2016, Vol., No.40

Journal of History of Modern Art 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 0.77

pISSN : 1598-7728 / eISSN : 2733-9793
https://journal.kci.go.kr/kahoma

Post-modernist space pursues the multiplicity and heterogeneity beyond the homogeneity in the modernist space. The modernist space, as shown in the modernist architecture, is a space that pursues ‘transparency’. ‘Transparency’ means functional transparency and visual transparency simultaneously. It is revealed in Le Corbusier’s belief that the aesthetic elements correspond to their functions. But to the eyes of post-modernist architects, modernist architecture gives up on decoration as a matter of fact for its functions and bound to fall in the trap of uniformity. In opposition to the modernist architects, the post-modernist architects deliberately focuses on the disjunction, asymmetry and wasteful decorations. But ironically the post-modernist architects pursuing multiplicity and heterogeneity produce homogenous space such as post-modern cities all over the world. It is because the post-modernist architects just like the modernist architects understand the space simply as an abstract space deprived of the anthropological dimensions. As a result, post-modern space appears as an ‘uncanny’ space.

This article explores the affectivity of the contemporary city through the analysis of the work of video performance by Korean artist Park June-bum. In doing so, it focuses on discussing three of his works: <3 Crossing>(2002), <1 Parking>(2001), and <The Advertisement>(2004). Oversized hands appearing in the video screens, and the dynamic moods and the network of forces generated by the entanglement of ordinary urban fabrics are the characteristics of his works. What these videos mediate are instances of daily cityscapes such as crossroads, outdoor parking lots, and roadside commercial buildings. Park considers these seemingly banal strata of everyday life to be objects of curiosity, from which to generate a set of new relations by re-mediating and recomposing the given strata in various ways. What move forwards the narratives of Park’s videos are undoubtedly two hands, which are fragmented parts of certain bodies that do not further provide details regarding to which bodies those hands are related. The ostensibly threatening and omnipresent hands in his videos do not impose power onto the everyday in a top-down manner. Instead, those hands become part of the existing network of disparate forces within given environments. In other words, those hands as fragmented body parts prominent in Park’s videos are in resonance to the changing speeds and rhythms of given milieus, unfold new moods, and ultimately instigate a myriad of affective instances that reflect the infinity of everyday life.

This paper critically examines a style of contemporary portraiture. ‘The portrait without face’ is borrowed from the last century as an appropriate form of modern biological portraiture. The portraiture in the era of biotech bears the biological trace, and builds the visual form, which refers to the subject symbolically as well as realistically. The portrait without face caused the crisis of representation in the last century, whereas the biological portraiture strengthens the relation between sitter and image. The activity of image, which bears the biological trace, forms an occasionality. The genetic trace performs a function of portrait conforming to index paradigm. It supports the return of print image in the anachronism, which refers to old faith of image, and tries to use this trace as an index, which humans have been using for years. The portraiture without face opens the space for difference, movement, and alteration. It refers to the reality of subject, which couldn’t be experienced without the image, and leads to an increase of being in the new representational forms. The modern subject emerges from the form of indexicality. It consists in the order of image, which is based on genetics.