Paik Nam Jun

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This clip is of a 2003 piece called “Rhapsody In Seoul” that the late Paik Nam June did. It’s displayed at the Seoul Museum. Paik Nam June, who passed away this past February, was one of the world’s pioneers of video art. He was part of a collective in the early 1960s that also had his friend Yoko Ono as a member. He performed with John Cage amongst others.
Here’s a link to an article, which lists several of the places where his works can be seen in Korea:

http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/culture/200602/kt2006020520262711700.htm

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Taking Apart the Lanterns

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I posted a clip a few weeks ago of lanterns around Korea in advance of Buddha’s birthday. Well, this past Friday, May 5th, was Buddha’s birthday. I found myself at a temple called Shilsangsa in Jirisan National Park, one of South Korea’s most beautiful areas. The lanterns were everywhere as this clip shows. They were particularly cool, because they all used real candles, so you could get a real sense of the flickering, and even one or two lanterns caught fire, probably cause it was a windy night. I’ve seen the lanterns several times, but I never thought about what happens to them after Buddha’s birthday. At this temple, late in the evening at the end of the birthday, the visitors and the monks took down all the lanterns and one by one ripped the paper off, and broke apart the metal frames. It took several hours for 40+ people to dismantle all the lanterns.

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Okjeong Middle School Birdseye

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I live on the sixth floor on a building on a hill. From around noon, the shadow of this building casts itself on the playing field of Okjeong Middle School. From my window, I sometimes look over it and observe. It’s easy to see the social dynamics of junior high in South Korea. Girls chatting in small groups. The minority of boys who prefer basketball to soccer. The awkward boys not good at sports, who play-fight with each other at the edge of the field. Notice all the boys wearing the black school uniform. I pity them, wearing those cumbersome clothes all year. The uniforms are expensive. Students can only afford one or two of them, so they start to smell from lack of washing. I can attest to this because I taught at a junior high in Japan for two years, and the classrooms could really start to reek. Some of the rebellious kids in Japan would modify and individualize their school uniforms, in spite of the helpless protests of the teachers — no such modification seems to take place in Korean schools, where even the hair length of both male and female students is still regulated by school rules.

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Raddest Bike in Korea Award

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I biked past this guy today, then had to slow down, get my camera out, and ask if I could take a picture. Check out this bike! It’s pumping out the “bbong-jjak” (sometimes called Korea’s version of country & western music). He has all these add-ons, statues attached to his bike, mirrors, and what-not. Very cool. I wonder what I can do to make my own bike cooler.

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Seokang in Fresh

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Very fresh public toilet. Insert 100 won (about 10 cents). The space capsule toilet. Prepare to be launched into space, fueled by your own dung. Notice the LED display where you wash your hands. Notice the shower-head equipment near the toilet, in case you want to hose yourself off rather than the conventional wipe, or else you could hose down the seat before seokang in fresh.

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Digital Discoloration Sun Wind Leaves

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I just can’t get enough of these sun through the leaves on a windy day kind of shots. I literally have hours of film just like this. This shot was taken with the video function of my Olympus digicam. It’s funny how it makes everything look faded and purple, like some faulty film stock of a 16 mm camera. I like the look of it, but it looks pretty junky once it blows up to a bigger size.

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One Person Big Sky

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I’m working on a moving-logo type-of-thing for “One Person Big Sky,” which is the name of a visual text I’m working on. The name is a mini-Chinese character lesson in itself. The character for one is 一. The character for person is 人. The character for big is 大. The character for sky is 天. Spelled out together it looks like this 一人大天, each character building on the previous one with just one new stroke of the brush. People tend to think of haikus when considering brief poems; however, before there were haikus, the Chinese were making just 3 or 4 character poems. This is one such poem.

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Hazakura in Slow Motion

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Yesterday, despite warnings to go outside because of the rain mixed with yellow wind of China, I walked up the small mountain behind my apartment. It disappointed me to realize that all up the mountain there were cherry blossom trees, where the cherries had already blossomed, and were already falling off and scattered across the ground. It is a beautiful to see the cherry blossom petals scattered, like a spring snow — but already they were really scattered, really days past their peak.

I somehow missed it. Japanese obsess over cherry blossoms to the point that you get sick of hearing about them, when you live there. I’ve watched NHK (Japan’s national network) a lot lately, and seen all the reports of the blossoms. I guess they bloom in Seoul and Tokyo at about the same time.

The Japanese word for cherry blossom is “sakura.” There is even a word for a cherry blossom in its later stage, when it has leafed and the blossoms are beginning to fall — that is “hazakura.” There is a certain type of person who prefers the “hazakura” to the “sakura” — it’s like the first glimpse of beauty compared to the last glimpse of beauty — which is better?

(This footage was taken about one year ago in Kamakura, Japan — a very cool little town an hour down the coast from Tokyo. The town is famous as the hometown of director Ozu and for its gigantic outdoor Buddha statue.)

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