KOREADIARIES

wow

2007-12-16T18:52:00.001-08:00

No, not a a Buddhist temple sign. Spotted by my Polish (sic!) neighbor Justyna, this tourist shot concludes my "Finger pointing in Korea" series. After one and a half years still puzzled to find new phenomena in this country that seem inexplicable.
The big letters reade: HEE-TE-LAW.

Ey sach ma haben die jetzt voll einen anner Waffel oder was?

2007-12-04T05:27:00.000-08:00

Gerty what do you think? (read all 9-11 posts!)

We are hear to learn

2007-12-03T01:27:00.000-08:00

Jury duty in Hannover We, the jury, that is (left to right) Uli Plank, myself, Denenesh Zoudé, and VideoBrazil's wonderful Solange Farkas are being interviewed by two kittie girlies during the up and coming festival. We've been asked if we, the old smart farts have any "good advice" to the younger generation. My Ulsan University experience has taught me: No, not at all. Rather the opposite: We are here to learn some tricks from the youngsters.

Bob Ross is alive!

2007-11-26T01:05:00.000-08:00

24 hours in Hamburg. And Luckily I caught the last installment of KOPIEREN UND VERFAELSCHEN,(COPY AND FALSIFY)
a series on copy culture in the FRISE Kunsthaus Hamburg. This week's highlight:
Joern Zehe initiated a Bob Ross painting workshop, Ross, the ghost spoke to us with his sonoric voice via YouTube, five serious painters took his speedy landscape painting workshop. Real canvases, real oil paint. Real mountains. Stunning!

Comeback of the beloved green courtyard

2007-11-15T22:40:00.000-08:00

Romy Archituv Interview

2007-11-13T01:05:00.000-08:00

"Time/out of Joint" shootings finally continued. At least here in Soeul for one wonderful afternoon with Romy Archituv.
Sungshin University had a studio with a prefectly lit blue screen. I never thought I would chroma key something in my life, ever...

Artforumed in China

2007-11-12T19:59:00.000-08:00

we got artforumed as Mathieu called it. Strangers caught inside the Chinese glossyglamourgossip. I was always wondering what are the real stories behind those glamour stars photographed on VIP parties - slightly shit-faced with rosy cheeks, yet pretending to be sober and good buddy with the person next to them... Now I know at least that: The majority of the people at the Ullens museum opening most likely have not seen each other let alone introduced to each other. It was a massive 2-day extravanganza, thousands of invited guests. Next to us Henri Benaim, the new gallery director of PKM gallery Beijing. A super-sweetheart that invited us staying in his new flat in Beijing.

Greetings from Venice

2007-11-03T00:55:00.000-07:00

Hong Kong, actually...

Death Star Beijing

2007-11-02T01:29:00.000-07:00

Rem Koolhaas' CCTV headquarters.. 3/4 completed. Yet, another pic for my twin tower horror collection but all architects among you know too well that these towers are about to grow together. Helping each other out. (Koolhaas' contribution to terrorist-safe architecture?!?) His design never convinced me :-(

Genuine Korean Kitsch

2007-10-19T22:37:00.000-07:00

Waiiit. There is some story to it. We visited another Korean Art Fair in Gangnam.
In Korea there is no clear distinction between serious contemporary art and parallel universe naturalistic crap Art. But most importantly is to know about this particular object of desire.
If you go in a local department story you will find lots of variations of vintage telephones (all plastic, with digital guts of course) They seem to be much more popular here than in the West. So if they now appear as an cultural artifact in a Korean still life painting, than this cultural adaption of the object has produced Genuine Korean Kitsch. Its like filling biodiesel in a car that runs on regular gasoline.

Pusan Film Festival

2007-10-19T22:10:00.001-07:00

..one day after its closing. All corporate event architecture in ruins. The so-called Indie lounge looks like a refugee camp. (wasn't that where it all started?)

I know, but it was just that..

2007-10-19T08:56:00.001-07:00

Blip Facade

2007-10-07T22:16:00.000-07:00

Galleria Dept Store in Apgujung-dong. A friend from Hong Kong had to tell us about. We had no idea. The animation (moving shapes) were a bit boring but the building is quiet impressive..

video_dumbo, briefly re-visited

2007-10-05T08:27:00.000-07:00

Our annual rushed NY mission. For the second time masterminded from Korea!
Here's a little --> photo story of what happened
Quiet absurd to organize an art exhibition as part of a bigger festival which is such a nerve-wrecking giant effort, that there is absolutely no second to step outside. As a result we had absolutely no clue what was going on around the corners in those three days.

This was the third edition of video_dumbo
This year we could not get in our favorite venue, the stable (16 Main St) which is now Galapagos. Robert seemed behind with his renovation, however he got the big -disputed- elephant dumped in his house. We on the other hand were given another monster by Two Trees: A 5000+ sqft gallery space which made us expand our usual festival line up into a big exhibition (in which then some screenings took place)
The space turned out to be incredible: Large like an airplane hangar - eteam housed an entire cardboard Boeing 737 in full length!) It was also big enough to watch a video program - without getting distracted by the installations. Not even five close ups of woman in orgasm, Breda Beban's BEAUTIFUL EXILE on the far end wall displaying a 40 feet wide five channel video installation.

We were quiet happy with the outcome, it was really fantastic what came together this year. With absolutely generous help from our exhibition artists as well as support from Eyebeam, Roebling and Smack that let us use their equipment.
The amount of projectors, etc would have exhausted our micro budget entirely..

And again, for Gabriela and myself each time a new interesting experience to find ourselves temporarily in the other side - the one of the organizer, artist caterer, facilitator... again we were dealing with 150+ picky artists queens. Most amusing observation: unlike those artists featured with installation, 95% of our local video artists in the program only showed up for those program blocks which featured them, but none of the others. Those peacocks! ;-)

Among the highlights: Our Korea program (which we repeated) as well as Zach Layton, Ray Sweeten, Luke Dubois and Matt Ostrowski whose live AV performances were among one of the most kick ass I have seen for a long time!

Urpasuco up and running

2007-09-28T08:47:00.000-07:00

Urban Particle Super Collider
with image / object contributions by:
Parnian Ferdossi (Tehran), David Yaghoobi (Tehran), Reza Mohseni (Tehran), Kamyar Adl (Tehran), Arash Mozaffari (Tehran) , Cyrus Farivar (US), Jooyoung Lee (Seoul), June1777 (Seoul), JuHyung Cho (Seoul), Minxx (New York), Martin Queticotic (New York) and the tehranseoulnewyork Flickr project
"INTERFERENCE" at EYEBEAM, New York
10 year Retrospective Series Sept 27 - Nov 10 2007

Rehearsal

2007-09-25T09:18:00.000-07:00

Benton Bainbridge and Angie Eng and myself in rehearsal. A gig at Eyebeam opening. After knowing each other for so many years (but hardly interact) it felt like a class re-union! I pulled out my dusty Panasonic WJ 5, we all worked analog because we used a cool Benton-style video delay: A simple DVD burner, which delays yje video by a few frames (I guess because if the enormous real-time effort of encoding)..and that's what we needed to also delay the inevitable feedback because all our mixers were daisy chained. What was on the screen? A fusion of Kenya, Ulsan/Seoul and ..the Bronx. Matt Ostrovsky joined for sound..

the final final final render

2007-09-23T21:36:00.000-07:00

Yes, of course: Everything had to be re-rendered. And that took 72 hours straight. Thank good we have several of these silver books. I needed three, because my Urban Particle Supercollider (urpasuco) has THREE channels, not one!

pARTy at Space Nabi

2007-09-15T21:58:00.000-07:00

There will always be these nervous laptop guys. In the Western scenes already an endangered species, but not in Seoul. Space Nabi did a three day media art party with amplified skateboards, lots of Electronica, oddball interactivos and bad ResFest videos.
Hae Young and Spooky from NY were there, it was great to have them around,just to reassure myself that I'm not dreaming.
Nonetheless there was quiet some energy, reminding me of the end of Nineties jungle electronica explosion only in an entirly different culture and partially blended with present day technology and culture. Paul felt similar and said Seoul has the most interesting scene out there right now - and this man talks definitively global!

one more office visit

2007-09-15T21:38:00.000-07:00

explaining Torsten and Yun Jang Ar (from SeMa) the office...

T'eheran Ro and Se'oul Street

2007-09-10T00:23:00.000-07:00

My Urban Particle Collider Project, that connects Tehran, Seoul and New York involves a lot of different photographers. It started as a Flickr group project. While searching for Tehran street images on Flicker I accidentally landed back in Seoul an Tehran-ro. An American Flicker member, Cyrus Farvilar had posted THIS image of the road on his page.
Without knowing about it, one of the involved Tehran photographers, Parnian Ferdossi, send me THIS image. Good to be back in New York in time to add a third one. I could not imagine a better graphical element that connectsfor this three cities. Thank you Cyrus, thank you Parnian!

the office

2007-08-30T22:16:00.000-07:00

Three days after the opening I am back in the exhibition space, - waiting.
Supposed to meet friend who wants to see the show.
It is quiet pleasing to have an "office" inside this show. Not that I have to wait in a cafeteria or walk endless rounds this space whose art pieces I know quiet well since I was installing (with everybody else). I rather can sit down at an office table take my laptop. I have absolutely no problem to plug in the power for my laptop - I feel so comfortable doing this because the environment suggests: I am at home, or, at least among friends. There is this -slightly deceiving- feeling of total relaxedness, being in an intimate sphere which is a bubble within an anonymous public (art) space. It reminded me of Rirkrit Tiravanija's 1:1 replica of his East village Apt at Gavin Brown Gallery a few years back.

So I open my laptop and start writing this, while waiting.
My friend arrived and I left this text window in my laptop open. Later when I returned to pack up, several visitors were curiously reading the first three sentences and I have been reminded that this is not an office and that any action and/or object in this space becomes part of the art piece..

more on Yeonhee-Dong 195 Residency project initiated by Yooyoung Lee, Erlend Hammer and Jan Christensen.

Exis Film Festival Seoul

2007-08-25T21:59:00.000-07:00

I actually saw some great works there. Only the large theater had an aura that couldn't help but calling "pyonyangesque"...

installing "points of presence"

2007-08-22T22:03:00.000-07:00

my very first exhibition in Korea.
Right away with the most complicated art piece I ever made: the one that rotates..My friend and super-engineer Michael Casselli (with whom I built this) 4000 miles away and hard to reach with 13 hour time difference... the museum installers were 20 year old kids, so that made it a bit scary hanging a 200kg apparatus under the ceiling, non of us -including myself- being REALLY experienced in that. But I have to say: Everybody worked hard. Very hard.

Ed Fredkin in New York

2007-08-18T21:56:00.000-07:00

I am interviewing Grand Master of Computer Science and Reverse Computing pioneer Edward Fredkin. We had a great talk. Nontheless his Yellow Submarine designer friend steals the show...

BsAs 15 min before the game

2007-07-11T21:53:00.000-07:00

(they lost, against Brazil...unfortunately)

Tijuana calling

2007-07-03T21:49:00.000-07:00

short break from Korea. Our first stop after NY is Tijuana. My heroic girl friend leaps over the border fence..

2007-06-08T21:39:00.000-07:00

video dumbo comes to korea. Again, the miraculous grren courtyard, now turning into a movie theater, but with 3 level balconies, opera house style..
this is what we showed.

2007-06-08T21:33:00.000-07:00

Thor returns. Second shoot. Guees where..

2007-05-24T21:47:00.000-07:00

Today is Buddha's Birthday. Burn! Burn! Burn!

2007-05-23T07:01:00.000-07:00

Contact!

2007-05-21T21:45:00.000-07:00

Korean International Art Fair 07

2007-05-13T05:03:00.000-07:00

more chiq art logo piracy

2007-05-13T04:58:00.000-07:00

Who sez China's the only bad guy?

Kissed by Korean Immigration

2007-04-24T18:37:00.000-07:00

more finger pointing? Quiet the opposite. At Gimhae airport I found this *friendly* immigration office. As an US immigrant I know what I am talking about.
Notice the banner with the logo KISS, which stands for "Korean Immigration Smart Service". Now look over to the right: The third window reads: "voluntary departure" Sir, do we have a problem here? "Not Sir, at at all."

Embracing the differance

2007-04-01T07:49:00.000-07:00

Is this culture still foreign to us? Us, the foreigners with their odd habit and comment on about anything that is not conform with Western standards?
We decided to let it all in. This is how we began stop worrying and love the bomb.
(in flagranti: Prof. Geoffrey Bell outside his university, Prof. Caspar Stracke at Comex, Seoul)

Burning Babies!

2007-03-18T01:14:00.000-07:00

And again: Big finger pointing at quasi-racist phenomena which eludes any rational explanation to the Western mind. Found on University of Ulsan campus.

Shocking: Multiple Willendorfs in Jeongdongjin Art Park

2007-02-04T01:29:00.000-08:00

Jeongdongjin

2007-02-03T23:14:00.000-08:00

What we can learn from Vegas: Koreans built a 10 story luxurious Ocean Cruiser, a hotel 60 m above sea level sitting on a beach Cliff in Jeongdongjin. It is surrounded by transplanted palm trees and really looks like it had been pulled over the mountain - only soon to be released into the ocean every minute... What a Fritzcaraldo!

The Miraculous Green Courtyard No.5

2007-01-14T01:45:00.000-08:00

After four month of obsessed observation of the court yard, I gave my students of the
IMAGE EXPRESSION DESIGN class a set of images to work with. In Hak KANG made this one.

Unsucessfully staged scene in Kuala Lumpur

2007-01-01T08:50:00.000-08:00

The Psycho-Cutie Shtick

2006-12-30T10:22:00.000-08:00

Thank you, Korail!

2006-12-11T22:45:00.000-08:00

Typical Train Station "greeting" (We answer the gesture) Remember: Everybody is happy now.

9-11...9-11...9-11

2006-12-10T09:05:00.000-08:00

"Can't help it: In my ever-growing Korea image collection those 9-11s keep emerging. (and all that started with the Hyundai Department Store during the 5th anniversary)
Most noteworthy a wall paper featured at Seoul's Ssamzie Market, in an art/fashion show entitled WAKE UP ANDY WARHOL. This piece shows WTC jumpers as a decorative tile pattern, each tagged with an Andy Warhol siganture.
Remember how Stockhausen's got into big trouble? Andy Andy? This work suggests a contemporary Disaster Series. Smart-sarcastic Koreans think further.
But then ending up with nothing but provocative wallpaper.
Well, isn't THAT something?" narrow-minded New Yorker (myself included) would ask the rest of the world, full of expectations.
As we New Yorker will judgmentally point at some random phenomena, "Look, there , there and there" , things that accidentally recall our one and only micro-experience of war in this country the event is now already overshadowed by several new wars.
Happy New Ear.

Torsten does Orlan

2006-12-09T04:31:00.000-08:00

Torsten stopped by and conducted his long announced surgical plasmo-Orlan-Stellarc shoot in the sacred green court yard of our university building.
Perfect location. A good reminder how sane we all have become as teachers in disciplined Korea! I am growing two extra ears.

Jittery Time-Slice

2006-11-25T06:01:00.000-08:00

I am actually paranoid enough to claim that I already invented the so-called "timeslice-photography" looong before THE MATRIX. And I have a proof! The Pepsi bottle test I did with my old friend Owen o'Toole in SF back in 1996. The problem: In the mid 90's nobody had a video camera. We got seven together... Digital still cameras were also not consumer items yet. The result looks even more jerky that this one. (Boy, this is real grandpa talk!)
Nowadays? Luckily I have 30 energized digital search bots under my command! With other words, I made it a student assignment in my class. Everybody in Korea has AT LEAST one digital still camera. Yet, there was one major handicap: Every model has a different delay between the "button-push" and the "click". That's why my scarf is flapping. Students obviously had fun with the assembly of the 19-frame sequence. This one is by Ji-Young Ju, one of my best students.

Eldon sais Good Bye

2006-11-24T06:54:00.000-08:00

Textile Designer wins Architecture Competition

2006-11-20T06:49:00.000-08:00

spotted in Seoul near Hongik University

P.S.1, a MoMa affiliate, now in SEOUL

2006-11-19T09:14:00.000-08:00

The Miraculous Green Courtyard No.1

2006-10-28T02:20:00.000-07:00

I am love with this place. This is where it's at. Photo taken from the roof of our art+design building onto this courtyard on the second floor. The bubbles are skylights from the lobby below.
It looks like a dump but actually changes every other day. That's why I decided to do an long term observation.
So far the only place on our clean university campus that shows a little anarchy.
Old German art academy memories come alive..

More Flower Festival

2006-10-22T01:29:00.000-07:00

"we make money - not art"

der Steuermann

2006-10-19T04:18:00.000-07:00

And suddenly this man appears right in front of my offcie window.
With brutal force he bangs out the old wood from the roof planking
- and disappears.

2006-10-17T04:03:00.000-07:00

Truly very touristy snap shots. But apart from the fact that we eat every day out of these many wooden (or plastic) balls, this particular two dishes are very, very special.
Monk recipe!

Behind the Mask of Korea

2006-10-16T04:24:00.000-07:00

15 out of 15,000

2006-10-14T07:42:00.000-07:00

Our Dude is here!

2006-10-13T05:50:00.000-07:00

Ulsan University's Fall Flower Festival. 12. October 2006
Biiig deal Party. From right to left: our colleagues Leonard Konopelski, us (Caspar + Gaby), Geoffrey Bell, our dean Hong Meyong Kim, and Chong Moon (glowing) who is the chairman of Hyundai, chairman of Ulsan University (he basically financed the entire campus) and ex-chairman of the 2002 FIFA Word Cup, as Geoff researched and added: "He's one powerful dude! He almost became presedent of S. Korea but dropped out on the night before the election. Nobody knows why." We had no idea! Notice the Military presence!
Next to him the prez of Ulsan University.

The Zone

2006-10-13T04:01:00.000-07:00

found in Mugeodong.
A real shocker for Germans - The old nick name for the Deustche Demokratische Republik (DDR) was "Zone"- short for Soviet Occupied Zone. Nowadays a Korean Game Parlor. More of such parallel suprises around the DMZ?

Phantoms and Visions

2006-10-10T06:28:00.000-07:00

I know very little about Torsten's Korean miniatur office crime scene set that he bought somewhere in Busan. However, on our field trip to Gyeongju he slipped into his "Vision" costume at night, and we filmed some quasi-criminal stuff on the empty floors of the Overlooky Concord Hotel. There was quiet some resemblance!

Pusan Biennale, Haeundae Beach, Gaby

2006-10-03T07:28:00.000-07:00

Ah Pook is Here

2006-09-17T06:44:00.000-07:00

"Start Wars exhibition at the BEXCO Center in Pusan. Right across the streeet from the Pusan Museum of Contemp Art. Frankly, we had more fun at Start Wars. And it takes me some guts to admit that.

Torsten Zenas Burns

2006-09-15T07:24:00.000-07:00

"Der gute Torsten. He is our man in Korea! Torsten is the one who lured us into this Hangulworld. Literally, because it was him who already had the guest prof. position in Pusan and gave us the tip of the job opening at Ulsan university.
Hats off to Holyoke Research!

the office

2006-09-07T07:01:00.000-07:00

No culture shock upon arrival! Having been in Japan and China tells already half of the story. Everything starts on the spot: We've been picked up from the airport by Prof. Sungkon Kim, same day we get immigration cards, bank accounts, buy bedsheets and get a brief university tour ending in the space that was assigned to be our office.
Nothing fancy but lots of windows. We are floating above trees. Easily to say for tortured New Yorkers: One of the nicest work places I have EVER worked in. It is because of this bright calm and friendly space that everything else here becomes tolerable.