain aspect of which the whole is difficult to estimate, as only a part is presented. It is impossible to grasp the complete whole through such a limited visible part; in addition, the direction of the work contributes to this chaos. Fragmented Space 1 implies everyday life as holding, to a certain extent, a horizontal and vertical point of view by placing a wide background space on the floor, which seems detached from the wall of a real domestic house. Fragmented Space 2 is narrowly hanging on the gallery wall, sustaining its slanting angle. The existence of a work of art thus emerges through its position, presenting a new angle and visuality completely different from the directionality of people’s familiar points of view and blurring the situation proposed by the work, whether it comes from either birth or destruction resulting from an explosion.Fragmented Space 3, however, shows a completely different aspect. Unlike Hong’s other works, it directly discloses the real appearance of objects, which had been concealed until now. Through the emergence of the texture, colour, material of objects and undetached complete form, the sense of real objects can be felt in the small part of the space. The identity of space, which seems impossible in the artist’s white painted works, can now be grasped. But Hong acts indistinctively by positioning the space of the work between the real, illusion and theatre. This is because the black rolled fabric is placed on top of the construction. Like a stage curtain, the viewers’ imagination of the space can be stretched out through the setting.Hong’s sculptural work can be considered as an honest confession of space, rather than a bluffing exaggerated wrapping up of it. This is definitely supported by the artist’s sensibility of space. Hong considers a space as one in which the mental, physical and, moreover, social situations of individuals are embedded and mingled; from there, conflicts and contradictions can be revealed again through the space. A space as a result; discovering a space that we would like to conceal or, by contrast, an undiscovered part; makes us rethink the world where we live and the situation that we encounter through erasure, transformation and exposure.홍유영 영은미술관류지연(국립현대미술관 학예연구사) 홍유영의 ‘Fragmented Space'는 지금까지 작가가 보여준 작업을 종합적으로 보여준 전시이다. 하얀 빈 공간과 벽 위에 선의 흔적을 사진으로 담은 , 실제 사물을 이용하여 만든 1,2,3 시리즈가 모두 전시되었다. 시리즈 별로 오브제에 대한 새로운 감각을 보여주는 점은 매우 흥미롭다. 시리즈 1은 마치 공간의 샘플링처럼 하얀 벽면을 추출한 듯한 작품인데 하얀 벽면과 그 위에 하얗게 칠해진 오브제들이 더해져있다. 이러한 작품의 인상은 공간에 표현된 인간의 생활방식과 거기에 스며든 희노애락을 교묘하게 감추고 있다는 것이다. 하지만 자세히 들여다보면 오브제의 원래 질감, 형태, 색감 등을 짐작할 수 있는 단서들이 있으므로 보는 이의 상상력을 오히려 증대시킨다. 는 마찬가지로 하얗게 혹은 회색으로 칠해진 공간의 부분이긴 하지만 보다 더 오브제의 집적과 공간의 파편화를 강조하고 있다. 다양한 오브제의 집적은 벽에서 밖으로 튀어나온 듯이 보여지면서 초현실적인 감각을 더욱 더 강하게 드러내고 있다. 이러한 오브제의 파편들이 이루어내는 상황은 일상적으로 볼 수 있는 장면이 아니며 또한 일부분만 보여주고 있으므로 전체를 가늠하기 힘든 면이 있다. 시각적으로 보여지는, 한정된 부분으로서 전체를 조망한다는 것은 매우 어려우며 이러한 혼돈은 작품이 놓여진 방향도 한 몫을 더하고 있다. 은 마치 집의 벽면을 떼 온 듯한 넓은 바탕공간을 이용하여 다소 수직수평적인 관점을 유지함으로써 일상생활을 암시하고 있다. 하지만 는 넓은 바탕공간에서 벗어나서 높은 곳에 아슬아슬하게 걸려있고, 또한 조각의 방향이 비스듬한 각도를 유지하고 있다. 사람이 지닌 익숙한 시선의 방향성과 전혀 다른 각도를 보여주는 작품의 위치로 인해 작품의 존재는 더욱 부각되고, 작품이 제시하고 있는 상황은 탄생인지 혹은 폭발로 인한 파멸인지 모호해지는 것이다. 하지만 에서는 전혀 다른 면모를 보여주고 있다. 지금까지 오브제는 실제모습이 감춰져있었으나 여기에서는 직접적으로 노출된다. 오브제의 질감, 색감, 재료, 잘리지 않은 완전한 형태감 등 모든 것이 드러나면서 배경이 되는 공간 작은 부분이긴 하지만 실제 사물의 감각을 느낄 수 있다. 그리하여 이전 작품들에서는 전혀 불가능한 공간의 정체성을 이제 파악할 수 있게 된 것이다. 그렇다 하더라도 작가는 여기에서 보여지는 공간이 실제인지 혹은 허구인지 아니면 무대인지 모호하게 처리하고 있다. 그러한 단서는 구조물 위에 얹혀진 검은 천 때문이다. 마치 무대의 막 같기도 한 이러한 설정으로 인해 관람객은 공간에 대한 상상력을 무한하게 펼칠 수 있다. 홍유영의 작품은 공간에 대한 허풍스럽거나 과장된 포장이 아니라 오히려 공간의 진솔한 고백같은 것이다. 이러한 바탕에는 작가가 지니고 있는 공간에 대한 감성이 뒷받침된다. 작가는 공간에는 개인의 정신적, 육체적 상황이 녹아있다고 더욱이 사회가 혼재되어 있어 거기에서 비롯되는 충돌과 모순이 다시 공간을 통해 드러난다고 보고 있다. 숨기고 싶은 공간 혹은 반대로 드러나지 않은 부분을 발견한 결과로서 공간은 생략, 변형, 노출을 통해 우리가 살고 있는 세계와 우리가 처한 상황을 다시 돌아보게 하고 있다.

Fragment as a Clue or a Beginning - 이선영 미술평론가

• 2011Sunyoung Lee (Art critic)The gallery space, currently exhibiting Euyoung Hong’s sculptural installation, at first glance gives a deserted feeling, as of entering an emptied space. It is because, like a white rabbit sitting on white snow, white wall pieces are installed on the whiteness of the gallery walls so that one scarcely sees them. The work, which presents the various forms of parts of walls, makes viewers imagine that another wall appears on the existent wall, or disappears behind the wall. Fragmented Space (2010 - 11), composed of a series of ten relief surfaces of equal height and width, arranges different parts of an interior domestic house in a pictorial quality. The position of the pieces, installed on the gallery wall about 10 cm higher than the floor, only implies that it is a work of art, distinct from the gallery walls; in short, the object that viewers need to look at closely. The work, in which electric switches, picture frames and a part of a drawer are attached to the wall, can be seen as bringing a real everyday space into the gallery. White walls, which can frequently be found in the interiors of our houses, make us re-evaluate its continuity with everyday space. It is not caused by the virtualness obtained from a miniaturized model, but emphasizes reality. However, the illusion of real continuity is immediately shattered, as the walls, which are attached to the gallery space, encompass another space from floor to ceiling.Fragmented Space, as shown in its subtitle, becomes an unfolded space. Fragments on the wall are arranged simply, breaking the organic relationship between part and whole. Without securing a view of the whole, the real size of the wall becomes an attracting object to viewers, not a part physically detached from the whole. There are only parts without the whole. Fragments escape from the dialectics between part and whole. Hong recognizes the space where a new creative line penetrates, overthrowing the traditional relationship between part and whole by negating the legitimacy of wholeness. Within this fluidity, a fixed centrality disappears. Merely arranged mechanically, this space, interacting with viewers, which has the real size of architectural structures instead of an organic structural principle that strictly controls and encompasses the whole, is one that a viewer should experience as soon as he or she enters. It is a static yet dynamic process. The collected found objects, which probably played an important role somewhere, involve the potentiality of ‘ground zero’ for expanding into the new function.Hong sometimes dismantles and re-uses her previous works. Even though drawn from the existing, new orders emerge through the process of whitening or de-colourization. Fragments on the walls make viewers focus on the space, rather than the object itself and the space here cannot be understood as the same physical space that the previous things simple re-occupy or pass through. An empty space is filled with the symbol. In relation to the reality of South Korea, often called a Construction State, it is the symbol of space constantly repeating creation and destruction. The power of capital that penetrates the ground of nature and life recontextualizes the structural dimension of our life by changing the method of spatial arrangement. South Korea achieved an extremely rapid material development, setting aside invisible values, and it is also seen as a place of widespread change, in which a radical change that drives the majority in one direction is barely conceived as violence. Hong’s sculptural work implies and deals with the political economy of space from a social perspective, but the form of work itself is very much ontological. It does not aim at political disclosure or enlightenment consciousness. Instead, Hong’s work focuses on an aspect of contemporaneity, that is, the idea of everydayness, which stimulates a change for change.The synchronic, or a part of the diachronic, discloses a hidden side of change. The sign of change has traditionally been represented through something splendid and polished, but Hong’s work is rather decolourized and matte. This reveals that a tedious and monotonous everyday life can be considered as another aspect of stimulation and violence resulting from radical changes. But her work is not past-oriented or nostalgic about the past. It discovers the possibility of creation by rethinking the dominant pre-existing structure or frame. Hong lived in an apartment, which frequently represents the symbol of development, in Seoul until the mid-1990s, and currently lives in an old flat in London, built around the 1800s. Compared with European countries, the extremely radical and aggressive tendency of changes of residential environment in South Korea definitely had a strong impression on Hong, and also strongly influenced her artwork. Although we may find the profit relation of capital in a particular type of development, which usually bulldozes a degenerated place, instead of in the minor changes of house renovation, difference can be sensed in the midst of this uniform change. Difference becomes a beginning of creation. The second gallery contains an installation of a house, which resembles a part of a demolished house probably taken from an actual site of redevelopment somewhere in Seoul. ‘I am particularly interested in places spoilt and destroyed by someone,’ Hong said.Such questions as, ‘Contrary to the will of residents, why is a place constantly disappearing? Instead of that removed space, what kind of a new space will be there? Why does a space need to be changed in such a way?‘ are contained in her statement. This fragment of the interior of a house, partly covered with bright floral wallpaper, was originally inspired by a real demolished house in a site of redevelopment in Seoul, where people did not leave their homes and continued their life in the terrible living conditions. In the violence of deconstructing a space, life still goes on. Rolled black shade, usually used in the construction site, is placed above an arrangement of household items, such as purple slippers, a dining table with worn edges, a heating fan that might give warmth in a strong cold draughty place, a calendar printed with large letters, etc. These objects were mostly collected from the site of removal, but are still worth using. Violence that turns everything instantly into rubbish is equivalent to bombing. Movement implies removal. Hong’s photographic work, Re-moved Space (2009) documented the marks left in her previous studio in Changdong right after removing her installation works from the space. The work overlaps moving with removing.Hong’s work, often decolourizing the original natural colour of the object by painting in white, focuses on the notion of relationship, not on the physical object itself. Relations are derived from the space. Like a line of correction liquid, which erases wrong words, whiteness becomes a ground for writing new words. Non-decolourized works seem like an extension of reality, but naturally displayed objects were actually collected from completely different times and places and artificially re-structured. Hong reconstructed a part of an actual red-brick residential house in Changdong, Seoul in 2009, whose interior and exterior space was renovated by its resident. An aluminium-framed window is opened for drying laundry. Things placed here and there in the framed structure themselves become a work of art. The window, which is a space where something can be stored and opened to the outside, removes the formal difference between collage and painting. This construction is an invention of ordinary people especially for using their tiny space more spaciously. It expands the territories of life towards another space beyond the equally given space. The wall, which is filled with various collected objects from unexpectedly encountered places, is a detached part of reality, not a miniature model of reality.Like a microcosm, it forms a fragment of everyday life. The fragment here includes the whole. A grey construction protruding from a white gallery wall appears as a strong fragment, like a wedge. Above the small window frame, within which household items are arranged, small eaves are projected, and the natural state of colour is lost as dusty grey ashes cover it up. It was actually based on one of the oldest apartments in Seodaemun, Seoul. Around the apartments, people, who live in new residential buildings of some 20 - 30 storeys, are hoping that these dangerous-looking outdated apartments will disappear as quickly as possible. It is a fragment as a microcosm that is packed with physical, mental, social situations in association with the notion of redevelopment. It is not detached from the existing, but a constructed fragment. It is a microcosm, which cannot simply be identified with a physical building. A fragment attached to an instable structure asks that the ground - where such concepts as the visible, real, essential can be constructed - is stable. Creation is caused and constructed in this sloping instability. Composed of a part of chair attached upside down to the middle of pillar and various collected objects, constructing a balance in its own way within the structure of the chair, the work obviously shows that instability can also be a ground for creating new orders.Re-moved (2010 - 11), which horizontally arranges various forms of household container, such as flower pots, plastic basins, water bottles, cups, bowls, etc., like a museum collection, is conceived as spaces as a microcosm. The specific context for the collected objects is completely removed, and abstracted by re-arranging them at the viewer’s eye level. Hong applies a new order to the collected containers, by rearranging the objects in order of their internal width. This new space emphasizes the exercise of a certain type of power, whether or not it is regarded as an organization or a destruction. As Felix Guattari states in his text, The Machinic Unconsciousness, arrangement does not succumb to coincidence, or common axioms. The only law that arrangement is subject to is the deterritorialization movement. Arrangement includes possibility as well as potentiality. Like capital, art seizes the initiative of creation and destruction of space. Fragments come from a variety of sources and build a new order of co-existence through a work of art. In these fragments of life, the absence of human beings, who may have lived there, becomes evident.Re-moved traces the organic life of human beings through the inorganic element of space. The way in which the sections of detached fragments are reassembled in various ways is mechanistic. According to Guattari, the machine is not identified with the essence, which is generally associated with the world of the legal or the formal. The machine here can be achieved not through the space of pure logic, but only through the coincident machinic expression (or manifestation). The machine and its arrangement are far from an objective view, which always implies an external diameter against the pre-existing order. Hong’s work is a montage of disparate components. The machine is opposed to the tendency of structuralization of materialization and miniaturization. If there must be a structure, then its components are assembled with various parts and operate. Both the dwelling space that we inhabit and the machine, which operates the unconsciousness, encounter unpredictable things from unexpected directions. This machine has a tendency of destroying the structure; of being divided as a single code.Paradoxically, this twists the motto of modern architects, who define the house as, in Le Cobusier’s words, a ‘machine for living.’ The material of modern architecture, such as glass, steel, or concrete, transforms architecture into a machine with a sharp edge. This corresponds to the masses of machinic life, which uses machinic means in both its materials and construction methods and which moves collectively. Modern architects’ utopian vision accelerated this realization because the world was already destroyed more than enough through both World Wars, and it can also be found to be the case in South Korea, which experienced a war that destroyed everything and had to make its own efforts for the country’s overall reconstruction. But the modern rationale that aims to restore the whole world completely became transformed into tools, and the cycle of creation and destruction was accelerated even more by the cycle of capital. In the wind of change, if we ask who benefits from the development, rationality is replaced with irrationality. Fragments placed in front of the viewers by the artist are inexplicable traces that were once believed to be something rational. At the same time, it can be understood as that which a particular moment or aspect in the process of constantly being transformed is presented.This fragment belongs in the territory of time imaging due to sustainable creation while being destroyed. This openness is a proof of being alive. Fragments, combined with other things, proliferate and are distributed. This fragment has the organic characteristic of proliferation; but it is connected to the outside in an endless disjunction, rather than the maintenance of homeostasis, by preserving its clear outline. Co-existing heterogeneous elements recognize not totality, but difference. It highlights the majority of substance that is created and changed. This fragment is very unique. In The Infinite Conversation, Maurice Blanchot notes: ‘Someone claiming fragment must not be limited to the fragmentation of the pre-existing reality, or the future moment of harmonious whole made by fragments.’ And: ‘In the fragment’s violence quite a different relation is given to us.’ The important point here is, ‘how to produce and consider a fragment that does not depend on fundamental (but forgotten) totality, or the future decisive totality.’Hong’s work exists as fragments, or a self-sufficient totality that connects with reality. According to Deleuze, art is a machine. This ‘machine’ is defined as ‘the production of partial objects.’ Art is not divided into parts, or reduced to a single totality, but existing as a unique ultimate part in itself. Partial object is a theatre separated by fragments without totality, divided parts, and partition. Thus, ‘incommunicable’ or ‘nothing in common’ between fragments indicates distance. ‘Lost time’ here inserts distance between neighbouring objects, and by contrast ‘recaptured time’ connects discrete objects. In reality, a man acts with old, present, and future behaviours at the same time. Thus, there has existed a multi-periodic wrinkled time, multiply folded time in science or reality. Contemporary art has predicted various times through the fragmentation.For Deleuze, contemporary works of art function as a fragment to produce a certain ‘crystal’, rather than a traditional harmony or organic totality. This model is found in plants. In Anti-Oedipus, co-written with Guattari, he emphasizes not a model of animal totality (organic), but a botanic model. Like a rhizome, ‘It is produced as parts, themselves alongside the parts.’ In here, only a transverse line organizes fragments. This prevents fragments not only from forming a whole, but also from being taken apart. Each part determines the whole by negating the conventional idea that a work of art as an organic totality is that in which the whole determines a part. A contemporary artist establishes his or her full time like ecstasy through the destruction. This established world or a new order in the fragment is the unique time in which we enjoy a work of art. It is not the indiscriminate destruction of time; but it becomes a threshold that is able to make us rediscover our ‘lost time’ in our isolated life. The whole in the fragment proposed by Hong picks up an intense singularity in the traces of ruins.단서 또는 단초로서의 단편 이선영(미술평론가) 홍유영의 작품이 전시된 곳은 언뜻 빈 공간에 들어선 것 같은 휑한 느낌을 준다. 흰 눈 위에 흰 토끼 마냥, 원래 벽면이 하얀 전시실에 하얀 작품들이 보일 듯 말 듯 설치되어 있기 때문이다. 작품들도 대부분 벽의 일부여서 마치 벽 위에서 벽이 생겨나는 듯, 또는 사라지는 듯이 보인다. 폭과 높이가 같은 10개 정도의 부조적 표면이 시리즈처럼 걸려 있는 [fragmented space]는 가정집 벽의 한 면들이 그림처럼 죽 배열되어 있다. 바닥에서 약간 올라가 붙은 위치만이 전시장 벽과 구별된 작품, 요컨대 관객이 주시해야 할 대상임을 알려준다. 벽 위에는 전기 스위치, 액자 등이 걸려 있으며, 서랍의 절개 면이 보이기도 하고, 기울여진 청소도구들이 제법 사실처럼 연출되어 있다. 하얀색은 일반 벽과 비슷하며, 일상공간과의 연속성을 생각하게 한다. 그것은 축소모델에서 야기되는 가상성이 아니라, 현실성을 강조한다. 그러나 전시장에 붙은 벽은 천정과 바닥을 아우르는 것이어서 실제의 연속과 같은 환영은 곧 깨어지고 만다. 전시장은 부제 그대로, 파편화 된 공간이 펼쳐진 공간이다. 벽의 파편들은 전체와 부분 간에 설정된 유기적 관계를 잃어버리고, 단순히 집합되어 있다. 전체를 조망하는 시점을 확보하지 못한 채 실 사이즈로 제작된 벽을 바라보는 관객에게 벽은 전체에서 물리적으로 떨어져 나온 일부가 아니라, 그 자체로 주목되는 사물이 된다. 거기에는 전체가 없고 부분만이 있다. 단편들은 전체와 부분 사이의 변증법으로부터 탈주한다. 전체의 적법성을 인정하지 않음으로서 전체와 부분 간의 관계를 전복하고자 하는 작가는, 부분에서 ‘새로운 생성의 선이 지나가는 공간’을 본다. 이러한 유동성 속에서 고정된 중심은 사라진다. 실사이즈의 건축적 구조지만 전체를 일괄하는 유기적 구성 원칙이 없이 단지 기계적으로 배열됨으로서, 관객에게 맞닥뜨려진 장소는 속해지자마자 벗어나야 할 곳이 된다. 그것은 정적이면서도 역동적인 과정이다. 어디선가 중요한 기능을 담당했을 법한 대상들은 새로운 기능으로의 확장을 위한 ‘그라운드 제로’같은 잠재성을 가진다. 이전 작품을 분해하여 재활용한 것도 있다. 기존의 것에서 가져왔지만, 하얀색을 통해 새 질서를 씌웠다. 벽의 파편들은 물체가 아니라 빈 공간에 주목하게 하지만, 그것은 기존의 것이 다시 놓여 지거나 지나가는 물리적 공간이 아니다. 빈 공간은 상징으로 채워진다. 토건국가라고도 칭해지는 한국의 현실과 비교한다면, 그것은 끊임없이 생성과 소멸을 반복하는 공간에 대한 상징이다. 자연과 삶의 터전을 관통하는 자본의 힘은 공간 배치의 방식을 변화시킴으로서 삶의 구조를 계속 재맥락화 한다. 보이지 않는 가치들을 뒤로한 채 빠른 시간 동안 물질적 진보를 이루어낸 한국사회는 다수를 한쪽 방향으로 몰아가는 급격한 변화를 폭력으로 인식하지 못할 만큼 변화가 만연한 곳이다. 홍유영의 작품은 공간의 정치경제학에 대한 사회적 관점이 내포되어 있지만, 작품의 형식 자체는 존재론적이다. 거기에는 어떤 폭로나 계몽 의식도 없다. 다만 작가는 변화를 위한 변화를 고무하는 현대성의 단면인 일상성에 주목할 뿐이다. 통시성의 단면인 공시성은 변화의 이면을 드러낸다. 변화를 나타내는 기표는 통상적으로 화려하고 번쩍거리기 마련인데, 홍유영의 작품은 탈색되어 있고 무광이다. 지루하고 밋밋한 일상은 급격한 변화가 주는 자극성이나 가혹함의 이면이다. 그렇다고 홍유영의 작품이 과거 지향적이거나 향수적인 것은 아니다. 작가는 기존의 지배적인 틀을 주목함으로서 또 다른 생성의 여지를 찾아보려 한다. 서울에서는 개발의 상징인 아파트에 살았고 유학중인 영국에서는 1880년대에 지어진 집에서 살고 있는 작가에게, 유럽에 비해 주거환경의 변화가 심한 한국의 현실은 강한 인상을 주었다. 자잘한 개보수 정도가 아니라, 싹 갈아 치우는 식의 개발에서 자본의 이해관계만 발견되지만, 이러한 획일적인 변화 와중에도 차이는 감지된다. 차이는 생성을 위한 단초가 된다. 두 번째 전시실에는 철거 된 집의 일부를 그대로 떠내온 듯한 작품이 설치되어 있다. 작가는 ‘누군가 긁고 간 부서진 공간에 시선이 간다’고 말한다. 거주민의 의지와 달리 ‘왜 한 장소는 끊임없이 사라지는 것일까. 그 대신 뭐가 들어갈까. 왜 저 공간을 저렇게 변화 하는가’에 대한 질문이 압축되어 있다. 꽃무늬 벽지가 선명한 이 집은 철거 촌에서 반이 잘려나간 곳에서 여전히 생활하는 사람들로부터 영감을 얻었다. 공간이 절단 나는 폭력 가운데서도 삶은 계속된다. 보라색 슬리퍼, 가장자리가 떨어져 나간 밥상, 외풍이 심한 곳에서 온기를 주었을 열풍기, 글자가 큼직하게 찍혀진 달력 등 갖가지 생활 소품들 위로 공사장에 쓰이는 차양막이 둘둘 말려 있다. 물건들은 버려진 것들을 수집한 것이지만, 여전히 쓸 만하다. 단번에 모든 것을 쓰레기로 만들어버리는 폭력적 과정은 폭격에 상응하는 것이다. 이동은 제거를 함축한다. 작품 [re-moved space]는 전에 있던 작업실에서 전시했던 작품을 벽에서 떼어낸 자국을 사진으로 기록한 것이다. 여기에서 작가는 이동하기와 제거하기를 중첩시킨다. 홍유영의 작품은 대개 흰색으로 칠해져 자연색이 탈색되어 있는 것은 대상보다는 관계성에 주목하게 한다. 관계는 공간 속에서 파생된다. 하얀 면은 잘못된 글자를 지우는 수정 액처럼 새로운 글자가 쓰이기 위한 바탕이 된다. 탈색되지 않은 작품들은 현실의 연장이라는 느낌을 주지만, 자연스럽게 모여 있는 사물들은 서로 다른 시공간에서 수집한 것이며 인위적으로 재구성된 것이다. 작가는 이전 작품에서 지붕 아래 붉은 벽돌위로 연립주택의 개조된 미니 베란다를 통째로 재현하기도 했다. 빨래를 말리기 위해 알루미늄 섀시가 열려 있는데, 틀 지워진 공간에 이것저것 놓여있는 것이 그 자체가 하나의 작품 같다. 무엇인가를 쟁여 놓는 곳이면서도 바깥으로 뚫려 있는 창은, 꼴라주와 회화 간의 형식적인 차이조차도 무화시킨다. 이러한 구조물은 좁은 공간을 조금이라고 넓게 쓰려고 서민들이 고안한 발명품이다. 그것은 똑같이 주어진 공간을 넘어 또 다른 공간을 향해 삶의 영역들을 확장한다. 우연히 발견된 장소에 수집된 사물들로 채워진 이 벽면은 현실의 일부가 떠내어진 것이나 현실을 모델로 한 축소모형이 아니다. 그것은 그 자체가 하나의 소우주처럼 삶의 단면을 형성한다. 여기에서 파편은 전체를 포함한다. 흰 벽면에 불쑥 튀어나온 회색 구조물은 쐐기 같은 강렬한 단편으로 나타난다. 생활용품들이 배열된 작은 창틀 위에는 천막이 있고, 마치 회색 재를 뒤집어 쓴 것인 양 자연 색상은 사라진 상태이다. 그것은 작가가 서대문의 낡은 아파트에서 발견한 것으로, 이미 그 주변에는 20-30층으로 올라간 주상복합 건물들이 이 낙후된 건물이 없어지기를 바라고 있었다. 그것은 재개발과 연관된 모든 물리적 정신적 사회적 상황들이 압축된 소우주로서의 단편이다. 있는 것에서 잘라 붙인 것이 아니라, 만들어진 파편이다. 그것은 건축과 비교될 수 있는 소우주이다. 경사져서 붙어있는 단편은 보여 지는 것, 사실적인 것, 본질로 간주되는 것들이 구축되는 바닥이 견고한가를 묻는다. 삐뚜름한 불안정 속에서 생성이 야기되며, 생성 또한 구축된다. 기둥 중간에 거꾸로 붙여진 의자와 그 위에 여러 기물들이 나름의 균형을 잡고서 쌓여 있는 작품은 불안정함 역시 새로운 질서를 파생하는 토대가 될 수 있음을 보여준다. 화분, 세숫대야, 물병, 그릇 등 다양한 모양의 그릇이 박물관의 수집품처럼 배열된 작품은 소우주로서의 공간들이다. 수집된 물건들은 구체적 맥락이 완전히 삭제되어 있고, 관객 눈높이에 정렬됨으로서 추상화된다. 내부 넓이의 크기에 따라 재배치한 것 것인데, 그것은 본래의 시공간 속에 놓여 있던 것들에 작가가 정한 새로운 질서가 적용된 것이다. 이러한 새로운 공간 배치는 그것이 질서로 간주되든 파괴로 간주되든, 하나의 힘이 관철되고 있음이 강조된다. 펠릭스 가타리가 [기계적 무의식]에서 말하듯이, 배치는 우연이나 보편적인 공리계에 굴복하지 않는다. 배치가 종속되는 유일한 법칙은 탈영토화 운동이다. 배치는 가능성과 가상성도 포함한다. 예술은 자본과 마찬가지로 공간의 파괴와 생성을 주도한다. 단편들의 출처는 다양하며 작품을 통해서 새로운 공존의 질서를 구축한다. 이러한 삶의 단편들에는 그곳에 살았을 인간의 부재가 확연하다. 그것은 공간이라는 비유기적 요소를 통해 인간의 유기적 삶을 추적한다. 잘려져 나온 단면이 다각적으로 조합되는 방식은 기계적이다. 가타리의 용법에서 기계는 일반적인 정식 혹은 형식의 세계에 붙은 본질과 동일시되지 않는다. 여기에서 기계는 순수 논리 공간에서가 아니라, 우연적인 기계적 표명(발현)을 통해서만 실현할 수 있다. 기계와 그 배치는 항상 기성질서에 대한 외경을 함축하고 있는 보편적 전망과 거리가 있다. 홍유영의 작품은 이질적인 구성요소들이 몽타주 되어 있다. 기계는 세계를 물화하고 축소화하는 경향이 있는 구조와 반대된다. 거기에 굳이 구조가 있다면 그 구성요소는 다양한 부품들로 조립되어 작동된다. 우리가 사는 거처 뿐 아니라 무의식이 작동되는 기계 또한 예측할 수 없는 방향에서 예측할 수 없는 것들과 접속한다. 이러한 기계는 하나의 코드로 구획되는 구조를 파괴하는 경향이 있다. 그것은 집을 ‘살기 위한 기계’(르 꼬르뷔제)로 규정지었던 근대 건축가들의 모토를 역설적인 방식으로 뒤튼다. 근대건축의 기본재료인 유리와 철, 콘크리트는 건축을 날카로운 윤곽선을 가진 기계로 만들어 왔다. 재료 및 구축방식 자체가 기계적 수단을 사용하며, 보다 집단적으로 움직이는 대중의 기계적 삶과 조응하는 것이다. 근대 건축가들의 유토피아적 비전은 양차대전을 통해 세계가 이미 충분히 파괴되었기 때문에 현실화에 가속도가 붙었으며, 그것은 모든 것이 파괴되는 전쟁을 겪고 사회의 총체적인 재건에 힘써야 했던 우리나라도 마찬가지이다. 그러나 세계를 전면적으로 재건하고자 하는 근대적 합리성은 곧 도구화되었으며, 자본의 순환주기에 의해 파괴와 생성의 주기는 더욱 가속도가 붙었다. 변화의 광풍 속에서 누구를 위한 개발인가를 묻게 될 때 합리성은 비합리성으로 전도된다. 작가가 관객 앞에 가져다 놓은 단편은 한때 합리적인 것이라고 믿어졌던 것의 불가해한 흔적들이다. 동시에 그것은 끊임없이 변형되고 있는 과정의 한 단면이 고정된 것이다. 그것은 파괴되면서도 지속적 창조 속에 놓여 있음으로 인해, 시간 이미지의 영역에 속한다. 이러한 열림은 살아있음의 증거이다. 다른 것들과 결합되는 단편들은 증식하며 분산된다. 이 단편들은 증식이라는 유기체적 속성을 가지고 있으나, 명확한 외곽선을 보존함으로서 스스로의 항상성을 유지하는 것이 아니라, 끝없는 이접 속에서 바깥과 연결된다. 공존하는 이질적 요소들은 전체화가 아닌 차이를 감식하게 한다. 그것은 생성되고 변화하는 다수의 실체를 부각시킨다. 이러한 단편은 매우 독특하다. 모리스 블랑쇼는 [끝없는 대화]에서 ‘파편을 주장하는 사람은 이미 존재하는 실재의 파편화나, 또 지금의 파편들이 조화로운 전체를 이룰 미래의 순간에 대해서만 말하면 안 된다’고 하면서, ‘파편이 행사하는 폭력 속에서 우리는 완전히 다른 관계를 가지게 된다’고 말한다. 여기에서 중요한 것은 ‘근원적인(그러나 잊혀진) 전체성, 혹은 앞으로 귀결된 전체성에 의존하지 않는 파편들을 어떻게 생산하고, 또 사유할 것인가가 중요하다’ 홍유영의 작품은 현실과 관계가 있으면서도 자족적인 전체, 즉 파편들로 존재한다. 들뢰즈에 의하면 예술--그는 예술/기계라고 한다. 여기서 ‘기계’는 ‘부분적인 대상들의 생산’으로 정의된다--은 더 이상 부분으로 분할되지도 않고, 하나의 전체로도 환원되지 않는 것이며, 그 자체 고유한 궁극적인 부분으로 존재하는 것이다. 부분적인 대상은 전체성이 없는 파편들, 분할된 부분들, 소통되지 않도록 막힌 관들, 칸막이로 격리된 무대이다. 부분들 간의 ‘소통 불가능함’, ‘공통성 없음’은 간격들을 말한다. 여기에서 ‘잃어버린 시간’은 이웃한 사물들 사이에 간격을 삽입하고, 반대로 ‘되찾은 시간’은 서로 떨어져 있는 사물들을 이웃하게 한다. 현실 속의 인간도 오래 묵은 행동과 현대적인 행동, 미래적인 행동을 동시에 보여주곤 한다. 그리하여 과학에서건 현실에서건 다시대적이고 주름진 시간, 여러 차례 접혀진 시간이 존재한다. 현대예술은 파편성을 통해 다양한 시간들을 예시해 왔다. 들뢰즈에게 현대의 예술 작품들은 고전적인 조화나 유기적인 전체가 아니라, 어떤 결정체를 만들어 내는 한 조각처럼 작동한다. 이러한 모델은 식물에서 찾아진다. 그는 가타리와 함께 쓴 [앙티 외디푸스]에서 동물적인 전체성(유기성) 모델이 아니라, 식물적인 모델을 주장한다. 뿌리줄기처럼 ‘부분들 옆에 나란히 있는 부분들 자체로 생산된다.’ 여기에서는 횡단 선만이 파편 조각들을 주관한다. 이 형식은 파편들이 떨어져 나가는 것을 막는 만큼이나 파편들이 하나의 전체를 형성하는 것을 방해한다. 부분들 각각이 전체를 미리 결정하고, 전체가 부분들을 결정하는 유기적인 총체로서의 예술작품이라는 진부한 개념은 거부된다. 현대의 예술가는 이러한 해체를 통해서 무아경과도 같은 그들의 충만한 시간을 이룩한다. 이렇게 이룩된 세계, 즉 파편 속의 새로운 질서가 바로 우리가 예술작품을 향유할 때의 그 독특한 시간이다. 그것은 무차별적인 시간의 파괴가 아니라, 소외된 삶에서 우리의 ‘잃어버린 시간’을 되찾게 해주는 문턱이 된다. 홍유영이 만들어낸 부분 속의 전체는 폐허의 흔적 속에서 강렬한 특이성(singularity)을 건져 올린다.

Fragmented Space - 홍유영

• 2011Euyoung HongThe Politics of Spatial ArrangementThe territory is made of decoded fragments of all kinds.[1] In the Choson dynasty (1392-1910) in Korea, Confucianism was inaugurated as the national ideology.[2] Architecturally, almost every aspect of both domestic and social life was directly or indirectly affected by Confucianism during this period. The arrangement of interior space in the domestic house at that time is therefore seen as a crucial factor, prominently representing the concepts and rules of Confucianism. For instance, the traditional Korean house-what we usually call Han-ok-was strictly divided into several areas, depending on the occupier’s position in the hierarchy of family and society: An-chae for women and children in the inner area of the house, Sarang-chae for the male householder or for guests in front, and Haengrang-chae for servants close to the entrance door. The disposition of rooms and doors regulates not only the physical arrangement of the living space, but also its social and practical uses. However, Korean houses have been transformed enormously, influenced by modern Western culture since the 1950s. High-rise residential buildings in the popular parts of Seoul, constructed since early 2000, became a predominant part of the contemporary Korean scene, especially for the rich. The interior space of these houses places great emphasis on a high quality of living and well-being, including the most innovative technology, luxury building materials from all over the world, exceptional design by internationally well-known artists, high levels of security and safety, protection of privacy, right of view and maximum control of accessibility from the outside to the inside, rather than representing a certain traditional ideology, social order, or belief through the form of architecture, which had previously frequently appeared in the modern Korean house. This particular type of house has a tendency not only to secure the independence of private space between individuals or between different households within a building, but also spatially to widen the gap between rich and poor. This residential building stands like a medieval European castle, which functions offensively and defensively as a military object by protecting the people within the space and attacking enemies from the outside. The medieval castle was mostly built from earth and stone walls with a wooden drawbridge entrance and surrounded by a water-filled moat. The word castle is derived from the Latin word castellum, which means ‘fortified place’, is a symbol of authority and power.[3] Many houses in Korea actually use the word castle as their names. This contemporary form of castle, occupying not only Seoul but also other big cities, such as New York and Chicago, tends to separate itself from others via the strict control of accessibility and visibility as well as its autonomous system of living.In contrast with the decisive aspect of ordering and hierarchization of space that I have described, the spatial arrangement in dwelling space also functions as a critical force, which not only provides a certain form of visibility and materiality, but also makes a space controversial and political, affected by the contradictory relationship between the constructive and the destructive. In the summer of 2009, I participated in the artist in residence programme at The National Art Studio, Changdong, run by The National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea. This was an exceptional experience for me during the process of planning and producing one of my works, Haesung Villa, because it gave me a chance to rethink the notion of space, particularly in relation to dwelling and space and the dynamics of urbanization. A large studio, which had only one tiny window, was allocated to me. The view through the window was fixed, as a three-story house completely blocked my studio window. Every day I had to look at the house, whether I liked it or not, simply because it was there, always before my eyes. I did not pay attention to the house at first but, suddenly, I realized that I was observing it every day. It was particularly interesting for me that the occupier of the house expanded his or her space by removing the pre-existing frames and glass of the window and constructing a newly protruding structure in the window space, built from cheap steel and aluminium windows and sandwich panels, which are frequently found in the construction of temporary housing. In thinking of this abrupt appearance of new space, it can be said that we live today in an age of deviation, or what Deleuze and Guattari call ‘deterritorialization’. This newly constructed space in this particular house, which might not appear in its original construction planning, is seen as a transformative vector, by which a simple window was not only transformed into a complex three-dimensional form by destroying its original structure and relation; but also a certain type of spatial principle and practice is in effect within that space. This deterritorializing force is not only the necessity for the production of space, but also makes a space able to transcend its concrete specificity, spatial limit, or any sort of original totality, producing and actualizing new connections through the space between heterogeneous concepts, such as construction and destruction. This is what I call ‘fragmentization’.Dwelling space is therefore a part of space, which cannot simply be limited to either the x and y coordinates on a graph or an empty space for physical movement described using the traditional methods of geometry and physics. Also, it cannot merely be considered as a physical space, such as buildings and blocks of dwellings or the space that appeared in the Heideggerian idealism. Rather, it is a contested zone, composed of all different types of public and private, socio-cultural and political living spaces, in which complex human interactions take place and relations are both formed and re-formed. In Foucault’s famous description of Jeremy Bentham’s idea of the Panopticon, appearing in Discipline and Punishment, and first published in 1975, it emphasizes that a specific type of space becomes a socio-political apparatus or machine, whereby a certain rule of movement, visibility, and indeed power can be proposed and legitimized. Human behaviour is patterned and that patterned behaviour is constantly changed, interacting with specific conditions and changes in the surrounding environment. Spatial arrangement shapes the path of flow and the line of sight, so that, through its machinic and repetitive operation, a certain type of socio-spatial practice takes place. In other words, if someone enters a place, that means that he or she must be directly or indirectly affected by the law of that place. In this sense, dwelling space cannot be understood as a simple arrangement of an individual’s desire to occupy, possess and privatize a particular space. As we can see in Haesung Villa, a specific condition of space, such as the conditions of a studio, including its surroundings and its relation to an artist, becomes a stimulating power not only for the transformation from the space of reality to a sculptural work of art, or from an abstract idea to material language, but also the production of a new spatiality. Haesung Villa does not aim to establish the repetition of the same, or the representation of the space of reality, but the appearance of differential space. This differential space recognizes the shift of spatial condition as well as man’s socio-political capacity for action or re-action, which is directly related to threatening the concrete form of the homogeneous and hierarchical system of an existing space. The (re)arrangement of doors, walls and assignment of different names and functions for rooms in domestic houses is therefore an important factor for determining the connection and disconnection, or convergence and divergence of men’s vision and the path of flow. However, it cannot be reduced to the physical and formalistic perspective of arrangement itself. Spatial arrangement is regarded as the installation and application of a new network, which transforms a given space into differential space. In the process, an established socio-spatial practice can transcend its spatial limits and becomes a medium for producing a new spatiality. As Foucault has already shown, ‘In our era, space presents itself to us in the form of patterns of ordering’, [4] the concept of space is considered as a medium or independent variable for determining and transforming the form of aesthetic and socio-political relations among heterogeneous spaces and elements. Spatial arrangement is hence definitely involved in dealing with the problem of spatial practice, in the sense that it provides a certain spatial limit, through which a particular type of activity is regulated, or even resists further change or transformation. The spatial limit produced by the strategy of arrangement can be a new vocabulary of the political. In the panoptic arrangement, as Foucault describes, ’Visibility is a trap… invisibility is a guarantee of order’, the invisibility or absence of guardian in the central tower functions both actually and potentially as a network of mechanisms, through which a particular type of power relation can penetrate the social body.[5] The ability of architectural structure is therefore not only in partitioning physical space and social structure, but also in actualizing the ‘invisible penetration of power.’ This means that the politics of spatial arrangement or installation not only affects, but is formed by the interactive relationship between visibility and invisibility. In other words, if the visibility or physical arrangement of space presents a new mode of movement or flow, invisibility makes it actualized by reorganizing the existent structure and form of space. In this respect, invisibility plays an important role as a driving force for building and altering spatial arrangement. It has a certain tendency to invade or penetrate the given space and makes that space vulnerable as well as controversial. Becoming vulnerable is understood as the degeneration of established forms and relations. Being controversial is conceived as using revolutionary moment or action to escape from the form of common consent and to take a space to the possibility of shift.The Machinic Installation of Urban SpaceWhen dwelling space conflicts with rapid urbanization or urban redevelopment, it undergoes a complex political process of becoming fragmented, destabilized and fluid, blurring its established boundaries, and the boundaries between public and private space. Through the competitive and progressive development of urban space in the logic of capital, the marvellousness of visual and material landscape is constantly presented. Contemporary architecture and buildings, which constitute the exterior form of a city, not only potentially possess and exercise fascist violence, but also dictate, homogenize and hierarchize the conceptual and material flows of a period beyond aesthetic beauty and economic and scientific pragmatism. Humanity’s endless desire for expansion, occupation, development of space does not come from desire as a form of demand, which premises Lacanian lack; it is definitely related to productive force itself. This productive force reorganizes visualized spaces or territories and machinically generates a new space through the constant process of transformation and expansion, imposed by the conflict between and coalition of heterogeneous elements and forces. Spaces, especially produced in this process, separate the idea of dwelling from traditional notions, such as rootedness, occupation, protection. This fragmentizing process can be understood as a spatial strategy for the continuous production of principle through and beyond crises, rather than indicating either the disruptive nature of space in the process of urbanization under the logic of capital or the Derridean post-structuralist context of deconstructive characteristics of space.In this respect, South Korean urbanization is an extreme example of the concept of dwelling and its particular process of construction and destruction of space. Korean urbanization has undergone rapid growth and change after the Korean War, ending in 1953, thoroughly led by the government from its housing plan to its supply and price control since the 1970s. This can be approached from two main points of view. First, housing policy has been considered as a political strategy for the rapid stabilization of new power. Second, it was also utilized as a tool for economic development and industrialization of the country. What we call the ‘miracle on the Han River’ can therefore be understood as an extreme case, resulting from the progressive economic and political purpose of rapid urbanization.[6] When rethinking the process of this marvellous cultural and economic outcome in South Korea, welfare policy and the quality of life, particularly for low-income families, have been de-prioritized in constructing dwelling space; rather, external development, including the increase of GDP, the construction of industrial infrastructure and the housing policy for the wealthy, were emphasized. This becomes evident when we look at many incidents caused by the problem of housing, such as a major violent protest in 1970 in Gwangju, in the outskirts of Seoul, against the government’s Gwangju large-scale relocation project and citizen apartment programme. South Korean urbanization has been initiated in earnest with the government-led Saemaeul Movement (the New Community Movement) in the early 1970s. In 2002, the Korean government instigated its New Town Policy and in 2010, it again announced a spectacular development in the Han River Renaissance Project, under the slogan Design Seoul. When we think of these continuous urban development projects and the tragic incidents that always accompanied them, such as the Youngsan incident in 2009, it gives us an opportunity to reconsider the relationship between dwelling and space, concerning the way in which space, which is constantly and competitively developed, invested, invaded, occupied and controlled by human beings-especially the meaning, significance, and function of space-cannot be simply reduced to a process of redevelopment; rather, it needs an extended perspective to reappraise the constructive and destructive relationship between space and everyday life under the large complex spatial mechanism of urbanization.This particular radical tendency of urbanization in Korea is understood not as a simple redevelopment of a degenerated place or the construction and destruction of physical buildings; but it needs to be considered in terms of the politics of space, whereby a certain type of spatial arrangement can be determined and altered depending on the way in which different powers, for example, territorial power and capital power, or State power and that of the everyday, encounter, connect and conflict. Urbanization is therefore a matter of (re)distribution and strategy of a network of power in the given space. This is definitely related to the famous philosophical work on capitalism and schizophrenia of Deleuze and Guattari, in which they elaborate the concept of machine as a mode of production. It does not literally indicate a repetitive inhuman operation, or the dualistic opposition to the State, but the production of spatial difference or otherness through the means of repetition, resulting from the symbiotic relationship between interruption and continuity of different forces. Drawing on the Deleuze-Guattarian notion of machine, what I mean by the ‘machinic’ installation of urban space can be linked to the contradictory dynamism of urbanization, which is formed and operated by complex spatial arrangement and reconfiguration via the continuous ‘invention’ of flow and relation, mode of occupation and displacement, and the action and reaction of people within the visible and invisible atmosphere. Urban space produces a machine.The Political Dynamism of Fragmented Space"We no longer believe in a primordial totality that once existed, or in a final totality that awaits us at some future date. We no longer believe in the dull gray outlines of a dreary, colourless dialectic of evolution, aimed at forming a harmonious whole out of heterogeneous bits by rounding off their rough edges. We believe only in totalities that are peripheral. And if we discover such a totality alongside various separate parts, it is a whole of these particular parts but does not totalize them; it is a unity of all of these particular parts but does not unify them; rather, it is added to them as a new part fabricated separately…For the rigors of the law are only an apparent expression of the protest of the One, whereas their real object is the absolution of fragmented universes, in which the law never unites anything in a single Whole, but on the contrary measures and maps out the divergences, the dispersions, the exploding into fragments of something that is innocent precisely because its source is madness."[7] My interest is therefore in rediscovering the concept of space-which is inextricably intertwined with the space of everyday life and its relation to particular issues and phenomena, raised in the process of urbanization-from a different perspective, particularly through the concept of ‘fragmented space’ and visualized outcomes of it. Precisely speaking, fragmented space concerns the way in which dwelling space or the space of everyday life is produced, moved and transformed in the politics of space. Fragmented space is not simply limited to a part physically and conceptually detached from an illusionary whole or to the traditional idea of the relationship between the part and the whole. Nor does it mean the disappearance of hierarchy in the space. Rather, fragmented space functions as a ‘constructive force’, which potentially includes the idea of the destructive. In other words, thinking of the process of production of my work, a fragmented space is not simply made by detaching it from a larger whole of actual buildings, nor is it definitely distinct from Gordon Matta-Clark’s direct and physical intervention of actual architectural buildings, that is, the sculpturalization of architecture or ‘de-architecturalization’; it is a completely new spatiality thoroughly produced in constant and revolutionary relation to the given or established space of reality. Fragmented space is, therefore, formed and operated on by two contradictory functional elements: the constructive and the destructive, whereby a ‘deviating space’ is produced through these co-existential and interactive spatial dynamics. It becomes evident in the urbanization of space under market-oriented forms of socio-economic development. The urbanization of space is constructive, on the one hand, and destructive, on the other hand. This can be understood in connection with the nature and formation of the (globalized) market, which is directly related to the logic of capital. Capital discovers the value of investment of a space and a space is produced through the process of the investment and accumulation of capital. Capital constantly flows, in order to seek a new space and connections for production whereby more profits can be achieved. A space where capital and investment are lost necessarily catches up with rival producers or spaces by destroying its old connections and organization for production and by developing its value and inventive methodology of technology, so that the space can survive in the endless process of competition between other spaces, in order to attract investment and capital into the space. A space produced in this urbanization, becomes competitive, precarious and ephemeral, because it only exists and shapes itself in the repetition of generation and degeneration. In the context of urbanization, dwelling space tends to be considered as nothing more than a means of the investment, distribution and flow of capital.Fragmented space, which includes objects and spaces in our surroundings, undergoes decolourization. This decolourized space or object does not merely indicate an emptied space or a deficiency. Non-decolourized objects generally employed in other sculptures and installations tend, relatively speaking, to focus our attention on the object itself. By contrast, fragmented space produced through the process of decolourization fails to fasten our eyes upon the object in space or the object itself; rather, it highlights the ‘relational dynamics of space’, which includes the surrounding territory of the object. This relational dynamics of space does not aim at a totalitarianistic visualization of space by monumentalizing the sculpture through the presentation of monochromic surfaces in a literal sense; instead it presents and realises the encounter, conflict and connection between the heterogeneous elements and the forces acting on them. I view this concept of decolourization from two perspectives. First, decolourization proposes an open system of space, through which a new connection and conflict between different spaces can emerge by escaping from the pre-existing form and structure of space. Open space cannot be simplified in the traditional understanding of political thought: for instance, the libertarian tradition of anarchism, which is considered as ’an anti-dogmatic and unstructured cluster of related attitudes, which does not depend for its existence on any enduring organization.’[8] It is situated and functions in the tension between sovereign and institutional freedom. Second, this open space is contradictory, as despotic power potentially exists in order to visualize and materialize a new connection. This violent force can never be completely eliminated and will always be mobilized at a certain point. Through the process of decolourization, different objects and spaces begin to communicate with each other, escaping from a political rule in a certain regime of space.Fragmented space proposes a contradictory dynamic system of space, whereby a principle of the connection, movement and change of space can be actualized through the tension between the constructive and the destructive. It reveals a spatial continuum, which is operated by combining homogenizing despotic movement of space with reactive revolutionary movement of space. Fragmented space aims to build potentially positive and productive dimensions of space by developing the space under capitalist urbanization, which is not only considered unstable, contradictory, sometimes negative, but is also easily recognized as a tool for economic growth and political stabilization. The driving force of fragmentization is produced and sustained when a conceptual and material point becomes divergent and decoded. It is the necessity for a revolutionary movement of dynamics of fragmented space, whereby new connections and arrangements of space can continuously emerge in the built environment. The regime of fragmented space exercises its power in order to discover how to disconnect pre-established orders and conventions and how to put heterogeneous things together through the condensed and displaced logic of space. From a new point of view, provided by this spatial continuum, the politics and function of the space of everyday life can be recovered and re-illuminated.[1] Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, translated and forwarded by Brain Massumi. Continuum, London, 2004, p.555.[2] According to Deuchler, Confucianism was established not only as the national ideology of the Choson dynasty, but also as the dominant system of knowledge and values reforming socio-political and cultural spheres of Koyro (918-1392). It played the key role for the ritualization of everyday life by shaping and hierarchizing thoughts and behaviours through family structure, educational systems, political culture, and other social organizations. Martina Deuchler, The Confucian Transformation of Korea: A Study of Society and Ideology. Harvard University Press, Massachusetts, 1995, p.182.[3] Christopher Gravett and David Nicolle, The Normans: Warrior Knights and Their Castles. Osprey Publishing, New York, 2006, p.114.[4] Michel Foucault, ‘Of other spaces: utopias and heterotopias’. Diacritics 16.1, Spring, 1986, p.23.[5] Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punishment: The Birth of Prison, translated by Alan Sheridan. Penguin Books, London, 1977, p.200.[6] Pran Tiku described the miracle on the Han River thus: ‘Korea has been one of the fastest-growing economies that the world has ever witnessed. According to the Bank of Korea, in less than four decades, the country has transformed from a poor agrarian society into the tenth largest economy in the world… The remarkable achievements of the Korean economy are often called the ‘miracle on the Han River’, named after the river that runs through Seoul, the capital.’ Pran Tiku, Six Sizzling Markets: How to Profit from Investing in Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Korea and Mexico. John Wiley & Sons, New Jersey, 2008, p.205.[7] Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, translated by Robert Hurley, Mark Seen and Helen R. Lane, and preface by Michel Foucault. Continuum, London, 2004, p.45-46. 8] George Woodcock, Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements. Broadview Press, Ontario, 2004, p.411.파편화된 공간홍유영 공간 배치의 정치학영토는 다양한 종류의 탈코드화된 파편들로 이루어져있다. 유교가 국가적 통치이념 그리고 사회가치관의 기준을 이루던 조선시대(1392-1910)를 건축적 측면에서 볼 때, 개인을 비롯한 사회적 삶의 거의 모든 부분들이 직접적으로나 간접적으로 유교이념에 의해 많은 영향을 받아왔다. 그 시기의 주거공간의 배치는 따라서 유교의 이념이나 원칙들을 대표적으로 재현하고 삶 자체에 직접적인 영향을 미치는 중요한 요소로 여겨져 왔다. 우리가 흔히 말하는 한옥이라는 전통적 주거공간은 그 안에 거주하는 사람의 가족이나 사회의 계층적 위치에 따라서 엄격하게 몇몇 구역으로 나뉜다. 예를 들자면, 안채는 주택의 내부에 위치하는데, 주로 여성이나 어린이들이 거주하던 공간이고, 사랑채는 주택의 전면에 위치하는데 보통 집안의 남자나 혹은 손님들이 이용하는 공간이다. 그리고 행랑채는 대문 근처에 위치하는 하인들이 거주하는 공간이다. 방과 출입문의 위치는 따라서 생활공간의 물리적인 배치뿐만 아니라, 그것의 사회적, 실용적 사용을 규정하며, 체계화한다. 하지만 이러한 전통 주거공간은 1950년대 이후 서양근대문화의 영향을 받으며 막대한 변화를 겪게 된다. 2000년 이후에 서울의 주요한 지역을 중심으로 세워진 초고층 주거용 빌딩들은 한국 현대주거공간의 흐름을 이끄는 지배적인 풍경을 이룬다. 이러한 빌딩의 내부구조는 근대 한국주거공간에서 흔히 나타났던 건축적 형태를 통한 이념, 사회적 규율과 신념 등을 재연하던 것에서 벗어나, 혁신적인 과학기술, 세계 각국에서 들여온 최고급 건축자재, 세계적인 건축가들이 만든 우수한 디자인, 높은 수준의 안전성, 사생활 보호, 조망권 확보, 높은 수위의 건물 출입통제 등을 포함하는 높은 수준의 삶의 질을 강조한다. 이러한 특정한 예를 종합해볼 때, 한국의 현대주거공간은 개인의 사적 공간의 독립을 강화할 뿐만 아니라 빈부의 격차를 공간적으로 더욱 더 벌어지게 하는 경향이 있다. 이러한 한국의 현대주거공간의 형태는 영국 성의 일반적인 형태의 시초가 된11c의 도버(Dover), 엑서터(Exeter), 노팅험(Nottingham) 등의 거대한 성곽 건축에서도 흔히 나타나는 성 안의 사람과 동물들을 보호하면서 외부로부터의 침략자들을 공격하는 방어적이면서도 공격적인 군사적 목적의 이중적 기능과 비교해 볼 수 있다. 그러한 중세의 성들을 보면 대체적으로 목재로 만들어진 도개교 출입문과 물로 가득 차 성을 둘러싼 해자와 흙과 석재로 구성된 높은 벽을 기본적인 건축요소로 한다. Castle이라는 단어의 어원을 살펴보면 라틴어의 castellum에서 유래하였는데, 그것은 힘과 권위를 상징하는 ‘요새화된 장소’를 말한다. 성(Castle)이라는 단어는 사실 한국의 현대 주택들의 이름에서도 쉽게 발견된다. 서울뿐만 아니라 뉴욕이나 시카고와 같은 거대한 도시들을 뒤덮고 있는 또 다른 성의 형태를 띄고 있는 현대 주택은, 특히, 한국의 경우 동선과 시각의 엄격한 통제와 독립된 자체적 생활구조를 통해 그 공간 자체를 다른 것들로부터 구분 짓는다. 위에서 언급한 결정론적 체제의 공간의 질서화와 체계화와는 반대로, 주거공간의 공간적 배치는 가시성과 물질성의 일정한 형태를 제공할 뿐만 아니라, 건축적인 것과 파괴적인 것 사이의 모순적 관계에 지속적으로 영향을 받음으로써 하나의 공간을 논쟁적이며 정치적으로 변형시키는 중요한 힘으로서 기능을 한다. 2009년 여름, 국립현대미술관에서 운영하는 창동 미술스튜디오에 입주하였다. 그 기간은 라는 작업을 통해 특히 주거와 공간, 그리고 도시화의 역학과 관련하여 ‘공간’이라는 개념을 다시 생각할 수 있는 개인적으로 의미가 있는 시간이었다. 그 당시 한 개의 작은 창문이 있는 204호 작업실을 쓰게 되었다. 그 스튜디오는 삼층 짜리 빌라가 앞을 완전히 가로막은 고정된 독특한 풍경을 그 단 하나의 창문을 통해서 제공한다. 단순히 그 건물이 이미 그곳에 그리고 눈앞에 존재한다는 공간적 조건 때문에 개인적인 취향 또는 선택과는 무관하게 매일 그 건물을 바라봐야 했다. 하지만 점차적으로 그 건물을 매일같이 관찰하고 있는 자신을 발견하게 되었다. 그 집안에 거주하던 사람은 기존에 있던 창틀과 유리를 제거하고 우리가 흔히 임시 주택에서 발견할 수 있는 철과 알루미늄 틀과 샌드위치 패널 등의 저렴한 자재를 사용하여 자신의 공간을 확장한 점이 특히 나의 흥미를 끌었다. 이러한 새로운 공간의 갑작스런 출현은 ‘이탈’이라는 개념, 혹은 들뢰즈가 말하는 ‘탈영토화’와 연관 지여 생각해 볼 수 있다. 본래 설계도에도 포함되어있지 않은 이 특정 주거공간 안에 새롭게 건축된 공간은 일상의 반복성 속에 내재하는 일종의 변형적 벡터로 이해될 수 있는데, 이것은 기존의 구조와 관계를 탈피해서 단순한 창문의 형태를 복잡한 입체적 공간으로 변형한 것뿐만 아니라, 그 공간 안에서 특정 유형의 공간적 원리와 실행이 이행된다. 이 탈영토화적 힘은 공간 생산에 필수적인 요소이면서 동시에 이질적인 공간들 사이, 다시 말해, 건축과 파괴의 사이를 통해 공간의 견고한 특수성, 공간적 한계, 또는 결정론적 전체를 넘어 서게 한다. 이러한 맥락에서 ‘파편화’라는 개념을 접근하고자 한다. 거주공간은 따라서 기호학이나 물리학에서 전통적으로 쓰여지는 그래프 위의 X와 Y좌표 혹은 물리적 이동을 위한 빈 공간으로 단순화되는 공간이 아니다. 그것은 또한 물질적 형태로서의 빌딩이나 거주공간을 의미한다거나, 하이데거의 이상주의적 공간을 의미하지 않는다. 주거공간은 오히려 복잡한 인간의 상호작용이 일어나고, 관계가 형성되고, 재형성되는 다양한 종류의 공적, 사적, 사회, 문화, 정치적 생활공간으로 구성된 ‘경쟁적 공간’이다. 1975년에 출판된 푸코의 에서 제러미 벤덤(Jeremy Bentham)의 파놉티콘(Panopticon)에 대한 글을 살펴보면, 특정 공간은 새로운 이동, 가시성 그리고 힘의 법칙을 제시하고 합법화하는 사회, 정치적 장치 혹은 기계가 된다는 점을 강조한다. 인간의 행동은 따라서 주변 환경의 조건과 변화에 민감하게 반응하며 일정한 양식을 형성시키고, 이렇게 형성된 양식은 또다시 지속적으로 재양식화된다. 여기서 공간적 배치는 동선의 흐름과 시선을 만들고, 그러한 기계적이며 반복적 작동을 통해 특정한 양태의 사회, 공간적 실행을 가능하게 한다. 다시 말하자면, 어떤 사람이 한 공간에 들어가게 되면, 그 사람은 자신이 속한 공간의 특정한 규칙에 직, 간접적인 영향을 받게 된다. 이러한 맥락에서, 주거 공간은 특정 공간을 차지하고, 소유하며, 사유화하는 개인의 욕망의 배치로 단순화될 수 없다. 에서 보여지듯, 주변 공간 그리고 작가와의 관계를 포함하는 스튜디오의 조건과 같은 공간의 조건은 현실의 공간에서 조각적 작품으로 또는 추상적 사고에서 물질적 언어로의 ‘변형을 자극하는 힘’이 될 수 있다. 는 동일함의 반복이나 현실 공간의 재현 보다 오히려 차이적 공간의 출현을 그 목적으로 한다. 차이적 공간은 동질적 그리고 계층적 구조를 바탕으로 하는 기존 공간의 견고한 형태를 위협하는 행동과 반응을 가능하게 하는 인간의 사회 정치적 능력뿐만 아니라 공간 조건의 변화를 특히 중요시한다. 예를 들자면, 집안의 문과 벽의 (재)배치 그리고 각기 다른 이름과 기능의 방은 따라서 인간의 시각과 동선의 연결과 단절, 응집과 확산을 결정하는 중요한 요소가 된다. 그러나 이러한 것들은 단순히 물질적이거나 형식적 관점의 배치를 의미하지 않는다. ‘현시대는 공간이 장소들 사이에서 관계의 형태로 기능한다고 말할 수 있다’고 푸코가 언급했듯이, 공간이라는 개념은 동질적 공간이나 요소들 사이의 미적, 사회, 정치적 관계의 형태를 변형시키고 결정하는 매개 또는 독립적 변수로 인식된다. 이런 점에서, 공간적 배치는 새로운 네트워크의 설치와 적용이라고 볼 수 있는데, 이는 특정 형태의 행위가 규율화하거나 심지어 새로운 변화에 저항하는 일종의 공간적 한계를 제공하기도 한다. 배치의 전략을 바탕으로 발생한 이러한 공간적 한계는 ‘정치적’이라는 개념을 새로운 시각으로 접근한다. ‘가시성은 함정이며, 비가시성은 질서의 보증이다’라고 푸코가 말하듯, 파놉틱 배치를 보게 되면 중앙 탑 감시자의 비가시성이나 부재는 실질적으로나 잠재적으로 특정 형태의 힘 관계가 사회적 몸을 관통하는 하나의 네트워크적 장치로서 기능한다. 따라서 건축적 구조의 기량은 물질적 공간과 사회적 구조를 분할할 뿐만 아니라, ‘힘의 비가시적 침투’를 현실화하는 중요한 요인이 된다. 이것은 공간적 배치의 정치가 가시성과 비가시성의 상호보완적 관계를 통해서 영향을 주고, 반대로 그것으로 인해 형성되는 것을 의미한다. 다시 말해서, 만약 시각적 혹은 물질적 공간의 배치가 새로운 방식의 이동이나 흐름을 의미한다면, 비가시성은 기존의 공간적 구조나 형태를 재조직화함으로써 그러한 새로운 방식들을 현실화시킨다. 이런 점에서, 비가시성은 공간적 배치를 건축하고 변경을 유도하는 강력한 힘으로써의 역할을 하게 된다. 그것은 주어진 공간을 침투하며 그 공간을 취약하고 논쟁적으로 만드는 경향이 있다. 공간이 취약하게 된다는 것은 다시 말해 확립된 형태와 관계들의 쇠퇴를 의미하며, 공간이 논쟁적으로 된다는 것은 혁명적 순간이나 행위를 통해서 만장일치의 체제로부터 탈주하여 공간을 변화의 가능성에 도달하게 하는 것을 의미한다.도시 공간의 기계적 설치이번 영은미술관에서 2011년 4월 9일부터 6월 12일까지 개최되는 '파편화된 공간 (Fragmented space)’은 현대 시장경제 사회구조 속에서 ‘일상의 공간’이 도시화(urbanization)과정에서 어떻게 생산되고, 이동하며, 변형되는지 모색해 본다. 개인의 생활과 밀접한 관계가 있는 주거 공간은 급속한 도시화 현상 혹은 도시 (재)개발사업과 충돌하였을 때, 파편화되고, 불안정해지며, 동시에 공간간의 경계가 불분명해지며 유동성을 띄는 현상이 나타나게 된다. 이러한 일련의 가시적 그리고 비가시적인 힘과 자본의 논리에 의해 지속적으로 생산 또는 개발되는 일상의 공간은 물질적, 시각적 경이로움을 끊임없이 제공하고 추구한다. 도시의 한 외형적 형태를 이루는 현대 건축물들은 시각적 혹은 예술적인 아름다움과 과학기술을 바탕으로 한 실용주의를 넘어 한 시대의 물질적, 개념적 흐름을 지배하고 통제, 획일화하는 파시스트적 폭력성을 지니게 된다. 인간의 끊임없는 공간의 확장, 점유, 개발에 대한 욕망은 라캉의 말하는 결핍을 전제로 한 일종의 요구의 형태로서의 욕망이 아닌 생산적 힘(productive force) 자체를 이야기한다. 이 생산적 힘은 자본의 논리 속에서 시각화된 공간 혹은 영역을 이질적인 요소들의 지속적인 침범과 그에 의한 확장과 변형의 과정 통해서 끊임없이 기계적으로 새로운 공간을 생산한다. 이렇게 생산되는 공간들은 특히 우리가 생각하는 ‘거주’라는 개념, 흔히 말해, 안락, 보호, 정착 등의 개념들과 함께 이해되어왔던 것에서 탈피하게 만든다. 파편화되다 혹은 파편화 하다라는 것의 의미는 단순히 지속적인 공간의 확장과 침범 그리고 점유, 재점유 과정에서 나타나는 자본과 힘의 논리 안에서 공간이 갖는 분열적 특성 또는 데리다의 후기구조주의적 맥락에서 본 해체적 특성을 말한다기보다, 생존을 위한 즉 공간의 지속적 생산을 위한 공간적, 그리고 공간의 전략이라고 이해된다. 이러한 맥락에서 한국의 도시화는 주거공간의 건축과 철거의 방법적인 면을 볼 때 하나의 극단적 예로 이해될 수 있다. 한국의 도시화 과정을 살펴보면 1950년 6.25 남북 전쟁 이후 1970년대부터 정부주도 하에 서울을 중심으로 급속화되었다는 점을 주의 깊게 생각해 볼 필요가 있다. 이것은 두 가지 관점에서 접근해 볼 수 있다. 첫째, 전쟁 이후 집권 세력의 빠른 정치적 안정(political stabilization)을 위해서 도시화 정책을 하나의 중요한 정치적 전략으로 내세운 점. 둘째, 국가의 경제적 발전을 위한 도구로서의 도시화 계획이었다는 점을 들 수 있다. 우리가 흔히 일컫는 ‘한강의 기적’은 이러한 정치적, 경제적 목적의 급격한 도시화 정책의 결과로서, 특히 그 과정을 볼 때, 인간의 거주 공간을 건설하고 개발하는데 있어 정작 인간과 인간의 복지, 그리고 삶의 질은 외면한 외형적인 발전에 치중해왔음을 1970년 광주대단지 사건을 비롯한 여러 크고 작은 사건들이 대변하고 있다. 한국의 도시화는 1970년대 새마을 운동을 거쳐, 1990년대 ‘한강의 기적’이라는 용어를 만들어 낸지 불과 10여 년 만에 다시 2002년부터 실행된 ‘뉴타운 정책’ 그리고 2010년 ‘디자인 서울’이라는 슬로건 하에 ‘한강 르네상스’를 계획한다. 그리고 최근 2009년 용산 역세권 재개발을 둘러싸고 일어난 일련의 사건들을 종합해 볼 때, 현재 우리가 끊임없이 개발하고, 투자하고, 관리하는 이 ‘거주 공간(dwelling place)’라는 개념은 단순히 어떤 한 장소의 재개발이라는 좁은 틀 안에서 단순화되기보다 도시화라는 거대한 복합구조 속에서 나타나는 공간과 인간 삶의 생산적이며 때로는 폭력적인 복잡하고도 상호적인 관계를 다양한 시각으로 재 접근해볼 필요가 있다. 이러한 한국 특유의 급진적인 도시화는 단순히 쇠퇴한 장소를 재개발한다거나, 물질적 건물들의 건축과 철거를 의미한다기보다는, 오히려 영토적 힘과 자본적 힘 또는 국가적 힘과 일상의 힘과 같은 각기 다른 힘들이 만나고, 연결되고, 충돌하는 것에 따라서 특정한 형태의 공간 배치가 결정되고, 변경되는 공간의 정치학적 맥락에서 이해되어야 할 필요가 있다. 도시화는 따라서 주어진 공간 안의 힘의 네트워크의 (재)분배와 전략의 문제로 생각이 된다. 이것은 기계라는 개념을 하나의 생산의 방식으로 접근하고 있는 들뢰즈와 가타리의 자본주의와 정신분열에 대한 철학적 연구와 분명히 관련이 있는데, 여기서 기계라는 개념은 문자 그대로 반복적이고 비인간적인 작동이나 국가에 반하는 이원론적 맥락에서 이해한다기 보다는, 다른 힘들의 지속과 중단의 공생적 관계의 결과물로서 나타나는 반복이라는 수단을 통한 공간적 차이 또는 다름의 생산으로서 이해된다. 이러한 들뢰즈와 가타리의 기계라는 개념에 의거할 때, 도시 공간의 기계적 설치는 흐름과 관계, 점유와 이동의 방법, 그리고 가시적, 비가시적 환경 속에서 인간의 행동과 반응 등의 지속적인 발명을 통한 복잡한 공간적 배치와 구조적 변경에 의해 형성되고 작동되는 공간의 모순적 역동성을 말한다고 본다. 도시 공간은 기계를 생산한다. 파편화된 공간의 정치적 역동성우리는 더 이상 한때 존재했던 선험적 전체 또는 미래의 언젠가 우리를 기다리고 있을 결정적인 전체를 믿지 않는다. 우리는 더 이상 이질적인 조각들의 모서리들을 모조리 둥글게 깎아 붙여 만든 조화로운 전체를 만드는 것을 목적으로 하는 불분명한 윤곽의 따분하고 무색 무미한 이분법적 진화를 믿지 않는다. 우리는 오로지 지엽적인 전체를 믿는다. 그리고 만일 우리가 다양한 별개의 부분과 함께 전체를 발견한다면, 그것은 그러한 특정 부분들의 집합을 의미하지 그것들을 총체화한다는 것은 아니다; 그것은 이러한 특정 부분들의 통합체일 뿐, 그것들을 일괄적으로 통일한다는 것은 아니다; 오히려, 그것은 개별적으로 생산된 새로운 부분으로서 추가된다 …… 일원론에 대항하는 엄격한 법칙의 명백한 표출에 근거하여, 그들의 실질적 목적은 그 법칙이 절대로 어떠한 하나의 전체로 통일되는 것이 아닌, 반대로 무언가 순수한 파편들로의 이탈과 확산, 폭발을 조치하고 보여주는 파편화된 우주의 절대성을 말한다. 정확히 말하자면 그것의 근원은 바로 광기이기 때문이다. 이번 전시에서 선 보이는 최근 작업들은 도시화 과정에서 발생하는 특정한 문제와 현상 그리고 일상 공간과 실행 등과 복잡하게 얽혀있는 공간이라는 개념을 특히 ‘파편화된 공간’이라는 개념과 그것을 통한 시각적 결과물을 통해서 접근하려 한다. 정확히 말하자면, 파편화된 공간은 주거 공간 또는 일상의 공간이 공간의 정치에 의해 생산되고, 이동되고, 변형되는 방법을 모색하는데 그 의미가 있다. 파편화된 공간은 단순히 어떤 가상의 전체에서 절단된 부분 또는 부분과 전체의 관계에 집착하지 않는다. 파편화된 공간은 그 자체로 또 다른 종류의 ‘건축된 공간’이다. 쉽게 말하자면 하나의 파편화된 공간은 어떤 커다란 전체로서의 공간으로부터 분리되어 만들어진 것이 아닌, 혹은 고든 메타크락(Gordon Matta-Clark)의 작업에서 주로 나타나는 직접적인 실제 건축물의 침범과 건축의 조각화, 즉 탈건축화(de-architecturalization)와는 분명히 구분된 오히려 주어진(given) 혹은 이미 존재하는(pre-existing) 공간과의 지속적인 관계 속에서 만들어진 새로운 공간성이다. 이것은 다시 말하자면 파편화된 공간은 이질적인 두 가지 면이 – 생산성(the constructive)과 폭력성(the destructive) – 한 공간에 공존하며 함께 상호기능하며 ‘탈주하는 공간’을 생산한다. 이러한 두 가지의 이질적인 면은 자본과 힘의 논리를 중심으로 하는 도시화 과정에서도 분명히 나타난다. 도시화는 한편으로는 건축적이지만, 다른 한편으로는 파괴적이다. 이것은 자본의 특성과 관련이 있는데, 투자가치가 있는 장소에 자본이 축적되면서 하나의 공간이 생산된다. 하지만 자본은 또 더 많은 이익이 창출될 수 있는 다른 장소와 생산관계로 계속 옮겨 다닌다. 자본과 투자가 떠난 장소는 기존의 생산관계를 파괴하고 자본을 끌어들일 수 있도록 끊임없는 경쟁과 개발 속에서 살아남아야 한다. 따라서 이러한 도시화 과정에서 생산되는 공간 혹은 공간성은 매우 경쟁적이며, 위태로우며, 단명적이다. 왜냐하면 공간은 언제나 경쟁적 구도 속에서 계속적으로 생산되고 퇴보하고 파괴되기를 반복하기 때문이다. 이러한 맥락에서 거주공간이라는 것은 지극히 자본의 투자, 분배 그리고 흐름 그 이상도 이하도 아니게 된다. 그렇다면 여기서 거주공간과 파편화된 공간의 관계를 생각해 본다면, 거주공간은 지속적으로 파편화된다. 이 두 공간, 즉, 거주 공간과 파편화된 공간은 각각 분리된 공간이 아닌 공생적 관계에 있다. 따라서 파편화된다는 것은 주어진 구조나 물질적, 개념적 틀에서 탈주하는 행위로 볼 수 있다. 어떤 것이 보호 받으려 하고, 안주하고, 정착하려고 할 때 그 상태에서 벗어나게 하는 이탈점(divergent point)이 바로 파편화의 원동력이자 특성이 된다. 이러한 이탈점은 자본의 축적, 분배, 흐름을 위한 하나의 수동적 도구로 인식되는 ‘일상성’ 혹은 ‘일상의 공간’의 중요성을 회복하기 위한 일종의 혁명적 움직임이다. 오브제를 포함한 파편화된 공간들은 대부분 탈색화(decolourization) 과정을 거친다. 이렇게 탈색화된 공간이나 오브제는 단순히 빈 혹은 결핍된 공간을 의미하지 않는다. 일반적으로 입체작업에서 흔히 쓰여지는 탈색되지 않은 오브제를 생각해볼 때, 그것이 공간에 놓이게 되면 오브제 자체에 비교적 시선이 집중되게 된다. 하지만 이 탈색화 과정을 거친 파편화된 공간은 공간 속의 오브제(the object in space) 또는 오브제 자체로 시선이 집중되기를 거부하며 오브제 주변 공간과 다른 요소들을 함께 끌어들이며 일종의 ‘관계적 공간(relational space)’을 제시한다. 관계적 공간은 한가지 색으로 통일된 개별적 공간의 자유와 특성을 억압하는 전체주의적 시각화(totalitarianistic visualization)를 지향하거나, 혹은 단순히 하나의 요소가 다른 하나의 요소와 관계를 형성하는 것을 의미하지 않는다. 이것은 이질적인 요소들이 만나고, 충돌하고, 새로운 관계 형성을 가능하게 하는 ‘공간의 역학’이다. 이 탈색화 과정을 크게 두 가지 관점에서 생각해 볼 수 있는데, 첫째, 앞에서 언급했듯이 탈색화는 오브제나 공간 자체가 원래 가지고 있었던 것들에서 탈주하면서 새로운 관계 또는 충돌을 형성할 수 있는 열린 공간을 제공한다. 이 열린 공간은 “지속적인 구조에 의존하는 반독선적이며 반구조적 무리의 관계적 태도”를 주축으로 하는 전형적인 무정부주의적(anarchist) 형태로 인식되기를 거부한다. 둘째, 이 열린 공간에서는 잠재된 것을 개발하여 새로운 관계를 흐르게 하는 강력한 때로는 폭력적인 힘이 존재한다. 이렇게 탈색화 과정을 거친 오브제와 공간은 자신이 갖고 있던 경계를 너머 소통하기 시작한다.‘파편화된 공간’은 건축적이고 파괴적인 것의 긴장 관계를 통해 연결, 이동과 변화의 규칙이 실현될 수 있는 모순적이며 역동적인 공간 체계를 제공한다. 이것은 균질화하는 전제적 공간의 이동과 공간의 반응적이며 혁명적인 이동의 상호관계에 의해 작동하는 공간적 연속체를 나타낸다. 파편화된 공간은 불안정하고, 모순적이며, 심지어 부정적인 면들로서뿐만 아니라, 단순히 경제적 성장과 정치적 안정의 도구로 인식되는 자본주의적 도시화 체제 하의 공간으로부터 더 나아가 잠재적으로 긍정적이며 생산적인 면의 공간을 건축하는데 그 의미를 두고 있다. 파편화된 공간의 근원적인 힘은 개념적, 물질적인 지점이 이탈되고 탈코드화될 때 비로서 생산되고 지속된다. 이것은 주어진 공간 안에서 새로운 공간의 관계와 배치가 계속해서 나타나는 혁명적인 파편화된 공간의 역동성에 있어 필수조건이 된다. 이러한 파편화된 공간의 체제는 이미 확립된 질서와 관습을 단절하고 응축과 추방의 공간의 논리를 통한 이질적인 것들을 연결시키는 방법을 발견하기 위해서 그 힘을 유용한다. 파편화된 공간은 따라서 단순히 물리적으로 절단된 공간들을 이야기하거나 또는 절단성을 강조한다기보다, 오히려 역으로 폭력성과 개발, 생산이라는 이질적인 개념들이 한데 묶여 작동하는 모순적 공간의 역학을 이야기한다. 이 모순적 공간의 역학은 자본과 권력의 힘 아래 형성되는 획일적이고 절대화된 폭력적 공간의 움직임과 그에 반응하는 혁명적 공간의 움직임의 연속체가 생산해 내는 새로운 시각을 통해 일상적 공간의 정치와 기능을 끊임없이 재해석하고 재발견하는 것이다.

Constructed Landscape - 홍유영

• 2016Euyoung HongSeptember 27 - October 14, 2016NARS Foundation 201 46th StBrooklynNew York 11220From September 27 to October 14, 2016, new sculptures and installation works are presented in my solo exhibition at NARS Foundation, New York. This exhibition, entitled Constructed Landscape includes a large spatial construction, Spatial Construction of Ephemerality(2016), which is constructed from scaffolding and covered withgray scaffolding nets, which are frequently used in South Korea to cover the exteriors of scaffolding structures in construction sites. Scaffolding is a temporary structure, which is used to support workers during architectural construction. Although scaffolding functions as a supportive structure for the construction or renovation of a building, it forms an independent spatial system, which is fixed to the adjacent building and provides stability in the process of spatial changes and transformation. In this work, a temporary scaffolding structure is transformed into a new form of spatial construction, which creates a void space inside the structure.This installation work expands the idea of dwelling, space and territoriality in terms of the concept of ephemerality, particularly focusing on its contradictory aspect in contemporary conditions of capitalist production of space.In the shifting conditions of the economic environment in the post-industrial era in South Korea,for example, changes of industrial structure from industrial technology to information technology have become a fundamental factor that not only affects the tendency of de-industrialization at the centre of the city, but also constantly produces conceptual and material ephemerality in and through society. Industrial structure is dependent on changes of market, technology and social environment. Once a new product is circulated in market, demand for the old products declines. An example is the disappearance of the Sony Walkman cassette player and CD player from the market. From a spatial perspective, in the system of capitalism, a space encounters barriers or limits in the process of accumulation and (capital) flow, and tends to open up and transcend the difficulties of its existing systems and boundaries. In many cases, old systems and relations can be destroyed, leading to a course of crisis. Capital fixity thus produces capital mobility. This can be an aspect of successive systemic cycles of capital accumulation in space. In this respect, urban territoriality cannot simply be reduced to either a static spatial point or a movement; rather, it operates in the contradiction between mobility and fixity, which can be considered an essential factor for the formation and operation of ephemerality in the capitalist system of urbanism. In the interactive connection between mobility and fixity, territoriality constantly proposes and actualizes new ways of using, deploying and systemizing a space or spatial elements for the survival from competition between rival producers. By exercising its power expansively yet coercively, territoriality refers not only to the colonization of a space, but also to the transgression of boundaries and borders. The uneven and conflictual movements or powers observe and encounter zones of territory.Ephemerality in the space of capitalism, therefore, becomes a driving force, which produces the new in the contradictory relationship between construction and destruction.By expanding the concept of ephemerality, this installation work explores the complex relationship between urban space, capitalist production and politics, particularly concerning ways in which spaces are transformed in the process of capitalist urbanization in terms of the changing ideas of urban land use, the politics of space and social and spatial production and transformation. In the process of urban development in South Korea, dwelling spaces in the metropolitan area of Seoul have been changedconstantly and rapidly, transforming into new districts, filled with new luxury residential and commercial buildings. People make economic profitsthrough the competitivedevelopment of urban space, as the economic value of developed places israised dramatically. Accordingly, these places experiencea major social transformation.The removal or disappearance of oldhouses and buildings particularly in shanty towns and squatter areas has been a common scene, which includes the forced displacement of the urban poor to the outskirts of Seoul’s metropolitan area.By looking at the contradictory relationship between expansionary construction and destruction, between stability and fragility and between settlement and displacement in the process of urbanization, this installion focuses on the changes of the meaning and function of space in the system of capitalism.The disappearance of places and peoplein the process of urban development cannot be avoided, as the market always demands a new product, space and spatial relation. For survival, spaces are constantly developed to increase their economic value in the market through the deconstruction of old systems and relations. Ephemeralitybecomes a productive force in the system of capitalism.(Un)balanced (2016) is an installation work, which is composed of 11 rectangular aluminium plates of different sizes, usedto put together and construct a new platform or another level of ground in the exhibition space. These aluminium plates are assembled so that they functionas a seesaw or a scale, which is balanced on a fixed part in the middle and moves at each end; as one end goes up, the other end goes down. In the exhibition, different objects are placed at each end to make a slight unbalance on the plates.This work explores the changing meaning and function of objects in particular relation to the system of value in the regime of capitalism.Human society constantly produces new objects or products. These objects cannot be seen simply as being neutral, because once an object is produced; it necessarily enters into a part of the space of human society, having a particular value, meaning, function and action in relationship with people who use it for a particular purpose in many different ways.In particular, in the system of capitalism, people earn money through their labour for survival, which is sold by the workers in the process of production and circulation of products. People not only produce commodities, but their life is alsocommodified in the system of value. An objectas a commodity obtains a value in the process of production. The value of commodity changesaccording tocomplex social and economic conditions.The circulation of commercial goods or commodities is also unstable and changeable, because the process is dominated by various changing factors, such as wages, labour maintenance, technological innovation, the price of land use and market conditions, which not only influence and change the system of production, but also operate the means of commodity circulation, that is money. In and through the system of value, capitalism creates an abstract space of things, which makes people believe in it as real or intrinsic.This economic value system has a certain tendency to reduce or even extort the natural quality or potentiality of things. The territory of a thing is determined and changed by external forces, for example, capital. In relation to the system of economic value, (Un)balanced focuses on ways in which we understand a thing and its value and the complex relationship between things in the system of capitalism.In this respect, this work also examines a contradictory aspect of our reality. On the one hand, a thing and its value are determined and expressed through its exchangeability, reducibility or transferability into something else, such as a certain amount of money. This can be called the politics of balancing, in which the value of a thingisbalanced or equivalent toa certain amount of money or labour, each of which is independent of the otherand this amount of money or priceis apparentlynot proportional to value.It is the means of abstraction, which is essential for the process of circulation and distribution of capital throughout the whole world. On the other hand,capitalism can survive only by producing differences, that is, surplus value. Marx provides a different form of circulation, M-C-M or M-C-M′, which refers to the transformation of money into commodity by ending with a greater valueM′. The difference betweenM and M′ is seen as surplus value. In Marx’s theory, not only does the production of profit or surplus value become a driving force for systemizing the network of production, circulation, exchange and consumption processes; but also the process of accumulation is formed by the production of surplus value of capital, which can maximize its profits from the compression of time and space. It is the politics ofimbalance in the system of capitalism, in which the quantities of capital produce a particular form of intensity in the space, which can be considered the process of differentiation.In the reality of our life, balancing cannot, therefore, be separated from unbalancing. Balance unbalances the social; and unbalance arouses the power of balance.This exhibition presents a wall piece, which is entitled Squeeze (2016). A white shelf-like structure is attached to the upper part of awallin the exhibition space, creating a small room, only just large enough for a planted pot, which must be squeezed into the constructed spatial limitation. In and through the given spatial limitation, this plant continues its own life, finding new directions and spaces for its leaves to grow.This work explores a particular aspect of the relationship between space and power in the process of capitalist urbanization. It expands the territory of the object through experimentation with the given spatial structure and system. The tiny space created by the shelf-like structure refers to the space of the corner, the periphery and the others, which is frequently ignored and abandoned in our society.In the space of capitalism, the ‘others’or minoritieshave always been pushed to the corners; towards the outside or peripheryand away from the centres or the places where they have lived and worked for long periods. The asymmetric structure of power in a capitalist economy drives these people’s lives much harder, by unfairly taking advantage of them to make more profits. In the case of urban development in South Korea and gentrification in some developed countries, for example, construction companies, investors and even the government exploit the urban poor, taking over their places to create new districts, which are filled with luxury residential and commercial buildings for the affluent. In many cases, the urban poor havebeen displaced to look for an alternative living place.In Marx’s theory, exploitation refers to the production of surplus value. The process of exploitation is not only what defines capitalism but also the root of basic inequality in capitalist society. In the exploitive nature of capitalism, social classes createmuch more complex political relationships, rather than being reduced to a simple class struggle in terms of the dualistic relationship between the oppressed and the oppressor or between the dominated and the dominant.According to Marx, the working class - which is easily considered as the oppressed or the dominated - has the potential to become a revolutionary force, which can develop radical demands for social change. In this respect, Squeezefocuses on the politics of space, particularly concerning how things and ideas can be transformed in, react to and become resistant to different structures and relations of power; how the new can be produced in the interrelationship between different elements and powers.By further developing the uneven structure of power relations in capitalist spaces, it also looks at the exploitation of ‘green’, concerning ways in which the concept of green is transformed as a commodity in the process of capitalist urbanization, particularly in relation to the changing ideas of urban land use, the politics of greening and social and spatial production and transformation. It focuses on how the understanding of green has been transformed and commoditized in terms of the politics of space, in particular moving from green or nature as a non-realistic and ideal object - which is free from the control of a certain centralized power system - to an essential part of a capitalist urban system.A set of five greenwall pieces, Constructed Landscape (2016) is installed on two walls in the exhibition space. The pieces were made using plywood to create a densely packed space, which is filled with different sizes of mountain-like forms within the space of 100 cm × 122cm rectangular plates.These pieces are fully covered withglossy green urethane paint, which is usually used to waterproof rooftops in South Korea. This work was derived froma certain aspect of urban landscape in South Korea, particularly looking at a uniformed colour pattern of rooftops in urban architectural spaces. In the metropolitan area of Seoul, houses and other buildingshave been denselybuilt. These green rooftopsfill urban spaces and even completely cover the whole mountain.When we look at these houses and buildings from a distance, they create a new artificial landscape, transforming a mountain and cityscape into an assemblage of glossy green fragments.Constructed Landscape explores and develops the perception ofan urban landscape in South Korea.Urban development projects in South Korea have been implemented on a large scale, constructing communities or towns. It is easy to find the uniformity of newly developedareas, because in Seoul the same designs of houses and other buildings have been constructed on a massive scale in these areas.Undeveloped areas in the city are also uniformed by another architectural style, mostly filled with three or four stories of multiplex housing units, which are called villas in South Korea.However, this work does not focus merely on the outward appearance of the urban landscape, but investigates the contradictory relationship between uniformity and fragmentation in the production of urban space. In Lefebvre’s Notes on the New Town, published in 1995, the urban is seen as a “mediator between nature and human beings, both as individuals and as groups.” As opposed to the rural - which acts as an unmediator in society and nature - the urban produces an abstract space, which has a tendency towards the totalization of space, erasing all differences. By contrast, Lefebvre sees the rural as an organic entity, which spontaneously forms itself within its own territory. Lefebvre pays attention to the ways in which a space is created and expands its territory through the invasion and appropriation of one space by another, such as the rural by the urban, rather than separating them. Space is not a solidified entity, but it is always in the process of formation, absorbing, transforming and expanding differences and contradictions. In relation to Lefebvre’s idea of the relationship between the urban and the rural, mass production and consumption of high-rise residential buildings in the metropolitan area of Seoul can be seen not only as a marked feature, but also as an industrialized method of spatial organization and systemization of planned urbanism that unifies space in a certain pattern in terms of repetition and uniformity.This massive (re)production of spaces certainly affects the significant socialrestructuring in the process of forced displacement and relocation. The gaps between housing prices accelerate spatial fragmentationbased on economic, educational, cultural or occupational differences. The terrain of the urban can be conceived as the centralization of space, which necessarily penetrates the process of the decentralization of space, dissociating and dislocating its own conditions, when encountering a certain limit of growth and permanent competition between rival producers, including the innovation of new technologies. The conflictual movements of urban force, therefore, coexist and participate in the formation of a certain spatial pattern or an abstract space, because space is considered relationally and relatively, rather than as an absolute framework for social action and events.

Constructed Landscape - 홍유영

• 2016Euyoung HongFrom 16 to 20 March, 2016, new sculpture and installation works are presented in the Young Korean Artists (YKA) exhibition at the Czong Institute for Contemporary Art (CICA) Museum in Korea. The exhibition, entitled Constructed Landscape, is composed of six sculpture and installation practices in Gallery 2 and a site-specific installation work in an open space between the museum buildings. These new works explore the relationship between the logic of capital and the structure of urban space, concerning ways in which things and ideas are transformed in the process of capitalist urbanization, particularly in relation to the changing ideas of urban land use, the politics of space and social and spatial production and transformation. By expanding the notion of displacement, artificiality, unbalance and inequality, the exhibition focuses on how our understanding of everyday objects and ideas has been changed in terms of the politics of space, especially their transformation as an essential means of participating, forming and constructing the capitalist urban system.Settling into the Space of Vulnerability "Taking possession of space is the first gesture of living things, of men and animals, of plants and clouds, a fundamental manifestation of equilibrium and duration. The occupation of space is the first proof of existence [...] Architecture, sculpture and painting are specifically dependent on space, bound to the necessity of controlling space, each by its own appropriate means." Space has always been a matter of importance in my works. My current art practice and research have developed to expand the notion of space in and through its complex relationship with objects, power, politics, society, urbanism and capitalism. In the recent solo exhibition at the CICA Museum, Korea, an installation work, entitled A Study of the Space of Han Pyeong (2016), is presented. This work explores the concept of space from a new perspective, particularly looking at the complex relationship between dwelling and space in rapidly changing conditions of urban space in Seoul. The installation is constructed from everyday objects, including construction materials, various forms of container, a ventilation fan, a work light, rulers, a chair, a plastic bookshelf and a ladder. The objects in the work are mostly made of aluminium, glass, styrofoam and plastic, which are very light and fragile substances and are usually used for the purpose of the construction of a house or for domestic use. Most of the objects, for example, the containers, are of little value, as they are used temporarily for the protection of other things, rather than by themselves. Plastic bottles and containers are easily discarded once their contents are consumed. They can be recycled; however, in South Korea, the economic value of recyclable materials and things has declined dramatically. For example, the price of styrofoam per kilogram dropped almost in half from 806 won to 476 won in 2016. Some recycling collection companies no longer collect plastic sheet, styrofoam or polyurethane because of their low value and even require increasing recycling collection cost. In the installation work, these light, fragile and cheap objects support and connect to other neighbouring objects, by being stacked one on top of another or by bridging different objects. The objects construct a vertically extended form up to the ceiling of the exhibition space. They sustain the whole structure of the work, keeping precarious balance. A Study of the Space of Han Pyeong (2016) provides a fragile and insecure construction of space, which is completely controlled by a particular spatial order, movement and relationship between the objects. This construction is sustained by a tension between heterogeneous elements and objects. The space can easily be destroyed by fine exterior influences, such as light wind, shock or movement. This work not only explores certain aspects of space, which we currently live in and produce, but also provides a contradictory relationship between space and people in the system of capitalism. Having a space is frequently considered a natural right for a human being. However, in the changing contemporary living conditions in urban space, dwelling and the possession of space cannot be understood synonymously. People necessarily live in a space, but it is a transit space, rather than a permanent space for residence. This is like a person who lives in a foreign country or transits spaces like an airport, a bus stop, a train station, a coffee shop or a hotel. People can temporarily live in or use a space, but find it difficult to have the practicality of possessing their own spaces. When we say that there is a low possibility of realization, particularly in having one’s own house, it means that things exist in one’s dream, which is at a certain distance from our actual reality. It can be related to a certain aspect of the system of capitalist competition. In South Korea, space has always been an issue. This includes not only territorial problems in South Korea, as the country still remains one of the divided nations in the world, but also certain issues, raised from social and economic problems of housing and dwelling in the rapid changes of urban space. Urbanization has become a global phenomenon during the past four decades. Compared with some developed countries, South Korea, especially the metropolitan area of Seoul, has experienced rapid urbanization since the 1960s. In the process of urban development in South Korea, conflicts between a developer, such as a large construction company, and the dwellers of a site cannot be avoided; this has always been accompanied with forced eviction and the problems of the evicted, which have been a serious social and political issue for society. However, the current tendency of redevelopment in Seoul has changed. In the system of capitalist competition, the value of space should be increased for its survival. Spatial value has increased differently, based on land use, such as residential or commercial. In the development of residential areas, property owners, who are relatively affluent, voluntarily organize housing redevelopment and maintenance associations and actively lead redevelopment projects. These housing associations have a right to select construction and removal companies and work with the local authority. These groups of property owners pay a share of the expenses for the construction of new housing, in order to improve the quality and value of real estate and make more profit as a means of investment. In this case, poor owners in the associations cannot afford to pay the high cost of share expenses, so that they mostly oppose the redevelopment projects and come into conflict with rich owners. Consequently, once a redevelopment project has successfully been put in place, these poor owners have to sell their properties and leave their houses. This is a displacement made by internal forces, rather than external forces. South Korean urbanization can be characterized as a profit-driven urban renewal project, which takes place on a massive scale and is led by affluent housing owners, the government and large construction companies and private investors. The development process is violent, aggressive and unequal. Once degenerate areas have been redeveloped, housing and rent prices soar to unaffordable levels. Mostly, low-income families are peripheralized and displaced to low-priced spaces in the outskirts of Seoul’s metropolitan area to look for an alternative place for living. This process of uneven development brings about not only the rapid increase of homeless people in the city, but also increases in rent and estate value. Another recognized tendency of urban development in South Korea is the increase of spatial value through the commercialization of urban space. Over the past few decades, residential areas of Seoul have rapidly been transformed into commercial spaces, replacing dwellings with trendy restaurants, cafes and luxury boutiques. This particular tendency of the transformation of land use is certainly different from large-scale planned urban redevelopment, which is mostly led by the government or large developers and construction companies, in order to provide a large number of housing units. This commercialization of space is, in most cases, led by affluent landlords or private investors, in order to earn more profit from the increased value of the property. These redeveloped areas attract more capital and investors and accordingly rent and real estate prices in the areas increase dramatically. One reason why a residential space is attractive to capital and investors is that it is less expensive than that of a commercial space. Therefore, when this residential space is transformed into a commercial space, surplus value can be maximized through the large difference between investment expenses and increasing rent price and property value. Consider these particular urban conditions in South Korea. A Study of the Space of Han Pyeong (2016) focuses on a contradictory idea in the changing meaning and function of dwelling and space. The pyeong is a unit of area measurement used in Korea. Here, han pyeong (1 pyeong) is equivalent to the area of 3.3 m2. A space of han pyeong includes the complex spatiality in our society. It can be considered not only as the minimum size of dwelling spaces for single poor people, such as goshiwon and jjockbang. But also this space contains a desire for the possession and occupation of space. As there is no neutral space, space cannot be simplified as an empty container, which people and things can enter and occupy freely. Space is certainly related to the matter of existence, which includes the formation and transformation of conceptual and material reality. Han pyeong can be a minimum space that people desperately want to obtain for their lives. At the same time, it is the space of desire that is almost difficult to possess. In South Korea, especially in the area of Gangnam, the price per 3.3 m2 has increased dramatically, which is currently over 40,000,000 Korean won (35,000 US dollars) for domestic housing and over 100,000,000 Korean won (86,000 US dollars) for commercial space or an office building. In the metropolitan area of Seoul, people who earn an average income would have to save their whole year’s income for more than 10 years to purchase housing in Seoul. The majority of people tend to spend a large percentage of their income on repaying the housing loan. Up to now, unemployment and economic polarization have been key factors in making urban housing environment more unaffordable, unequal and unstable. A Study of the Space of Han Pyeong (2016) looks at a particular aspect of dwelling space in South Korea through a three-dimensional work of art. The fragile structure of space is managed by a completely controlled spatial system through the balance and tension of different objects. The interior structure of the work is highlighted by a work light, which is attached to a frame low down in the construction. This light not only produces a contrast between the construction and its surrounding space, but also emphasizes the transparency and lightness of the plastic materials used in the work. Through a particular spatial relationship between different objects, this work develops a certain aspect of the space of vulnerability in the shifting idea of dwelling, particularly its position in the space between expansionary construction and fragility, between settlement and displacement and between reality and desire. The quality of life for people with average and lower income levels and the rate of the construction of new luxury high-rise residential buildings at the centre of the city are in inverse proportion to each other. In the case of South Korea, urbanization has undergone rapid growth and change after the Korean War, ending in 1953, thoroughly led by the government from its housing plan to its supply and price control since the 1970s, and has proceeded in an extreme process of constructing and destroying dwelling space. In the process of urbanization since the 1970s in South Korea, people from all over Korea, more than 90% of the total Korean population, have converged in the centre of Seoul. Accordingly, this not only caused the concentration of capital investment in limited areas of Seoul, but also makes the city contested. Seoul has developed rapidly, creating a landscape full of high-rise residential and business buildings. In the competitive construction of new luxury residential buildings, housing prices in Seoul have soared dramatically, certainly influencing the lives of low- and middle-income families. Despite the large supply of new housing, the metropolitan area of Seoul has always been short of affordable houses. In other words, people who cannot afford the increasing rents have been peripherized outside Seoul to find an alternative place to live. People who remain in Seoul have to cope with high rents or monthly repayments of housing loans. These people only just manage to scrape a living by economizing on living expenses. Although they make every effort to maintain their lives, their living site is always vulnerable, being influenced, invaded and destroyed easily by external forces and changes.Displacement or DisappearanceIn stiff capitalist competition, achieved values and technologies tend to be easily devalued and degenerated, owing to the continuous emergence of new relations, methodologies and ideas. If existing systems and relations of production are expected to be ineffective for the future expansion and movement of capital and the production of surplus value, they cannot avoid their replacements or crises, because the geographical boundary of the space itself cannot be changed or replaced with another. The transience of urban space, specifically, the repetitive process of generation and degeneration of the built environment, relates to David Harvey’s account of “creative destruction”, in which he emphasizes “the significance of crises as moments of urban restructuring.” By expanding on this particular aspect of capitalist urbanism, the exhibition presents a new installation work, entitled Constructed Landscape (2016). This work is constructed using various types of green glass bottle, to create a mountain-like form on the table. These bottles were collected from different places in Seoul over a long period. Collected objects or products; all of them green; occupy and are arranged on the table, transforming it into a densely packed space. The objects, like glass bottles and outdated wooden tables, are considered low-value things, not only because they are mass-produced from cheap materials, but also because they are easily discarded or collected for recycling or reusing.Constructed Landscape (2016) explores the shifting changes of urban landscape in the process of urban redevelopment in South Korea. In the system of capitalism, mass production has been an important mode of production. Especially in the Fordism of the early 1900s, it has been characterized as the reduction of unproductivity, the removal of individuality and the verticalization of power structure. Mass production developed a new manufacturing technology, which is dominated by economic efficiency and high-speed operation in a unitary and standardized production system. Instead of making small quantities of different products, mass production maximizes productivity by producing a huge quantity of the same product in a short time for supply to larger sections of the population. In the process, the value and price of a product are reduced. This machinery production process is operated in the verticalized power structure, in which a production line; in which a product is assembled and sequenced in a number of highly divided sub-production lines; is constructed and controlled by a single logic of a dominant group of decision-makers or producers. Mostly, this production line is temporary, because once a product becomes devalorized and degenerated in the process of market competition, an old production line has to be destroyed and replaced with a new production line to produce a new product. However, in the case of mass production, this change of production line or system has not been easy, owing to the system’s structural inflexibility.In South Korea, urban redevelopment projects have mostly been on a large scale, constructing communities or towns. The same designs of high-rise residential buildings are mass-produced. These houses are constructed according to the logic of economic efficiency; which can also be related to the idea of Fordism in the mid-twentieth century; in which housing is mass-produced and is organized for the multiplicity of people or the community. Mass production and consumption of housing are seen as not only a marked feature, but also an industrialized method of spatial organization and systemization of planned urbanism that unifies space in a certain pattern in terms of repetition and uniformity. In relation to the mass production and consumption of housing in South Korea, this installation work looks at the changing meaning and value of space in the system of capitalist urbanism. Old towns and degenerate areas are constantly disappearing in the process of urban development. The reconstruction market works on a cycle of 30 years in Korea. This means that once residential buildings are aged over 30 years, the buildings are under consideration for redevelopment. This relatively fast cycle of housing redevelopment in South Korea is not simply because aged housing is at risk of collapse or life-threatening conditions, but because housing owners spontaneously pre-empt redevelopment projects by establishing housing reconstruction maintenance business associations in order to invest their money to increase the economic value of their housing. Under this shifting condition of urban development, the urban landscape has been changed constantly and rapidly. Like the recycling of discarded glass bottles, dwellings, urban green spaces and city landscapes do not last long in the system of capitalism. Because of globalized market competition and demand, they are pushed into the process of transformation in the contradictory relationship between settlement and displacement, between development and degeneration and between permanence and temporality. Another work with the same title, Constructed Landscape (2016), is a wall piece. This work is composed of two pieces of construction site wall, each of which is cut to 122 cm x 100 cm. The pieces are covered with construction fence wraps, printed with photographs of forest. The work presents two different images of architectural landscape, focusing on contrived combinations of forests and buildings in urban areas. These images are completely covered with a growing medium, such as grasses, plants and trees. At a glance, the entire images can be viewed simply as a forest or a jungle, filled with trees and plants, but when viewers take a close look, they can recognize buildings behind the green. The buildings are recognizable through the lines created by the disconnection of forest images. These architectural images are reproduced from photos of actual abandoned factories in Pyeongnae-dong, Namyang-ju in South Korea. This work focuses on the shifting conditions of the economic environment in South Korea in the post-industrial era, such as changes of industrial structure from industrial technology to information technology, which become a fundamental factor that affects the tendency of de-industrialization at the centre of the city. Industrial structure is dependent on changes of market, technology and social environment. Once a new product is circulated in the market, demand for the old products declines. An example is the disappearance of the Sony Walkman cassette player and CD player in the market. In the case of South Korea, the baby goods industry has reduced dramatically because of the changes of social structure, caused by the large decrease in employment, marriage and birth rates. In addition, the rapid increase of land and rent price in the process of urban development certainly affects the displacement of factories and companies outside the centre of Seoul. In the case of Pyeongnae-dong, dyeing processing factories have formed and established the Hyeopdong industrial complex. Recently, large-scale urban redevelopment projects were set-up in the area, replacing old housing with new high-rise residential buildings. These projects also spread to the neighbouring industrial area, owing to the slumization of the area and the problems of industrial pollution. These abandoned factories are currently under consideration of redevelopment, for transformation into new residential, commercial districts with green spaces. Constructed Landscape (2016) also deals with the changing meaning and function of green in the system of capitalist urbanization. The construction site walls, which are completely covered by photographs of forest, can frequently be found in Seoul, as many places are in the process of (re)development or under consideration for development. This wall embeds particular characteristics of South Korean urban redevelopment, which include large-scale redevelopment through the complete deconstruction of degenerate spaces, forced removal and relocation, and social zoning, caused by changes of land use and housing prices. Recently, the aesthetic value of these construction site walls has been re-examined, to improve the image and value of urban (re)development. Despite the socio-political and environmental problems caused in the process of urban (re)development, ironically, construction site walls have been filled with images that directly refer to green, such as forests, trees and flowers. The term “green” tends to be used widely and even excessively to achieve certain economic, social and political purposes or benefits, which are not associated with or work for nature or the environment. As Neil Smith argues, “Material nature is produced as a unity in the labor process, which is in turn guided by the needs, the logic, the quirks of the second nature. No part of the earth’s surface, the atmosphere, the oceans, the geological substratum, or the biological superstratum are immune from transformation by capital.” Green, or nature, is exploited, privatized, abstracted and idealized to enhance its use value as a key commodity in the system of capitalism. The definition of green has broadly changed to include various concepts, such as nature, environment, renewable, clean, recycle, responsible and sustainable. Most of these have a tendency to project a positive idea of green, which resists or even contrasts against the capitalist monopolization of urban space, particularly its aggressive and violent process of industrialization and commercialization. In this respect, this work recognizes the changing idea of green, which produces and distributes idealized views of things and ideas, anaesthetizing people’s consciousness or awareness in order to think in positive ways, thinking of something restful, peaceful, recreational, liveable, organic, healthy, promoting well-being, clean or pure, rather than in realistic or negative ways. Green images of the construction site walls produce green commodities of urban spaces. The construction fence wraps, which contain photographs of trees and forests, are frequently used to cover construction sites. A view of green is mass-produced, distributed and perceived in the regime of urban. In South Korea, new designs of construction fence wrap have been mass-produced and commonly applied to sections of walls for construction sites. Rather than painted walls, the construction site wall covered with photographs has become one of the most popular and essential materials for decorating the exterior of the construction site in South Korea. Recently, new designs of fence wraps have been developed and introduced, such as photographs of flower, birds, plants, trees and animals. These have been widely used to decorate the interiors or exteriors of commercial spaces and schools, such as cafes, shopping malls, hotels, airports, hospitals, and many different types of space in South Korea, to create nature-friendly images of space. The role of these fence wraps is no longer limited to the production of background, filled with a symmetrical repetition of copies of motifs or patterns or a simple construction information on the wall; rather, it is considered an easy and economic spatial method to (re)produce or even transform a given space into another, passing through the real, yet illusionistic space of photographs. Green images, which are provided through the construction fence wrap produce and distribute a shared view of green in the logic of mass production. The space; produced by the construction site wall; is exchanged into an intentionally figured product for the capitalist production system and for the visual and image-saturated culture, which establishes a mass utopian dream in capitalist society, distributing the same sense of collective satisfaction and perception from the product. By developing further this particular aspect of the commercialization of green in its use in the process of the development of urban space, Constructed Landscape (2016), looks at the contradictory relationship between development and idealization in the production of urban space. Cities have expanded spatially in terms of their economic, social, ecological and political change and demands. In the process of capitalist urbanization, the concept of green is no longer confined to masses of trees in a natural area, untouched by human hand, nor is it simply a greening of urban areas; rather, it has functioned in a certain way in the system of capitalism as a part of the socio-political and economic organizational structures or urban infrastructure, which makes a city function. The term green has become widespread. Its definition has also changed broadly, to include various concepts, such as nature, environment, renewable, clean, recycle, responsible and sustainable. Most of these have a tendency to project a positive idea of green, which resists or even contrasts with the capitalist monopolization of urban space, particularly its aggressive and violent process of industrialization and commercialization. In this respect, the combination of urban with green produces a completely new idea and thing. As we can easily find, by considering the variety of green images, for example, on the construction site walls, in the regime of urban, green is often commoditized and regulated or, in other words, planned, produced, changed, by acting as a strategic tool to make a better and idealized image for gaining more profits. This idealized image produces an illusion, which is detached from existing functions and relationships in reality, for example, the quality of life and the relationship of the idea of green with environment, naturality and sustainability. New social and political systems, relations and orders can be generated through this externality of illusion, by transforming an existing idea and function of green into a new urban hybrid. Removal (2016) is an installation work, composed of an aluminium structure, which has 5 cm long and 0.8 cm diameter aluminium rods protruding from the rear of the structure, and spaced at 30 cm intervals. The idea of this aluminium frame was originally derived from a part of the load space of a 1,000 kg light truck, which is frequently used for delivery and house removal. Green mesh tarp, which is used to cover the load space of a truck, is hung on the aluminium rods. On the ground, a bundle of a pillow and a brick is covered by a clear plastic sheet and tied up with a black rubber band. This bundle pulls the mesh tarp from the ground, creating a certain tension in the work. This work explores the relationship between dwelling and space in the process of urban development, particularly concerning an increasing tendency of urban displacement in the private sectors. In the urbanization of Seoul since the 1970s, the development of urban space has emerged on a large scale, necessarily accompanying different socio-political powers, which often aim to achieve their own interests through development projects. Many problems have occurred in the process of such development. An example is the Yongsan international business district development project. In this radical circumstance of development, the definition of dwelling space is changed to indicate a kind of speculative item, or an investment for making more profits in a relatively short period of time, instead of a space for protection, peace and permanent residence. In this process, conflicts between a developer, such as the state or a large construction company, and local people cannot be avoided. The development procedure is extremely violent, aggressive and exclusive. In many cases, people have to leave their homes, whether or not they can afford to buy or rent new dwelling spaces. Once old houses in slum areas have been replaced to create a new district, housing prices soar to unaffordable levels. This newly transformed dwelling space, therefore, is planned and produced not for the urban poor, because those people certainly cannot afford to buy the new houses.In addition to these large-scale redevelopment projects, the idea of dwelling and space has been changed in a particular tendency of nomadic life in contemporary society in South Korea. The concept of dwelling has been transformed from a permanent place for shelter, rest and protection to a transit place, such as an airport, bus stop, shopping mall, where people cannot have the right to occupy or reside in the place. High housing prices turn people’s hopes of having their own houses into idealized dreams, which can hardly happen in real life. Rising rents push people out of their long-time residential places, in search of cheaper alternatives. In South Korea, houses are mostly commercialized as products, which are used as means of investment to earn more economic profits. In the metropolitan area of Seoul, the majority of people live in high-rise residential buildings and apartments. Depending on brand-name and location, housing prices vary dramatically. In the shifting conditions of urban environment and housing and rent markets, nomadic life has become a common scene, particularly for the urban poor. Mostly, low-income families are peripheralized and displaced to low-priced areas in the outskirts of Seoul’s metropolitan area. They are constantly disappearing from the centre of the city, becoming invisible.Space and Power: (Un)balancing the SocialAs Henri Lefebvre argues, “There is a politics of space, because space is political.” Space and power are inseparable. Also, they are essential elements for building, changing and making a society function in a certain way. My artistic and research interest focuses on ways in which space and power interact with each other and produce a system of space, which hierarchizes and transforms things and ideas in a new relationship and order. In the exhibition, Squeeze (2016) explores a particular aspect of the relationship between space and power in the process of capitalist urbanization. This work is an installation work, which is constructed from a planted pot and a shelf-like structure. It expands the territory of the object through experimentation with the given spatial structure and system of the exhibition space. A white shelf-like structure is placed at the upper corner of the exhibition space, where the ceiling and two walls meet, creating a small room, which is only just large enough for a planted pot, so that it can be squeezed into the constructed spatial limitation. In and through the given spatial limitation, this plant continues its own life, finding new directions and spaces for its leaves to grow. In the case of South Korean urban redevelopment, redevelopment has been mostly on a large scale, building a town or, in an extreme case, a city. These are planned and constructed spaces, which are fundamentally different from spontaneously formed spaces, such as small and old villages or towns in European countries. As large-scale redevelopment projects do not rebuild single small houses, but reconstruct whole towns, in some cases, the topography of the redevelopment area changes; a mountain is destroyed, giving way to new high-rise residential buildings. Redevelopment sites are separated from neighbouring spaces by construction site walls, which strictly restrict entrance to the sites. In many cases, the redevelopment process has always generated administrative and legal conflicts with neighbouring communities. These people ask for financial compensation for the constant annoyance of construction noise, dust, smells, pollution and disruption. Through the complete destruction of degenerate spaces, forced removal and relocation, as well as social rezoning, are inevitable, certainly affecting changes of land use and housing prices. When degenerate areas are planned and redeveloped, forming new residential and commercial districts, most housing and rent prices soar to unaffordable levels. In many cases, people, who cannot afford to buy or rent the new houses, have to find an alternative place for living outside the centre of Seoul. From a political context, the use of a natural material, that is, a plant in this work can be viewed from two different perspectives. First, it focuses on the political relationship between the majority and minority in the system of capitalist urbanization. In Deleuze and Guattari’s theory, the current status of capitalism has been investigated through the concept of the minor or becoming-minor, particularly in the regime of sign and language. In A Thousand Plateaus, a majority is defined as a dominant system of power, which homogenizes, centralizes and standardize things and ideas. Deleuze and Guattari argue, “Majority implies a constant, of expression or content, serving as a standard measure by which to evaluate it. [...] Majority assumes a state of power and domination, not the other way around.” A minority is considered a complex concept, which does not exist in itself, but exists only in relation to a majority. Minority is a "potential, creative and created, becoming." Deleuze and Guattari distinguish the concept of majority from that of minority in terms of the dialectical relationship between the power of constant (pouvoir) and the power of variation (puissance). In the regime of capitalism, urban space becomes a point of rupture, whereby different forces and powers meet and are translated into a certain form, interacting with conflictual movements between the vulnerable side of the minority, which allows the invasion and crossing of different forces, and the military side of the majority, which has a tendency to control and protect the territory. Drawing on Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of majority and minority, Squeeze (2016) focuses on two different, yet interrelated, functions or operations of power in the spatial system of capitalism. The dominant power operates to restrict the formation and movement of hierarchical assemblages; it tends to obstruct the emergence of singularity by creating a striated space of unproductivity. In particular, it produces a space of homogeneous concentration, in and through which a central power exercises a dominant and active force, which holds and controls transit spaces, such as roads and bridges. The dominated power is, by contrast, considered a form of assemblage or the politics of the outside, which has a tendency to act against the formation and operation of the dominant power. It exercises a transformative force to weaken the concentrated power of sovereignty of the dominant, by penetrating the striated space of verticality through the dynamics of the smooth space of horizontality. The dominated power constantly moves towards the “deterritorialization” of the hierarchy of the dominant, creating a new space of difference. This contradictory, yet interactive relationship between the dominant power and the dominated power is necessary to generate a creative movement. This creative movement can be achieved only through going beyond the rigidly fixed and anti-productive space of the dominant. In this respect, the political relationship between majority and minority are crucial in its production of nomad vectors and the actualization of transformative potentiality through an established space. Second, in this work, the concept of green is differentiated from the traditional idea of green, for example, that of modernist realist landscapes, in that green (or natural landscape) in realist paintings mostly depicts the rural, which is considered the “anti-urban”. Realists understand green as an important means of escaping or becoming free from a certain dominant power system of reality and as a place of protection, safety, peacefulness, equality and freedom. However, in the contemporary condition of capitalist urbanism, green is no longer considered a minor power or a refuge in external reality. In addition, greening urban spaces does not mean the construction of an ecological utopian space, making a certain balanced relationship between human beings and nature. In this respect, this work focuses on the spatial and political system and relation, which are produced in the logic of capital. Green acts as a constituent element of capitalism, which systemizes a space in a certain way. It is also a dynamic part of the land market, which is produced, divided and regulated by urban planning. Green as a commodity produces and is produced by the system of contradiction in social reality. Society produces, utilizes and distributes the illusion of green, by materializing a virtual space of protection, clean, safety, equality and freedom. Through the illusion of green, the urban space becomes more unequal, hierarchized, fragmented and conflictual in the process of uneven development, accelerating uneven accumulation and distribution of capital, rather than balancing the social. By expanding these two different ideas, Squeeze (2016) explores the politics of space, concerning how things and ideas can be transformed in different structures of power; how the new can be produced in the interrelationship between different elements and powers. This work also provides a new understanding of how human beings perceive, behave from a new perspective and relate to specific conditions in everyday life, particularly in relation to the politics of space in the system of capitalism. By further developing the political relationship between the urban and the green, it concerns ways in which the concept of green is transformed in the process of capitalist urbanization, particularly in relation to the changing ideas of urban land use, the politics of greening and social and spatial production and transformation. It focuses on how the understanding of green has been transformed and commoditized in terms of the politics of space, especially moving from green or nature as a non-realistic and ideal object; which is free from the control of a certain centralized power system; to an essential part of capitalist urban system. In the exterior of the museum, a site-specific installation, entitled A Space Made by Thirty Water Containers (2016) is presented. This project makes a space by using thirty 20 litre plastic water containers. The water containers are placed in the middle of the space between two museum buildings, which is used as a passageway and rest area in the back and as a parking space in the front. The line of the water containers creates a geometric line of space. In the metropolitan area of Seoul, these large water containers can frequently be found in spaces, such as empty parking spaces or roads in front of shops, restaurants and houses. They function as a barrier or a barricade to stop someone getting in or using the space. This installation work focuses on contested spatiality, which expands the social use of everyday objects and its relation to the production of space and spatial system in the urban context. The installation of large water containers in the streets and roads creates a contested zone, in which a continuous attempt to enter the zone from the outside cannot be avoided. In many cases, it brings about conflicts with the people who want to control the space by constructing the barrier of water containers. In the city, space is hierarchized based on many factors, such as community, culture, education, wealth and social function and position. This means that space becomes an arena not only for determining collective identity, but also for generating inter-communal disputation, which makes a city contested. Moreover, the space of cities is contested in terms of the fact that they certainly have a limited spatial, geographical and topological scope for development; conflicts are, therefore, immanent in such a spatial limitation or containment, particularly concerning how to use, develop and distribute limited land resources. In this respect, the installation focuses on the transformation of water containers into a political agency, whose role is to occupy, control, organize and systemize a space in a certain order. This work illuminates the complex spatial and political potentiality of the object, which provides a critical perspective on understanding urban space. The installation of water containers is not limited to a physical dimension of a city; rather, it allows us to expand a social phenomenon and the reproduction of social space in the conflictual relationship between shared space and contested space, between occupation and displacement and between actuality and potentiality. A space is not only produced, reproduced and transformed in relation to people’s action and reaction, but also (re)shapes human spatiality. (Un)balancing (2016) explores the relationship between space and power in the process of capitalist urbanization. This work is constructed by vertically stacking large street flower pots on two separate slanted platforms. The stacks of flower pots lean against each other to create a balance and the stacks do not collapse. This work explores the territory of an object, which is not identical with the space that is physically occupied by an object. Rather, it includes the socio-political action of the object, which affects its relations with its surroundings. Large street flower pots are currently utilized as a means of street displacement in the metropolitan area of Seoul, South Korea. Public spaces, such as the space of street, have been used actively in South Korea for various social, political and economic purposes, rather than simply as a passageway from one place to the other place. Especially in the process of urbanization, space has not functioned as a static urban setting for social practices; rather, it acts as a complex kind of zone, in and through which different forces and relations can encounter and come into conflict with each other. Consider public spaces, particularly streets between buildings, houses and roads. This space cannot be simplified as a neutral space, which does not belong to a particular person, but is shared with the anonymity of the urban population. From a historical perspective, the space of the street played an important role not only as a commercial place, for example as the setting for a traditional market, but also, in a larger sense, as a centre of a city’s economy, politics and culture. In the Joseon dynasty in Korea, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, most authorized shops were located in the capital city, Hanyang, whereas in rural areas there were only temporary markets that were held on particular days of the week. Government-licensed city shops, called Shijeon, had been located in the main streets in the capital city since the early fifteenth century. A Shijeon was a centre of commerce, which had exclusive right to sell various items throughout the country, such as special items for sale to the palace, luxury goods for the upper classes, and various household items for the lower classes. In the Joseon period, it was, therefore, legitimate that Shijeon had the monopoly and was allowed to prohibit an unauthorized shop, called a Nanjeon, from selling monopolized items. In the seventeenth century, however, the number of Nanjeon increased enormously throughout the capital city, not only because of the increase in production, which caused changes in the commerce system; centralized in Shijeon; but also because of the enactment of new commercial laws, which significantly weakened the prohibition on Nanjeon. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, in South Korea, a contemporary version of Nanjeon has continued, under the name Nojeom (street shop). These illegal street shops are mostly located on major street corners in Seoul, where people gather easily. The majority of traders in Nojeom cannot afford to rent space. These people tend to occupy space illegally, by setting up temporary stalls in the street. In the process of the transition from an agricultural economic system to an industrialized one in South Korea, particularly in the postwar period of the 1970s and the 1980s, people from all over Korea converged in the centre of Seoul to find better jobs and earn more money. In this period, the number of Nojeom increased dramatically. Until now, the Korean government has strictly prohibited these illegal street shops, owing to the obstruction of traffic, the lack of safety for pedestrians and ruining of the urban aesthetic. In this respect, it is clear that the street environment functions as a critical element of the formation of the city, which is related not only to how people pass along roads in urban settings, but also to how a space can be used and produced. (Un)balancing (2016) concerns questions of the meaning and function of everyday objects, which can be a means of producing and transforming a space, particularly in the process of urbanization. The territory of an object cannot, therefore, be reduced simply to the space that is physically occupied by an object; rather, it includes the socio-political action of the object, which affects its relations with its surroundings. Large street flower pots; called Doro Whabun; are frequently used for various purposes in public spaces in the process of environmental development. A recent example is the installation of large flower pots on the streets in Seocho-gu, Seoul in 2012 as a part of the local authority’s environmental renewal project. The aims of this flower-pot project are to crack down on illegal street stalls, by filling an empty space to prevent the erection of stalls in the street and at the same time to improve the aesthetic of the public space by, as it were, “greening” the city. These flower pots are usually placed outside shops and residential buildings in two or three rows along the street, forming a new pattern of movement. The installation of flower pots serves as an essential mechanism for the formation of social interaction, because, on the one hand, it creates a particular pattern of flow and relations of people as they walk along the street and, on the other hand, the power of the local authority conflicts with different forces, which occupy and pass through the space. The spatial arrangement of flower pots can be understood as an upright architectural structure, which not only demarcates and protects a particular area of land, but also produces boundaries for the territories it occupies. At the same time, it separates one place from the other and is shared with neighbouring properties. Compared with architecture, the installation of flower pots creates a temporary space, which can be changed or removed easily, depending on the condition of plants and the use of the space. In the streets, the flower pots; which are not merely lifeless things; are denigrated as hideous objects of the streets, not only because the local authority overlooked the necessity for continuous maintenance; for example, watering and planting; and fail to budget for this maintenance, but also because these flower pots were originally aimed to be utilized for different social purposes. The spaces, produced by flower pots, present a particular aspect of urbanism in South Korea, including changing ideas of the urban aesthetic, the principle of the use of public space and the political dynamism of the production of space. In the urban environment, flower pots not only divide a space both socially and spatially, but also produce a conflictual power relation between governance and trespassing, between minority and majority and between occupation and displacement. The function of flower pots in urban space has been transformed into a political agency, which participates in the production of space, that is, controlling spaces by exercising power through a particular spatial system constructed by flower pots. Flower pots are the property of a local authority. This dominant power of flower pots is authorized to control an area of space. Therefore, if someone moves or removes these flower pots without permission, the person will be legally punished. Large flower pots are utilized to prevent illegal use and occupation of public space, such as illegal street shops and illegal parking. A balance of power in public space is fundamental to the preservation of democracy, as public spaces should be shared and cannot be considered as private territory that is possessed and controlled by a single person. However, displaced people mostly cannot afford to rent or buy a shop in the city centre, so they have to find an alternative space or job for managing their lives. Balancing cannot be separated from unbalancing. The balance of power unbalances the social; and unbalance arouses the power of balance.