The Canadian Media critic Marshall McLuhan proposed that the media itself, not the content they carry, should be the focus of study. Popularly quoted as “the media is the message”, McLuhan’s theory was that a medium affects the society in which it plays a role; not by the content delivered over the medium, but by the characteristics of the medium itself.
Zin Kijong’s installation works looks like criticism of the mass media fabrication. But he is not criticizing and judging the media via its broadcasting system. Be that as it may, he does not believe blindly in mass media either. He is just attracted by the virtual reality that mass media produced.
In the late afternoon of a rainy day, I visited the house he uses as his studio and living quarters in Yonhidong. He said it is not organized yet because he moved here not long ago. But it was well organized and I can feel a delicate and tidy personality. I also recognize some astronaut figures from his recent solo exhibition ‘On Air’. He has some plastic models and miniatures of warships, tanks, as well as replica arms. Drinking hot hub tea, I asked about his past works. He is a prominent young artist at the age of 28. It is an exceptional case in Korea Art field, as he also works with Arario Gallery. He came into the spotlight at his graduation exhibition ‘the world corps map’ in Kyungwon University. This installation used line tracer and CCTV camera. It is a fragmentary portrait of a bloody world war and a global village full of corpses. His motif of work is the Iraq war on the TV news and documentaries. Most of his themes are from of mass media. He says, we are already too deeply involved with mass media in our daily lives.
His deep attachment to media started from his part time job making television documentary programs. He noticed that even documentaries, which deliver historical fact, distort and manipulate information. He witnessed the power of mass media with his bare eyes. His ‘On air’ projects started from the National Geography channel. It was extended to CNN and History Channel when he got new inspiration from television program. The brilliant idea, in sense, is making a screen module hat seems like an advertisement channel.
He loves Michel Gondry’s movies and video works, and he listenes techno and electronic music. He is one of the young generations who live in the media world. He has the sentiment of young “M” generation (mobile, media). Moreover, he has insight and a mature vision with his judge standard. His past works are also interesting. When he was a student, he did performance at the former West Gate Prison in Seoul. The West Gate Prison was used during the Japanese occupation to detain leaders of the independence movement, and later it was used for social criminals. He could find lots of scribbles on the cell walls. In the small room, the past days and the present time is coexisting. He stayed there for 15 days, and studied the meaningless scribbles on the bottom and wall; he made new history on the wall. Those scribbles were also filmed by a line tracer camera.
He has traveled quite lot as well. He has been to a US residency program and also been invited to Biennales and other media exhibitions. When he was traveling, he was not under an obsession of his art works. He just enjoyed the traveling and new experience in another country. In his residency program, he did not make a lot of works, instead the experience of meeting other artists, drinking beers and chatting about each others works became an essential experience.
He has traveled across Europe twice and visited Japan a few times. His replica model was purchased in adult-kid toy shop in Japan. He says, that lately the Korean art scene offers a good environment for artists. If the artist has talents, there are a lot of residency programs and grants in Korea and also internationally. “I am not a genius or a hard worker”, he says. “I am just a little bit clever and have had good luck.” He is object of envy among the young artists who work under much poorer conditions. I think in the recent art world, the power of success is getting a lot of information, using publications and being able at communicating with other art people. He said just ‘luck’ but in my opinion, he was well prepared for the art world. He is a professional, a worldly wise man and he knows what his special talents are. In this complicated and crowded art world, young artist have to know how to present themselves in front of the public.
KIM Jihee
