5 Minute Revolution Manifesto-Workshop and Performance

 

'5 Minute Revolution' is Okin Manifesto in two parts: a writing workshop, and performance.

5 Minute Revolution Manifesto - 4pm Workshop and Performance

Sunday April 25, 2010

Nam June Paik Arts Centre 2F

4pm Workshop, 4.30pm Performance

Okin is a group of artists concerned with issues of spatial regeneration, intervention and collaboration. The name Okin references the famous Okin-Dong site redevelopment and the associated process of tearing down the existing buildings. Through their activities, the group excavates the complexities associated to conflicting temporalities, topologies and agendas. Okin’s first public event, Okin OPEN SITE precariously held at the demolition site itself, functioned to highlight the situation and the discrepancies between individual and corporate power. In addition, it had the added functionality of performing as a ‘conceptual wake’: the ability to recognize the importance of something, celebrate its existence, lament its disappearance and, in doing so, enact the ability to move on, not as an act of leaving behind, but of carrying forward.

Given the state many of the apartments were left in (several seeming to have been abandoned without a chance of salvaging possible objects of sentimental value) the Okin collective seems to have taken on this ritual that those displaced were unable to perform. This ‘operating in the absence of the other ‘(which is neither for nor on behalf of the other) raises relevant questions regarding notions of memory, interference and engagement, archiving, and interchangeability of experience while testing the value of artistic activity.

For the event they are conducting as part of the Inhabiting the Breach program activated by Tammy Kim’s 5 Interloc(k)utors, Okin continue their negotiation with space, transformation, presence and intervention by presenting themselves and their ongoing process as they publicly negotiate a manifesto. The ground for the 5 Minute Revolution Manifesto is to engage with artistic activity and spatial dynamics in a manner that becomes an interrogation of their own process as a group and rallies a cry that breaches the status quo. For their intervention, the group has produced a limited edition print to be transformed into a loudspeaker. The public would be given these for free to openly voice their opinion. The loudspeaker works as a physical boundary rider: it is both a record of an event, an interrogation device, a physical embodiment of a manifesto, the announcement of a revolution and a conceptual declaration of intent.

The construction of the loudspeaker with the public is to be accompanied by an open roundtable discussion about the history and critique of manifestos, the conceptual background of the Okin project, and an investigation into urban and institutional interventions that also addresses the group’s interaction with Tammy Kim’s installation in Conjunctures within the Breach. In parallel, a writing workshop will encourage the public to inscribe their own thoughts for a manifesto onto the loudspeakers they construct.

The entire process will culminate with the performance of the manifesto, to be staged outdoors on the top of the container structure adjacent to the art center’s cafeteria terrace.

Okin – Hwayong Kim, Shiu Jin, Jooyoung Lee, Yuk King Tan, Joungmin Yi

Flyer, Address, Map and Directions -
http://njp.kr/root/html_eng/event.asp?idx=66&gotopage=1

옥인선언문 ' 5분간의 혁명'

랜덤 액세스展
틈새에 기거하기: ‘결합의 틈새’ 섹션 프로그램

옥인 선언문 ‘5분간의 혁명’

2010년 4월 25일 (일요일) 4시  워크샵 및 퍼포먼스

‘옥인’은 옥인동의 재개발 철거 작업 이후에 결성된 작가그룹으로서, 공간적인 재생, 개입 및 공동 작업에 관한 문제들을 다룬다. 그들이 시도해 온 공간과의 교섭, 그것의변형, 공간적 존재와 이에 대한 개입을 지속화하기 위하여, ‘옥인’은백남준아트센터 기획전 ‘랜덤 액세스’의 한공간, ‘결합의 틈새 Conjunctures with Breach’에서 그들의선언문을 관객에게선보였다. ‘옥인’은 지난 4월 25일 워크샵과 퍼포먼스를 통하여 예술적 참여와 공간적 에너지에 관한 논의를 하였다. 또한이번 워크샵과 퍼포먼스는 이그룹의 작업 과정에 대한 질문, 그리고 현 상황에 대한재고를 위한 일종의 집회로서도 기능하였다.

이번 이벤트를 위하여 ‘옥인’은 한정판 인쇄물을 제작하여 관객에게 무료로 증정하였다. 관객은 이것을 이용하여 확성기를 만들고, 이 확성기로 자신의 의견을 목소리 높여발언의 도구로 활용하였다. 이 확성기는 본 이벤트의 흔적, 질문에 쓰이는 도구, 선언문의 매체, 혁명과선언에 대한 증언으로 존재하며, 이를 통해 개념적 경계들 사이의 존재를 물질적으로 실재화한다. 워크샵에서 확성기를 제작하고 선언문을 작성하는 동안, ‘옥인’은 여러 논점에 대한토론을 진행하였다. 이 토론은 선언문 혹은 옥인 그룹의 개념적배경의 역사와 비판적 시각에서부터, 그들이 타미 킴Tammy Kim의 작품 ‘5 인터-락트-큐터스(5 Interloc(k)utors)’에 개입하여 작업한 것과 같은 제도적 개입 및 도시환경적 연구까지 여러 논점을 다루었다. ‘5분 혁명’ 선언문의 퍼포먼스는 확성기를 들고 ‘결합의 틈새’ 공간을 부수고 뛰쳐나가 백남준아트센터내의 개개의 공간들을 결합시켰다.

옥인 프로젝트에 참여하시고 싶으신 분은 선언문의 인쇄물에 여러분의 생각을 적으신후 인쇄물을 확성기로 만들어 가져가시기 바랍니다. 

옥인: 김화용, 진시우, 이정민, 이주영, 육 킹 탄

자세한 정보는 아래의 백남준 미술관 http://njp.kr/root/html_eng/event.asp?idx=66&gotopage=1 에서 참고하실 수 있습니다.

Ghost Bar: Yuk King Tan and Jooyoung Lee (updated)

Ghost Bar

Yuk King Tan and Jooyoung Lee 

The Ghost Bars perform as a ‘conceptual wake’: the ability to recognize the importance of something, celebrate its existence, lament its disappearance and, in doing so, enact the ability to move on, not as an act of leaving behind, but of carrying forward.  

Given the state many of the apartments were left in (several seeming to have been abandoned without a chance of salvaging possible objects of sentimental value) the artwork seems to have taken on this ritual that those displaced were unable to perform. This ‘operating in the absence of the other ‘(which is neither for nor on behalf of the other) raises relevant questions regarding notions of memory, interference and engagement, archiving, and interchangeability of experience while testing the value of artistic activity.  

The Ghost Bar ironically links the supernatural elements of Buddhist mysticism, framed by the symbolism of the mountain and the spirits of the past, with the psychological states of disavowal: the phases of intoxication, hallucination, stupor and transformation that occurs from either hard liquor or a more pervasive politically sanctioned obliteration of memory. The Ghost Bar is a free bar, offering snacks and winter’s ‘last shot’. 

Built in an exposed window of an apartment in Okin, the functioning bar’s counter-top teeters over the edge of the building, inviting traffic to stop and linger in the dramatic stetting of a half destroyed home under a beautiful mountain landscape. Any drinking establishment is a repository of secrets and unfulfilled dreams. The watering hole, made from collected detritus and material, refers to the past life and memory of Okin’s former occupants and the political act of the area’s destruction.  

One of the most interesting and voyeuristic parts of Okin OPEN SITE is the ability to see the remnants of peoples home and their belongings, furniture, and personal accoutrements left behind. Seven further ‘satellite’ Ghost Bars are placed throughout the Okin Apartments. These bars serve to punctuate the viewing of the deconstructed Okin area, and give pause for reflection and contemplation of abandoned homes and half-demolished apartments. The bars focus attention on the diverse categories of people living in the housing block and their style of living.  

The memories of past occupation and the ghosts of the recent past concentrate the idea that art created inside Okin is also a ghosting: an ephemeral presence overlaid onto the physical drama of destruction. The Ghost Bars are artworks about disembodiment, the negative space of removal in spirit with the intoxication and separating tool of alcohol.  

White porcelain cups and bowls are collected throughout the apartments as dishes for the bars. They refer to funeral rites in Buddhist and Taoist tradition, serving, like the wooden doors set up as elaborate dining tables, as devices of exorcism where one can drink a wintery ‘last shot’ to the many histories of Okin. Transgression and encroachment is an important element to the installation - the artwork and even the presence of the viewers has not been granted permission even though the area is a public walkway. 

Okin’s destruction is still contested by the few remaining residents and local action groups and many homes are occupied even as the construction crews take apart homes. One of the most heated points of Okin’s residents protest is that settlements are done on an individual and not collective basis, leading to secret and greatly different rates of compensation. 

The well-known apartments, built in as an ideal example of modernist style living in the seventies, have the advantage of a mountain view and stream weaving between the different apartment blocks. This prime location lead to a variety of people living in the apartments over the decades, from the working to middle class, elderly and nature lovers attracted to the mountain location and artists drawn to it’s cheap apartments and history.

The Ghost Bars, and all the Okin OPEN SITE works are activities engaging with the space in a variety of different strategies, but the primary focus of the event is to invite people to Okin in a gesture both playful and pointed.

Ghost Walk: Jooyoung Lee

Three Photos(below)by Lenny Corea and more images are available at http://lnylnylny.com/fuckflickr/

Okin Apartment Project Review_Art in culture magazine, April 2010

Please click for a better view!