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KNN NEWS, 18 MARCH 2020

YTN NEWS, JUNE 2015

‘SLEEPWALKER’ EXHIBITION VIEW, 2015

THE NIGHT WATCH Exhibition view 2012


Figure dell’Immaginario: il Mostro di Loch Ness Una Leggenda più reale del reale
di Viana Conti

La fotografia è comunemente ritenuta il mezzo che riflette, in modo quanto più oggettivo, la realta e Shinwook Kim, maestro di slittamenti tra reale e immaginario, è un artista-fotografo
coreano, nato a Seoul nel 1982, residente a Londra, attivo anche a Milano, destinatario di premi internazionali, invitato a esporre in spazi pubblici e privati di metropoli sia orientali che
occidentali, presente con sue opere in collezioni del Regno Unito, del Giappone, della Corea.

La C.E Contemporary, galleria d’arte di Milano, presenta la prima mostra in Italia dell’artista coreano. Intitolata In Search of Nessie/In cerca di Nessie, la personale si articola in una significativa selezione di oltre quindici opere fotografiche che ricostruiscono per lo spettatore una fantomatica Nessieland/Terra di Nessie. Questo corpus di opere, realizzato tra il 2018 e il 2019, è, paradossalmente, la realtà documentata di una leggenda: quella del mostro del lago Loch Ness, a sud-ovest di Inverness, nelle favolose Highlands scozzesi.

Visionario e analitico, al tempo stesso, ricostruttore di mitologie dei luoghi e dei non-luoghi, Shinwook Kim riesce con questa mostra a dare visibilità all’invisibile. Cerca le fonti storiche da
cui è scaturita la leggenda, si sposta in loco, si informa, visita il centro di ricerca, la roulotte-campo-base Nessie-Hunter, situata ai margini del bosco, la spiaggia di avvistamento per ituristi.
Si documenta, interroga gli abitanti, raccoglie le impressioni, i reperti, e quando il 
fantasma del mostro ha preso corpo nella sua mente decide, finalmente, di scattare fotografie di esterni dense di tensioni interiori, di dare immagini frontali, dettagliate, cromaticamente intense, alla sua Weltanschauung, alla vision di quel mondo abitato da un mostro indecidibile che tuttavia è divenuto l’icona del posto, a partire dalla silhouette nera di quella Surgeon’s Photograph/Foto del Chirurgo, scattata nel 1934 da Robert Kenneth Wilson e rivelatasi, notoriamente, un autentico falso.

Entrata nella cultura di massa, la mitologica creatura ha attivato una risonanza mediatica che non cessa di muovere, annualmente, un milione di visitatori, sognatori provenienti da contesti culturali etno-antropologici, eco-biologici, folklorici, extrasensoriali, azionando altresi lamolla del merchandising. La silhouette azzurra di Nessie, circondata da mulinelli concentrici, può fare la sua apparizione, a sorpresa, anche sulla parete di piastrelle bianche della toilette pubblica locale. Perfino le targhe di immatricolazione dele auto di Inverness si ispirano, talvolta, al nome del mostro. Dal grande Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, ideatore scozzese del giallo deduttivo, autore appassionato di parapsicologia e di fantastico, è stato tratto l’adattamento cinematografico di Vita privata di Sherlock Holmes, di Billy Wilder, in cui le indagini portano a Loch Ness. Artista che lavora per cicli tematici, Shinwook Kim è dedito anche alla documentazione fotografica di pesci e conchiglie d’acqua dolce, riconducibili alle rappresentazioni pittoriche della tradizione coreana, come pure al folklore celtico cresciuto intorno alla bestia d’acqua.

Realtà e artificio alimentano curiosità, ispirano scrittori di fantascienza, fumettisti, designer, registi, documentaristi, che, creano, nei più piccoli, perfino incubi notturni. Plesiosauro ogigantesca salamandra, foca o lontra abnorme, elefante-calamaro o impressionante anguilla, la creatura grigio scuro ha nutrito, in una piovigginosa notte grigia, sotto un cielo grigio, in unlago grigio, il mito di verità e favola, terrore e desiderio, archetipo e stereotipo.

Una diffusa propensione all’illusione pareidolitica (dal greco eidolon, immagine, e parà, vicino) non manca di ricondurre l’apparizione del mostro a figure conosciute di volti umani eanimali, skyline di paesaggi magnetici e misteriosi, incision nelle rocce, profili di alberi, contorni di nuvole, minacciose silhouettes di luce e ombra. Shinwook Kim pratica, con lamentee con lo sguardo, con un’attitudine contemplativa e silente, talvolta ironico-critica, spesso empatica, la terra-di-mezzo tra la cultura d’Oriente e d’Occidente, trail fascino della tradizione e le incursioni nell’innovazione, restituendo, con la sua opera fotografica, visibilità a visionidell’immaginario.

Shinwook Kim analizza, con il mezzo della fotografia, la complessità di un fenomeno che ormai fa parte dell’Immaginario collettivo. La sua scelta di campo evidenzia situazioni in cui si coniugano risvolti contraddittori della psicologia mana, come la paura del mostro e al tempo stesso il desiderio della sua apparizione dal centro del lago quasi come un prodigio. Turisti,
dagli abiti multicolori, disseminati sulla spiaggia vengono colt dall’artista mentre inforcano, convintamente, i loo binocoli per scrutare ogni indizio sospetto che increspi la superficie argentea dell’acqua, che crei un mulinello dal cui gorgo possa emergere il lungo collo serpentino del mostro.

Se la velocità odierna di navigazione area, navale, ferroviaria, ha contratto spazi e tempi di raggiungimento di contrade da un capo all’altro del pianeta, la navigazione nella rete
elettronica non ha mancato, da parte sua, di alimentare nell’internauta deliri di onnipotenza, facendolo spostare nel mondo come in uno sconfinato campo da gioco. Da qui lo stimolo a effettuare performance fisiche e psichiche sempre più estreme. Alla sua console divideogamer, l’adulto contemporaneo non si sottrae a crisi di infantilismo che lo espongono, virtualmente e concretamente, a possibili pericoli e side. Il titolo della mostra In Search of Nessie/ In cerca di Nessie è altamente significativo, essendo un invito a cercare quel mostro che attrae e fa paura. Quale miglior modo per tenerlo in vita e al tempo stesso esorcizzarne il terrore se non ridurlo a giocattolo? Ecco anche la ragione del diminutivo di Ness in Nessie: farne un gadget coloratissimo da grandi occhi sporgenti, da esporre in bancarella per unmercatino sulle rive del lago al prezzo di 12 sterline o da accumulare, dentro contenitori diplexiglass, in un fantasmagorico magazzino, illuminato dal neon verde spettrale di un lampadario specchiante.

Con questo ciclo di opere sulla creatura proliferate di Loch Ness, Shinwook Kim evidenzia come un sistema consumistico trasformi un feticcio mitico in un oggetto di consumo
mercificabile, nel prodotto alienato di una società, a industria avanzata, del terzo millennio. A conferma di quest presunta infantilizzazione degli adulti e adultizzazione de bambini, viene
anche esposto su terraferma, a Nessieland, il gallo prototipo di un sottomarino d’esplorazione subacquea. La facoltà mitopoietica dell’artista coreano, affondando le sue radici nel terreno
dello straordinario, lascia riaffiorare, nell’opera e nell’osservatore, le zone grigie e oscure di un’inquietante sindrome dell’abisso.

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Figures of the Imaginary: the Loch Ness Monster A legend more real than reality (Italian text translated)

by Viana Conti

Photography is commonly believed to be the medium that reflects reality in the most objective way, and Shinwook Kim, master of slips between real and imaginary, is an artist-photographer
Korean, born in Seoul in 1982, resident in London, also active in Milan, recipient of international awards, invited to exhibit in public and private spaces of both eastern and Westerners, present with works by him in collections in the United Kingdom, Japan, Korea.

C.E Contemporary, an art gallery in Milan, presents the Korean artist’s first exhibition in Italy. Entitled In Search of Nessie, the solo show consists of a significant selection of over fifteen photographic works that reconstruct a phantom Nessieland / Land of Nessie for the viewer. This body of works, created between 2018 and 2019, is, paradoxically, the documented reality of a legend: that of the monster from Loch Ness, southwest of Inverness, in the fabulous Scottish Highlands. Visionary and analytical, at the same time, a reconstructor of mythologies of places and non-places, Shinwook Kim is able with this exhibition to give visibility to the invisible. He seeks historical sources from which gave rise to the legend, he moves on site, gets information, visits the research center, the trailer-base camp Nessie-Hunter, located on the edge of the forest, the sighting beach for tourists.

He documents himself, questions the inhabitants, collects the impressions, the finds, and when the ghost of the monster has taken shape in his mind he finally decides to take photographs of exteriors full of inner tensions, to give frontal, detailed, chromatically intense images, to his Weltanschauung, to the vision of that world inhabited by an undecidable monster that has nevertheless become the icon of the place, starting with the black silhouette of that Surgeon’s Photograph / Photo of the Surgeon, taken in 1934 by Robert Kenneth Wilson and famously revealed to be a genuine fake.

Entering mass culture, the mythological creature has activated a media resonance that does not cease to move, annually, a million visitors, dreamers from ethno-anthropological, eco-biological, folkloric, extra-sensory cultural contexts, also activating the merchandising spring. Nessie’s blue silhouette, surrounded by concentric eddies, can also make an unexpected appearance on the white-tiled wall of the local public toilet. Even the registration plates of Inverness cars are sometimes inspired by the name of the monster. From the great Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Scottish creator of the deductive thriller, author passionate about parapsychology and the fantastic, the film adaptation of Private Life of Sherlock Holmes by Billy Wilder was taken, in which the investigations lead to Loch Ness. Artist who works in thematic cycles, Shinwook Kim is also dedicated to the photographic documentation of freshwater fish and shells, attributable to the pictorial representations of the Korean tradition, as well as to the Celtic folklore raised around the water beast.

Reality and artifice feed curiosity, inspire science fiction writers, cartoonists, designers, directors, documentary makers, who even create nightmares in the little ones. Plesiosaurus ogigantic salamander, seal or abnormal otter, elephant-squid or impressive eel, the dark gray creature has fed, in a drizzly gray night, under a gray sky, in a gray lake, the myth of truth and fable, terror and desire, archetype and stereotype.

A widespread propensity for pareidolitic illusion (from the Greek eidolon, image, and parà, close) does not fail to trace the appearance of the monster to known figures of human and animal faces, skylines of magnetic and mysterious landscapes, incision in rocks, profiles of trees , outlines of clouds, menacing silhouettes of light and shadow. Shinwook Kim practices, with lamentee and gaze, with a contemplative and silent attitude, sometimes ironic-critical, often empathic, the middle-earth between the culture of the East and the West, the charm of tradition and incursions in innovation, returning, with his photographic work, visibility to vision of the imagination.

Shinwook Kim analyzes, with the medium of photography, the complexity of a phenomenon that is now part of the collective imagination. His choice of field highlights situations in which contradictory implications of mana psychology are combined, such as the fear of the monster and at the same time the desire for his appearance from the center of the lake almost like a prodigy. Tourists, from the multicolored dresses, scattered on the beach, they are cultured by the artist while they mount, with conviction, the loo binoculars to scrutinize any suspicious clue that ripples the silver surface of the water, that creates a whirlpool from whose whirlpool the long serpentine neck of the monster can emerge. If today’s speed of area, naval and railway navigation has contracted the spaces and times of reaching districts from one end of the planet to the other, navigation in the network electronics did not fail, on his part, to feed delusions of omnipotence into the surfer, making him move around the world as in a boundless playing field. Hence the stimulus to perform ever more extreme physical and mental performance. At his consul divideogamer, the contemporary adult does not escape crises of infantilism that expose him, virtually and concretely, to possible dangers and sides.

The title of the exhibition In Search of Nessie is highly significant, being an invitation to look for that monster that attracts and frightens. What better way to keep it alive and at the same time exorcise its terror than to reduce it to a toy? Here is also the reason for the diminutive of Ness in Nessie: to make it a colorful gadget with large protruding eyes, to be displayed in a stall for a market on the shores of the lake at the price of 12 pounds or to accumulate, in containers of plexiglass, in a phantasmagoric warehouse, illuminated by ghostly green neon of a mirrored chandelier. With this cycle of works on the proliferated creature of Loch Ness, Shinwook Kim highlights how a consumerist system transforms a mythical fetish into an object of consumption. commodifiable, in the alienated product of an advanced industrial society of the third millennium. In confirmation of this presumed infantilization of adults and adultization of children, comes also exhibited on land, at Nessieland, the prototype rooster of an underwater exploration submarine. The mythopoetic faculty of the Korean artist, sinking its roots in the ground of the extraordinary, allows the gray and dark areas of a disturbing abyss syndrome to resurface in the work and in the observer.

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In search of Nessie
Interview with and revised by Rebecca Piva <
CE Contemporary, Milan, Italy>

The “In search of Nessie” series, created by the artist between 2018 and 2019, sheds light on how a story becomes a legend. Why do a million tourists go to Loch Ness every year? To try to spot the elusive Nessie, the aquatic monster that according to legend, would live in the depths of the lake. There are many doubts surrounding this mystery which, however, attracts many curious people every year. This legend is passed down from 565 when an Irish monk spoke about it for the first time in his work Vita Sancti Columbae in which he told of the funeral of a man killed by a savage marine beast which would later be driven out by St. Columba Irish abbot and missionary evangelist, credited for having spread Christianity in what is now known as Scotland. Near the shores of the lake, there is the Well of San Columba, whose water, before his arrival, was considered poisonous. Columba chased away the evil spirits that infested the well and the water immediately became pure. From then on it is thought to have healing properties and is particularly useful for treating hangover, rheumatism and infertility.

The Loch Ness monster is universally known as its notoriety has grown over the years thanks also to photography. In 1933 the construction of the A82 state road operated by Transport Scotland began. A82 is one of the main roads in Scotland that from Glasgow leads to Inverness through Fort William. The opening of this road, which runs alongside the lake, has promoted the sighting of the Loch Ness monster as it has allowed people to approach the lake by car since 1933 sightings have in fact increased significantly.

In 1934 the surgeon Robert Wilson took a photo of the monster who, before proving to be a fake, fomented the legend of the lake and like him, many others delighted in producing false shots of Nessie. In a period when the means available did not allow to measure the depth and extent of the lake which was therefore surrounded by an aura of mystery and where photography was considered a true mirror of reality, several manipulated images were produced increasing and keeping this story alive. Through his work, the artist does not want to demonstrate the existence of the monster but he wants to study its phenomenon. Shinwook Kim wonders if legends are kept alive thanks to manipulations and cheating and if in Nessie’s case it was also photography that kept this legend alive.

The etymology of the term “legend” derives from the Latin Legenda whose meaning is “things that must be read”, “worthy of being read”. Subsequently, this term embraced a broader meaning than the original one and today indicates any story that contains real elements but manipulated by the imagination, handed down in order to answer questions, explain some characteristics of a natural environment, celebrate characters or events important for the history of a people. The longer imagination influences an event, the more it becomes legendary. Legends, myths, fables and fairy tales are part of the cultural heritage of the human being and are therefore a fundamental requirement that combines reality and wonder.

The photographic reportage made by Shinwook Kim during his stay in Scotland combines poetic images of the wonderful Scottish landscapes with portraits of the people who gravitate around this legend (tourists, scholars, Nessie Hunter) making it great and photographs in which it is shown how the legend of Loch Ness was also kept alive and exploited in order to grow to merchandise and make a profit.

If legends in the past had the purpose to explain incomprehensible phenomena or to make places and events famous, on the other hand, they often had the purpose of strengthening the bonds of belonging of a community. The human being needs to believe in supernatural or inexplicable phenomena and for this reason, he needs to have faith in something or someone.

Although many people have profited from this story, Shinwook Kim during his stays in Scotland has also met people who were firmly convinced of Nessie’s existence and who decided to devote their lives to trying to prove its existence.

This is the case of Steve Feltham better known as “Nessie Hunter”, celebrated in the Guinness World Record for the longest and uninterrupted vigilance in the search for the lake monster that has lasted for 29 years. This dedication is a dream come true for Feltham as this story had fascinated him since 1970 when he visited Loch Ness with his family for the first time. To finance his research, Feltham started making eccentric figurines depicting Nessie. If initially, tourists were reluctant to buy them, as they did not know the story of this man who had left his life to devote himself to his dream after the BBC gave him the suitable means to shoot a documentary video then aired with the name “Desperately Seeking Nessie” his story became famous and the sale of figurines was also successful. For many years Steve circumnavigated the lake in his van until he decided to set up his base at the “Dores Inn car park” located on the beach and therefore a perfect checkpoint on the lake. Thanks to the kindness of the parking owner, Steve has lived in this place for years and has set up a table outside his van to sell the gadgets he created and to enjoy the view on the hottest days.

During the reportage, Shinwook Kim also came into contact with another very important character for the history of this place: Adrian Shine, head of the Loch Ness & Morar project engaged in fieldwork in the Highlands since 1973 when he built the underwater “Machan” observation chamber. Professor Shine led over 1000 students and trained several volunteers who took part in the expeditions, teaching them to observe, sample and record data. Adrian Shine also organized Operation Deepscan in 1987 to map Loch Ness with sonar and understand its food chain and the trend of internal waves. This event drew 23 international television crews and the physics of the lakes has been highlighted as never before thanks to the aura of mystery that surrounds this area.

Shinwook Kim’s intent is to study the phenomenon of this area and show to the public how a story turns into a legend and how a place changes thanks to the celebrity achieved through it. There have been over 1,000 Nessie sightings in Loch Ness which still remains an extremely bewitching place for those who want to believe in it.
In Search of Nessie shows us how an invisible legend manages to invade a real place and create a collective imagination becoming viral thanks to the landscape, the characters of that place, historical tales, religious reasons and archival finds. The artist’s photographs will bring us in Scotland and make us reflect on the elements that make a story great and unforgettable.

Born in Seoul in 1982, Shinwook Kim moved to Great Britain in 2007, in 2012 he graduated from Fine Art Goldsmiths University of London and in 2014 he finished a master’s degree in photography at the Royal College of Art. Photography has always been for the artist a way to investigate the reality and to understand its mechanisms showing a personal and innovative vision of the world. The idea of discovering what lies behind a legend like that of the Loch Ness monster comes from the desire to work on a project that allows him to escape with the imagination and analyze an area of human life that is enveloped by the mystery by examining this phenomenon. The choice of this legend, in particular, was guided by the artist’s interest in the element of water also present in his older works. To carry out this project, Shinwook Kim went to Scotland a dozen times, staying there every time for at least 3-4 days.


The Age of Darkness Seen through a Digital Mirror

Young June Lee <critic>

As night falls, darkness creeps in. Along with the darkness comes the monster. But the monster does not come from far away. It comes from within. You, the human is the home of the monster. The monster never stops, it never sleeps. If you fail to tame the monster, it will destroy you from within. Why fear the monster? It brings chaos. Like a naughty child, the monster unsettles what has been established and shakes what has been stable. The monster is not easy to detect as it hides deep in the darkness.

So comes the camera, the human tool to control light. The little machine that freezes time is hoped to help to tame the monster. The language of the camera was thought to be light. But it turned out that the language of the camera was darkness. Inside the camera was a circuit to channel the flow of darkness. The origin of the word camera has come from ‘camera obscura’, which means darkroom. So, it is very natural that the camera finds itself comfortable in the midst of the darkness of the night.

However, the camera must not be left free in the dark. In modern period the camera itself has turned out to be a monster. Indeed, in the society of abundant technologically reproduced images, the camera has always been a monster. Friedrich Nitzsche has already warned, “beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster. For when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” Fighting the monster of the darkness, the camera has become a monster. In the past, the darkness lay in ignorance and poverty. These days, the darkness sits in the midst of light. For too bright light blinds the eye.

So the camera should be put under control. So comes the photographer. Shinwook Kim intervenes in a scene otherwise chaotic in a monstrous darkness. His camera stares in the darkness. Tree branches and trunks shining bright are poised to stand on guard to the hell of darkness. But this light is artificial. What looks to be very bright is indeed the play of exposure time and aperture. This amount of light would have been ignorable in the bright sunshine of the day. In some photographs, the darkness itself is also artificial. It is tainted with the light of the city, with multiple colors mixed in it. Complex light sources such as street lamps, signboards and interior lights create darkness that is so biased to a certain color that it can no longer be called darkness. These days, there is no pure darkness. What has been polluted is not just the air but the darkness. So the photographer has set out to pursue the pure darkness but ends up finding himself caught up in the mixture of light and darkness.

What ever happened to Rembrandt, the painter of light and darkness? His famous painting <Night Watch, or The Militia Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq> (1642) has long been thought to be a depiction of a night scene. But when the painting was cleaned, it was discovered to represent a broad day. Indeed, it was a party of musketeers stepping from a gloomy courtyard into the blinding sunlight. Dark misunderstanding has been surrounding this painting for so long time. Although he was a popular painter and a rich man, he lived in extravagance and his life ended in a misery. Finally he was buried as a poor man in an unknown grave. After twenty years since his death, his remains were taken away and destroyed.

What would happen to the photographer of darkness? People talk about visual language. The photographer of darkness talks about the language of darkness. People have long thought that the contents of a photograph is what it portrays in a visual language. They have thought what can be perceived and deciphered in a narrative form is its contents. Even theoreticians and critics try to read what a photograph tells. From this moment, the contents of photography should be defined as the struggle between light and darkness. The history of this struggle is entwined along a complex line of technology, art, humanities and social practices. The age of darkness has succumbed to the age of light since the invention of light bulb in 1890 by Thomas Edison. However, darkness is still roaming large in the twenty first century, the age of LED lights. So comes Shinwook Kim, not just to tame the monster of darkness but also the monster of light.

The light in his photographs is a precious entity, as it is prepared and realized in so delicate a manner that it can never be mechanically reproduced. So Walter Benjamin had to wait until Shinwook Kim’s works were unveiled before he hastily concluded his famous essay, “The work of art in its age of technical reproducibility.” He wrote that the aura of traditional work of art was destroyed along with the emergence of the technical means of reproducing images. What he did not notice was that the subtle arrangement of technical means to make an image could not be reproduced. The circumstance in which a technical means is employed to produce an image is way more complex and subtler than Benjamin had imagined. There is no technical reproduction that produces an endless series of same images. There are only micro-scale differences that can only be detected using X rays, UV and infrared. Thus one must be cautious when talking about the all encompassing term of technical reproducibility. So is Shinwook Kim. His photographs were produced in careful footsteps that lead all the way into the depth of darkness. The viewer of his works should also be careful. One should not miss delicate details Shinwook Kim created with the help of camera devices.

So the photographer of the twenty first century is given a somewhat different task than those in the early twentieth century. He would put the technical means of image production on a different ontological basis. He listens to the sound of darkness. He listens to the narrative of the objective world of which nobody holds a total control. For so long, humans have degraded it as meaningless, ominous, murky and so on. Shinwook Kim revives the virtue of darkness. Can’t we see the contour of the things that are not visible under bright light? The virtue of this precious jewel of being that is so quiet and free of noise has long been forgotten. In the darkness we can sleep. That is when the siren inside us begins to work. We can find peace in it. Shinwook Kim’s photographs are historical in that he discovers the value of darkness anew. In his photographs a sleepwalker is happy. He knows his destination and every path he takes. We will just follow.


Photographs, the Real-life Tool Confronting Fabrication: Photographing (the Fabrication of) Nessie

Lee Young June , ‘The Machine Critic’
Translated by Clare Richards

Artist Shinwook Kim visited Loch Ness several times to photograph the Loch Ness Monster, or ‘Nessie’. Living in London, it was something he was able to do. Yet even from London, Loch Ness is not an easy place to get to. If you look at a map of the UK, just shy of the 57th parallel north lies a town called Inverness. This is where you’ll find Loch Ness. If you think that Pungseo, North Hamgyong Province (the northernmost part of the Korean Peninsula) reaches only the 43rd parallel, we can see that Loch Ness really is very far north. Loch Ness takes ten hours from London by car. The roads are narrow and winding, usually with no hard shoulder. Let’s not forget that they drive on the other side of the road, too. This is where Shinwook Kim visited several times to photograph Nessie. And do you think that because he’d visited, Nessie would just pop her head out of the water, as if to say ‘Go on, take a photo of me’, just like she did in that famous black-and-white picture? This is where the answer gets messy. Does the monster really exist? If so, what form does it take? And in order to discover the monster, it needs to actually be right there, in its true form. There are countless rumours of people saying they’ve seen Nessie, and numerous photographs, all smelling strongly of forgeries, which claim to be evidence. But yet, the meaning of photographing the monster is unclear to begin with. By that I mean, in photographing Nessie are we photographing a monster? Are we photographing the idea that monsters do not exist? Or are we photographing the evidence put forward by those who believe in monsters? The confusion starts here. Regardless, to know whether there is a monster, or there is a fabrication, or whether the fact of a fabrication existing is there, you need to take your camera to the scene itself. Shinwook Kim confronts the fabrication known as with his real-life tool – his camera. This attempt is as absurd as trying to confirm the existence of evil spirits by looking through a microscope. Yet humans are not always rational beings. After all, our lives are an inseparable mix of dreams, fabrication, and reality. That is exactly the condition of Nessie.

If you ask people across the world whether dragons exist, most will say that they don’t. However, within the Chinese character cultural sphere – China, Korea, Japan, and so on – there are many people, such as Lee Sangyong (also known as ‘Popeye’), football player Lee Chung-yong, actor Lee Soryong (otherwise known as Bruce Lee), who have the Chinese character meaning ‘dragon’ (龍) in their names. In , there are numbers of places, such as Yongsan and Yongmun High School, which contain the ‘yong’ character. In front of the main entrance to a university in Heukseok-dong is a bronze fountain of a dragon, and in Hong Kong they hold a festival where people wear dragon masks. At this point, can we say that dragons don’t exist? Dragons exist as written characters, as sculptures, and as festival names. Thus, they exist as symbols, as objects, and as societal rituals. The Loch Ness monster, Nessie, is no different. In Korea, though interest in Nessie has now largely disappeared, most people will at least recognise the name. Given that Loch Ness is in a far, out-of-the-way place that takes ten hours by car from London, there won’t be many British people who’ve visited, either. The fact that the monster’s story has spread quite as far as Korea demonstrates the impressiveness of Nessie’s power. Whether fact or fabrication, Nessie is quite clearly alive. Just like the saying, Elvis isn’t dead. So, we can take photos. If only we could find her.

The Loch Ness Monster exists as follows. She first appeared in one blurred black-and-white photograph, existing now as an image in a variety of products, as comic book characters, and as people’s imaginings. Fabrication exists across so many dimensions that it appears almost like reality. Thus, we can take pictures. The reason we can photograph Nessie is her realness. Meaning, there is something that appears before us, and so we can photograph it. The legend of Nessie has its own history and origins. Conmen Christian Spurling and Robert Kenneth Wilson made a model that looked like a monster and photographed it underwater. They announced that the photo they had taken was of a monster, and thus Nessie was born into the world. At the time, this was the of Nessie, but Nessie’s origins existed in many imaginations, as people went to great efforts either to find her, or to create a monster. The origin of these imaginings can be traced back to the 7th Century. At the time, people believed that beings known as ‘kelpies’ lived in Loch Ness. Though in the West this is said to be a hoax, popular media is abounding with books and films of all types that have kelpies as their subject. The abominable snowman and UFOs represent some of the world’s most well-known hoaxes. Nessie is also one of these. Even so, countless people have put in great effort to prove Nessie’s existence (or her non-existence) – this tells us that Nessie is not simply a fabrication. Even the BBC used sonar technology across the whole 36-kilometre length of Loch Ness in order to confirm her existence (or non-existence). If Nessie really was fiction, mobilising people to perform such an arduous task would have been completely in vain. Just as how, even though the blowing wind is not something we can see, this does not mean it is a fabrication.

Nessie pushes her existence in our direction across two dimensions. The first is money. The sale of goods, such as Nessie souvenirs, brings an economic revenue amounting to around forty million pounds a year– Nessie is a reality we cannot simply conclude as fabrication. Is there anything in our world more real or tangible than money? But Nessie pushes through yet another dimension, even more powerful than money – the power of empire. Regardless of whether or not Nessie herself is a fabrication, the fact that Nessie is known in Korea, is not. But are Korean legends and old stories known within the UK? Are there British people who know the legend of Kumiho or the Tale of Sim Cheong? Probably not. It is no different from how we are unaware of the folklore of Bangladesh. But how exactly did we come to know the fabricated legend of Nessie from the British countryside?

The UK once held a commanding empire across the globe. The countries under its control came to know everything about the empire, right to its core. These days, the absurdity of Korean people’s intense fondness for Union Jack-printed blankets and pillows, or putting Union Jack stickers on their car bumpers for no reason – this speaks to us the power of empire. From Queen Elizabeth to rock groups Queen and the Rolling Stones, Rolls Royce cars, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben… We as Koreans are all familiar with these things. To quote modern lingo – TMI (too much information, used in Korean to refer specifically to  knowledge that we have no use for) – that we have come to learn these details is embedded in the empire’s domination of the world. The empire makes its prestige known to the furthest corners of its territories, and makes these territories submit. We can confirm this through Roland Barthes eyes, as he reads the power of the empire through the cover of one issue of Paris Match.

I am at the barber’s, and a copy of Paris-Match is offered to me. On the cover, a [black boy] in a French uniform is saluting, with his eyes uplifted, probably fixed on a fold of the tricolour. All this is the meaning of the picture. But, whether naively or not, I see very well what it signifies to me: that France is a great Empire, that all her sons, without any colour discrimination, faithfully serve under her flag, and that there is no better answer to the detractors of an alleged colonialism than the zeal shown by this [black boy] in serving his so-called oppressors. (Roland Barthes, Mythologies, translated by [name], 1997, p. 274) 

If Roland Barthes was able to read the power of empire in a mere photograph on a magazine, we can read this same power in Nessie. The United Kingdom, which once commanded territories across the whole world, exported countless legends and fabrications – their territories took these legends word-for-word as legendary. There is a huge quantitative imbalance here in the narrative. Just as Korea has imported a huge volume of books from abroad, while the export of Korean books has remained trivial – even the most minor legends and stories from the West have come into Korea in a huge way, while Korea’s stories have hardly been made known at all. A representative example of this is the story we were told at school, of the honourable young man from the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, much of the land lies below sea level, and there are numerous embankments to keep the water from overflowing. One day, the young man notices a small hole in one of the embankments, and blocks it with his fist. However, as more and more water flows, the hole grows bigger and bigger – it is a moving story of bravery, of a boy who eventually drowns in order to save his country. The story is a lie, but what is fascinating is that people in the Netherlands are aware that this fabricated story is known in Korea as a legend of a young Dutch boy’s patriotism. The fabrication travelled all the way around the globe, back to its home country. The Dutch people knew it was a fabrication, yet the Korean people did not.

There are endless fabricated tales of figures from the western imperial powers – Newton watching the apple fall and discovering the law of universal gravitation, Galileo Galilei dropping an iron ball from the Leaning Tower of Pisa to test gravity, Marie-Antoinette saying ‘Let them eat cake!’ These are all lies. Yet their power is not a fabrication. All the while we believe and follow even fabrication as truth, we are serving the Empire. If it weren’t for the UK’s status as empire, how could that story of a monster in that faraway countryside lake have reached us all the way in Korea? Hidden behind the plain and dreary-looking scenery of Loch Ness and the cute Nessie souvenirs captured by Shinwook Kim’s photographs is the power of empire – showing its unseen strength. The empire has fallen, but the legend lives on. Even if Nessie is a fabrication, the power to bring that fabrication to us is very real.

If we are to face up to the empire’s fabrications, we need to have the same guts that the empire does. The most level-headed assessment of the Nessie photograph was given by yet another imperial power – America. In the mid-1990s, an advertisement for Kodak Film appeared in the magazine American Photo; the photo they used was of Nessie (unfortunately I have no information as to the year or month in which this issue was printed). If I try to jog my memory from long ago and reconstruct the copy, it was something like, ‘People see a monster in this image; but to Kodak, all we see is a photo taken with incorrect exposure, film poorly developed – nothing more than a failure.’ The fascinating thing was that this advert had no interest in the Loch Ness monster. For Kodak, they didn’t see a monster, or a fabrication, just a complete mess of a photo. That is the most accurate true substance of Nessie. A fake image taken by some nutcase in 1934.

If we take a closer look at the photo, just as Kodak did, we can get some idea of Nessie’s real substance. In the photo, a gentle wave is forming; if we say that the height of the wave is at most, 10cm, we can calculate that, proportionally, the monster is a little over 1m in size. If we think of things of around that size that existing in water, there are large catfish, as well as eels. But given the fact that there is almost no aquatic life in Loch Ness, the likelihood of such creatures living there is incredibly low. 1m is a bit small for a monster, too. In an article that Shinwook Kim gathered from an unknown source, it was said that in 1930 a catfish fry around 184cm long was discovered, but if we consider the growth rate of a catfish, a fry of this size could grow up to 30m. Yet the size of the monster in the photograph is vastly different from 30m. Not only is this photo a forgery, even if it was a photograph of something real, it is still very far from a monster. But what is it about monsters that has made them the object of so much delusion and interest? That fact itself is monstrous. ‘Monster’ is a collective name given to an undefined being. Things that are somehow scary, big, and creepy, are given the name ‘monster’. Impossible to determine whether animal or plant, animate or inanimate, good or evil, big or small, from earth or outer space – this is what a monster is. An existence labelled definitively ‘wicked’, such as a serial killer, for example – this is not what a monster is. A monster cannot be defined, and thus presents confusion. This is a more fundamental emotion than fear. It is an existence outside of language, or beyond the bounds of recognition, and that’s why it brings confusion. But people’s attitude towards Nessie is closer to affection than to confusion. There are all sorts of cute mascots and cartoons. Have people, finding it difficult to deal with the real Loch Ness Monster, simply reduced it into something cute and small?

Shinwook Kim’s photographs follow those matters. The photographs do not exaggerate, and simply scan over place to place across the location where Nessie, if she exists, would be – Loch Ness. Some really impressive equipment is used, and great effort has been taken in photographing, but the images look like snapshots just taken in passing. At first glance, the photographs appear so insignificant that if you were to approach them too seriously, you might be captured and eaten up by the Nessie fabrication. Yet the cloud-covered Loch Ness makes the atmosphere heavy. In any given photo, there is no definitive evidence to say that Nessie does or doesn’t exist. Shinwook Kim’s photographs are nothing more than a single narrative. No photo can draw the conclusion that ‘this is Nessie’, ‘Nessie therefore exists’. All that is photographed is the various evidence and by-products of people’s belief in the existence of Nessie. Bringing together those scenes, we have a narrative of all the huge fuss of nonsense that people have created surrounding the Loch Ness monster. In 2019, geneticist and Professor at the University of Otago, New Zealand, Neil Gemmell, went to Loch Ness and presented the results from analyses performed on water samples gathered from various depths across Loch Ness – Shinwook Kim also photographed this. Naturally, the results showed no evidence of Nessie’s DNA existing in Loch Ness. At the location, too, was Nessie expert Adrian Shrine, who has been searching for her since 1973. He also appeared in 1987 in on The Associated Press. As he did many years ago, Shrine appears to still believe the Loch Ness monster exists. But if we look objectively, we can see he is nothing more than a hoax-believing fantasist. Or a delusional. In the end, Shinwook Kim’s Nessie project was in creating photographs by pursuing fabricated existences. Though it’s clear that Nessie is a delusion and fabrication, as people make noise, and all types of symbols appear, the louder we shout that it is fiction, what grows in strength is in fact Nessie’s power. If someone tells you not to think about a white elephant, all you can think of is a white elephant – in the same way, because people continue to say Nessie is a fabrication, Nessie has become real. Shinwook Kim’s camera went after a reality that cannot be revealed, confronting the admissibility of evidence; but what he revealed is also something that cannot be revealed through a photograph. What if it weren’t only Nessie – what if all the things we have become so familiar with turned out to be fabricated? The nation, familism, reason, religion, my resident registration number, my academic background, identity… In the 21st Century, where everything disappears into the cloud of ‘big data’, is there or is there not a Nessie?


<Unnamed Land: Air Port City>

A landscape of reality projected onto vacant space 

Kwon Hyuk-Kyu (Independent curator)

I recall a landscape without places, and the time that ownerless experience can sustain. Countless unnamed events pass by in everyday life. The shoes of a man crossing the street caught by the eye of the beholder in a car awaiting the changing of traffic lights; the back of a random person who temperamentally hits my bag while passing me on the bustling road on the way home from work; and the unrealistic scenery of a resort found while randomly searching on a smartphone. Such a series of nameless experiences occurring in uncertain places seek eternity in daily life.

More than most, Kim Shinwook’s daily life is filled with such placeless landscapes and ownerless experiences. The artist, who lives in London, travels to and from the airport almost every day. This is not for personal reasons such as travel but actually for quite the opposite. His job involves assisting people travelling to London, either picking up travellers from the airport and dropping them off somewhere in the city or taking them from the city out to the airport. Fields, roads, and occasional factories and warehouses fill the everyday life of the photographer who travels to and from the airport outside London. Although he started the job by chance, it continued for over eight years, and he has now travelled to and from the airport over a three thousand times.

What kind of space is the airport? A mix of things coexists at the airport.  Various races and cultures, intangible violence disguised as screening and censorship, and blatant discrimination based on the national interest are revealed through multiple measures of behavior. There is also a strange tension and excitement on the faces of people who have come to see someone arrive or depart. The airport is an odd place where reason and unreason, presence and absence coexist. Kim seems to have learned more about this strange space, the airport, which has become his workplace. He describes all the details such as the fastest route from the airport lounge to the car park, the location of terminal cafes, the various amenities at the airport, as well as the billboard image emblazoned at the airport exit. Furthermore, he remembers the smells and sounds of the airport, the colours of the lights, the types of carpet, and even the voice of the Indian British men who clean the toilet. Actually, more than just assembled memories, they are more like experiences accrued over a long period of time. An artist naturally develops various insights into a place after learning about it in this way, and these are closely linked to his artwork.

How is the airport described in his work? His photographs, which do not convey clear drama or narratives, seem rather understated. In fact the major subject area for his for his camera is not the airport itself but the marginal areas around it such as the vacant lots, green fields and sparsely located residential areas nearby, The early work of the airport series, mainly comprising pictures of the landscapes around airports, display minor events and are almost bare. The feeling of such a vacuum remains intact even in his recent works which expanded to cover objects and characters. Typical images of people meeting and waiting in the airport, or of censorship and control, are not found anywhere in his photos. Kim, who knows about the airport so intimately, strangely only concentrates on landscapes and marginal spaces where typical airport scenes are not to be found.

Let’s take a closer look at the images. Couples in Sri Lankan traditional clothing are taking wedding pictures in the face of a strong wind in a wide-open field that seems to be near the airport. Also seen near the airport, a small children’s  party is held next to a temporary amusement park in a rather dreary field. Another photo shows a private taxi driver posing in front of a brand new car, and a middle-aged man whose hobby is recording the serial numbers of planes taking off and landing at the airport every week. In addition, the flight crew’s simple wardrobe, empty roads next to the airport, houses divided into runways and walls, and old abandoned facilities at the airport were captured by his camera.

Kim focused on the obscure areas around the airport and named the spaces “Unnamed land”. So what is the purpose of a picture that the photographer neglects to name? Heathrow Airport, the main location for his photography, was originally farmland. It then served as a military airfield during World War II and then officially opened as an airport in 1946. The airport has since steadily expanded on its current site over more than half a century. Several new terminals and additional facilities were built as needed. The expanded airport now occupies a vast area that is difficult to accurately measure in size. And the extensive land is not incorporated into the city but only works alongside it.

At airports, places which are often outside cities due to problems related to noise and the environment, one can find the scenes of life that are hidden, and perhaps rejected by the city. There are a wide variety of social and cultural signs crossing the empty-looking landscape in striking images such as that of couples taking wedding photos in an abandoned site in a residential area near the airport with a large immigrant population; the serial numbers of planes as they are recorded by a retired Englishman as his only hobby; workers who suffer from noise pollution in homes divided by walls right next to the airport, and their frequent protests and festivals. In this way, with his subtle images, the artist compressively but intimately displays various issues of the cities and suburbs including migration and labour, religion and race, and environment and development.

In addition, photographs can even detect the photographer’s personal emotions as they are provoked by the airport. A cold image might reflect his experience of such a place. Imagine his daily life of driving to and from the airport. Before reaching the airport, he would pass through countless meaningless sites. In a foreign city, feeling still alienated in spite of more than 10 years of residence, he encounters endless nameless places such as endless highways with wide fields on either side, occasional factories, the carpark of a rental company and old business hotels. In addition to this, he has the attendant worry that the person he is meeting might not turn up on time, that the flight will be delayed, or that there will be congestion on the way back into the city centre. He may even send text messages in vain to someone who doesn’t have reception on their phone as they have not even landed yet.

Through this journey of non-place and un-experience which connect like dominos, the photographer arrives at the airport but it is also another non-place. An airport that comes at the end of a space which exists without relationships, history, or place, may appear to be a collection of emptiness. His everyday life as a writer is naturally embedded in the space which the picture reflects. The task of objectively observing a place that is most closely related to one’s life is to carefully wrap up the social and cultural narratives inherent in the place as the inner feelings of the artist in space. The images of a series of observations and personal experiences are seemingly described objectively but suddenly they reveal his feelings and emotions likes the novels of Alain Robbe-Grilllet.

French anthropologist Marc Auge’s explains that the writer’s non-site space such as roads, fields, and airports are spaces of solitude. Most of the photographer’s daily life exists in such a solitary place. However, in light of the work, the solitude of the space could be re-established as an imaginary space that projects the real world rather than as a limited space that is tightly blocked off. Kim discusses space and his personal relationship to it and converts the space of the place into an image which embodies diverse social and cultural stories. Photos of unoccupied landscapes and ownerless experiences are taken to give a name to unnamed land while wandering around such non-places throughout the day. The reason such photos can ironically display such a diversity of meaning and context is because he set the airport as a space which creates reality in its own non-place space. His photographs, which are not intended as obvious symbols and signs, reveal both the writer’s inner landscape and the social and cultural context of the place while attempting the difficult task of objectively approaching the objects. Please note how the photographer continues to reestablish the non-place space of the airport in his future work through images which convey inner landscapes through such social and cultural stories.


At most, he went to England and only wandered around the airport.

Lee Young-june <critic>

Why are there no decent restaurants near Seoul Station, Busan Station or Gwangju Station except for that particular pork soup restaurant in front of Busan Station?  Not many people would disagree with my harsh statement despite the fact that each person’s taste is very subjective. Why is there no good residential space around stations? A good living space requires good housing (including communal houses), good schools, good shops and parks, and other favourable conditions regarded as good for living in.

There are some commonalities between good food and good living space. Both are only possible when people have a desire to stay. A station or an airport is not a place to stay. Everyone goes there to get on the train or the plane, stays for a few hours, and then leaves. They are only interested in their destination, not so much in the space in which they are temporarily staying. So is such a space always transient, empty, and meaningless? Kim’s picture clearly says this is not so. In that case, is such a space always vain, empty, and meaningless? Kim’s pictures say it isn’t. Time, the counterpart of space, is what is required to look into such unoccupied space. According to physicists, time and space are inseparable, or time is only artificial in the way it is measured by humans in the form of hours and months. In other words, the universe is just there without the flow of time despite the fact that humans intentionally adopt it as if pieces of time are attached to the universe. The reason why the station and the airport surroundings seem meaningless is because they are seen as places and times discarded by people. If you leave the dimension of time spent and just stay there, space will return. Shinwook Kim has revived the space around Heathrow. But it’s interesting that it was achieved in the very short period of time it took to capture the photographs. Photographs are taken in a split-second. In Buddhist language, a moment refers to one-75th of a second. This is usually the time needed to take a picture with a 50-millimetre standard lens and it will take a little longer if you tighten the aperture with a large camera. We may regain space only if we abandon artificial and fragmented time created by humans. But how can we then do that with photographs taken at one moment in time? In fact, it’s not in the moment that pictures are made, but the time during which the pictures are not taken. In the meantime, photographers observe, talk, smell the wind, listen to Indian music and think useless thoughts. (A great number of Indians seemingly live near Heathrow airport.) It is during that time that pictures are made. The moment the shutter is pressed is only one small piece of that long time. Space is reborn in a dimension where time becomes thin. The photographer’s eyes become trained to the time-space complex, and the characteristics around the airport were captured. He describes what he came to realise by spending time around the airport in the manner shown in the following diagram.

This diagram shows that the airport, where anyone can pop by, a space thought to be a peripheral part of the city and country, is actually rich and complex. This diagram displays that the airport is an unusual point at which numerous centres and surroundings overlap and intersect. Heathrow Airport is one of the centres of air traffic in Europe, one of the world’s centres. London, of course, is one of the important centres in the world and Europe. Nonetheless, not only the city itself but also the airport has more than one single characteristic. There are many surroundings in and around the area.  Near Heathrow, for instance, there are small unknown towns like Cranford, Harmondsworth, and Harrington. They are small, sparsely populated, and not particularly functional towns. Of course, the town is also divided into a center and periphery. There is no big shopping centre as it is just a small town, but it has a high street with some busy bars and supermarkets at the centre and also a less busy neighborhood with fewer tracks at the periphery. Likewise, Incheon International Airport also has numerous central and peripheral variations. The airport aims to become a center for both the world and Asia through slogans such as “Asia Hub Airport” and “Global Leading Airport.” Incheon Airport is not the world’s main airport yet but, unlike the area surrounding Heathrow, there are many new centres such as new Incheon Yeongjong City and many new golf courses are being developed around the airport. Of course, there are also unknown old towns around Incheon Airport such as Majangpo, Jangchon, Shinbuldo, and Sammok Port. These areas are regarded as peripheral as they have been pushed into new facilities without much difficulty which may not be a pleasant change for the residents of the old towns.

   After all, airports have the duality of connection and division. The airport is an airway connecting one area to another. On land, however, there is a strict division between here and there. Once you leave on a plane, you must wait a while until you can return. Even when inside the airport, you can’t leave once you enter the boarding area. The runway is also a place you are forbidden from entering. Such discontinuities accompany a series of separations and emotional lines. Airports around the world play a functional role in controlling these disruptions with their own design.

Before we discuss the pictures in earnest, I have to talk about my old airport story. As I am writing this article with my own memories of airports from the past, it would sound like nonsense not to include my own story. In the end, the whole point of this article would be to compare the colour of airports painted in my head and those painted through Kim’s lens.  I was born in the 1960s when it was a big deal to visit the U.S. for whatever reason.  In the 1970s, per capita GDP was $280 in Korea and $5100 in the United States, which shows the massive gap. So, when even a distant relative was leaving for the U.S., many family members gathered at Gimpo Airport. In the 1970s, there was a unique facility at Gimpo Airport, which was called Song Young-dae, so you could see family members flying on the balcony. Not beyond the window, but directly. What’s unique about the facility was the balcony was open to the airport’s mooring and the runway. When I watched from the Song Young-dae as people flew to another country, they looked like they were going to another planet in the universe. In 1972, I watched my uncle flying to Brazil with his family for immigration. I can still recall the vivid memory of my little cousin leaving, with his tiny waving hands. My uncle died in Brazil, and I only managed to meet one of my cousins once afterward. It would probably be impossible to communicate with the other one if we ever happen to meet as he would have forgotten all of his Korean and only speak Portuguese. They are now living in completely different places. They are less likely to come back to Korea after having flown over the Song Young-dae in 1972. The Song Young-dae was such a cold place of separation and parting.

In old days, it was very special to go somewhere by plane when people only applied for a single passport with a clear purpose such as official duty, business or studying abroad. This is unlike nowadays when it is common to have multiple passports. If someone had gone to the U.S. or England and once there done little more than wander around the airport, it would have been thought of as odd. Despite having a plan to visit the centre, it is often not easy. Of course, you can take a taxi or tube ride to the White House in Washington D.C. and look up the Empire State Building in New York, but that’s only possible when visiting as a tourist who only hover around the area. According to a Korean newspaper published in the U.S., the saddest word is “mainstream society” which refers to white people. The reason why people often mention mainstream society is because, needless to say, a large proportion of Koreans in the U.S. live in marginal areas. But people want to go to the States because you can still buy a good house, a good car, and play golf with cheap money in spite of living in marginal areas.

It may sound a complete nonsense to say that he has been just hovering around the airport in London. After studying photography in London, Shinwook Kim has taken pictures hovering around the Heathrow Airport area. The difference between Korean immigrants and Shinwook Kim, who both live in the periphery of the metropolis in the West seems clear. The former longs to be part of mainstream society while hiding frustration of being marginalised, whereas the latter earnestly tried to figure out the meaning of living at the periphery. After spending several years around Heathrow, he finally found a number of topics relevant to the perimeter. In fact, the issues he found are familiar to geographers and social scientists, but not so much for photographers in general. It is significant that Shinwook Kim discovered these important issues by observing reality through his photographs around the airport. He expressed the complex geographical, political and cultural relationships surrounding the airport in the following terms.

1 Opposition and conflict over expansion

2 Peripheral erosion and expansion

3 Geographical features: altitude restrictions

4 Impact and tension

5 Multinational, multicultural, and multi-faith

6 Temporary space: hobbies, leisure

7 Ambiguous boundaries, uncertainty

He spent the years 2014-16 around the airport at night under the title Night Spotting. The photos look much more organised than they are today, but they are actually from before Shinwook Kim decided how to approach the airport area in his work. These pictures showed the aircraft’s navigational and anti-collision lights in a rather conventional way, drawing a long-light trajectory because of the long exposure time. It is a typical picture that comes from sites like Airliners.net. However, Shinwook Kim sets up houses around the airport in front of the scene of the light, clearly showing what he is paying attention to. In front of the pictures in the series are homes typical of those lived in by ordinary people in the United Kingdom. Some have flats and some have houses. Through these types of homes, Shinwook Kim has focused on the spatial and geographical conditions in which people near the airport live. However, as he may feel that the same format had been repeated in the series, he is now trying to increase attention on the various races, structures, commercial facilities and human behaviors around the airport. This suggests that he is slowly capturing the characteristics of the space around the airport.

One of the photos taken by Shinwook Kim, which is of a poster titled No Third Runway, is about the ‘opposition and conflict over expansion’. As Heathrow, the European hub airport, tried to build another runway due to a lack of capacity for airport facilities, there was huge opposition from neighboring residents and they adopted the phrase “No Third Runway” on posters. The phrase on the poster says that they managed to halt the runway extension plan in a 2010 legal battle and they can still achieve their goal this time. As the poster bears the words ‘No 3rd Runway Coalition’ it seems that the opposition to the runway is consistent and organised.  This picture is more textual than visual. That is to say, it is not something you can instantly appreciate with a glance; it must be understood by thoroughly looking through the text in the picture. This is the exact opposite of Edouard Manet’s famous painting <A Bar at the Folies-Bergere>. There are bottles in the painting, and the painter adds the letters to the labels of the bottles with quick strokes. To be more accurate, the letters were not just crushed together but pictorially processed with the touch of a Manet-style painting that comprehensively covers the entire picture. Like his style of rushing over every subject, including faces, which unsettled the Paris public of the time, the letters were also painted in his style.

There’s nothing odd about a painter’s drawing. Manet had no choice but to do so since the time had not yet arrived when the writing in painting was clearly written. He would have had to wait until 1910 to name the wines correctly in his painting. As he died in 1883, the artist could not write clear text in the picture. In 1887, influenced by Zaponism, with Chinese characters, Van Gogh painted the Japanese painting “Ukiyo-e”. He literally drew Chinese characters as he was unable to read the scripts so, obviously, they were almost unreadable in the picture. Now that the boundaries of everything have been broken down in the 21st century, it has become extremely natural for writing to be included in pictures and photographs. So we can even just read letters in this picture of Shinwook Kim. Of course, there is a lot of visual information. The wall these posters are found on is an ordinary wall in suburban England. It’s not a nice building in downtown London nor an authentic farmhouse. This is a typical airport neighborhood wall. This wall is the very identity of this photograph. It is like a fingerprint that tells us for what reason some people put these posters in the space and why the photographer took this picture. Something which reminds me of this picture is a poster that I saw at the end of the runway at Narita Airport in Tokyo in the late 1990s. Narita Airport, which opened in 1978, has long been the gateway to Tokyo, and there was still a sign that said “No Narita Airport.” Perhaps those who oppose the expansion of Heathrow are aware of the campaign against the construction of Narita Airport. I don’t know if anyone who opposes Narita Airport is aware of Heathrow’s opposition to expansion, but the two opponents have been united in the memory of my long-time aviation interest. The beauty of this picture is such a strange connection.

What reminds me of this picture is a poster that I saw at the end of the runway at Narita Airport in Tokyo in the late 1990s. Narita Airport, which opened in 1978, has long been the gateway to Tokyo, and there was still a sign that said “No Narita Airport.” No Third Runway or No Narita Airport are the outcry of marginal individuals. It is an urgent voice that the residents will not be dragged back to the periphery once again as they had already been pushed to the airport area, a peripheral urban zone from the city centre. The protest in opposition to Narita Airport was initiated by the resident farmers who desperately desire to protect their own land near the airport site and this later led to an extremely violent political struggle by left-wing activists. In the October 1985 struggle, demonstrators were killed by tear gas fired by police. Demonstrators and police, and even drivers of heavy equipment vehicles who were mobilized for demolition, were also burnt by petrol bombs thrown while the demonstration tower was being demolished. This struggle is still ongoing even though it is not so violent now. No Third Runway is a symbol of a struggle at the periphery which is occurring internationally across the world. When Shinwook Kim took this picture, he probably didn’t know the history of this struggle. Even I only came to learn about the Narita Airport struggle while writing this article. In the end, a photo revealed the archaeology of the struggle.

Photos corresponding to the subject of ‘5 Multinational, Multicultural, Multi-faith’ are therefore interesting. Surely only people with insensitive ears could live around the airport and put up with the noise of aircraft taking off and landing. In fact, this statement is wrong. Around the airport is not a place for deaf people to live, but a place for people who cannot afford to live in the city centre. As a result, various ethnic groups are living together, and various cultural and religious symbols are visible. It is easy to conclude that the area around the airport is very dry and bland, but Shinwook Kim’s photos show that the cultural ecosystem is quite diverse. A healthy ecosystem has a diverse range of species. In that sense, Heathrow is a healthier ecosystem than people think, unlike the prejudice that it might be monotonous for some reason. However, this is not apparent until you see his pictures. This is because he spent a long enough time around Heathrow to appreciate this fact.

There is no relation to any of the subjects mentioned above but the various navigation-related facilities filled in the spaces around airports show that the space is not empty and unimportant. There are various facilities around the airport, such as VOR, various markers (radio signs), and runways. They induce aircraft to take off and land using light or electronic signals. Radio waves are not visible, but the space around Heathrow is filled with radio waves used to guide and communicate with the aircraft taking off and landing at intervals every few seconds. Diverse signals are used for this purpose; Access control 119.725; 120.400; 127.525; 124.975; ground control frequency 118.500, 118.70; ATIS (Automatic Terminal Information Service).  Just because you can’t see anything within a picture doesn’t mean it’s empty. The most visibly notable facility in his photograph is the runway approach light. It is equipped with several lights which turn on in a row as the plane lands. In particular, the lights of the airstrip against a background of early evening darkness indicates that the airport is a very special place. The runway approach lights are usually the only airport facility that anyone can see close up because it is located outside the runway and even in the neighborhood. Therefore, the lighting system also serves as a monumental symbol of the airport. Anyone who lives near an airport is unconsciously aware of the existence of these approach lights as the access lights have always existed there from even before the people in the picture were born.

As well as the runway approach lights, spectators watching the aeroplanes also stand out as notable in this location. Plane-spotting is a unique leisure activity only really seen at European airports. If you camp around an airport in Korea and point a telescopic lens at the runway, you’ll be stopped by airport security. Whereas in Europe there are plenty of places around the airport to freely observe planes taking off and landing. Such a position varies from a hill near the end of the runway to a garden at a hotel near the airport. The Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam has installed an observatory called Panorama Terrace for air travelers so that anyone who does not fly can freely watch the planes. While it is understandable that South Korean airports are heavily guarded due to the military standoff between the two Koreas, European airports are always exposed to aircraft terrorism, requiring stricter security. The fact that the countless onlookers are not driven out shows that Europe is open to technology. As far as I know, the most recent terrorist attack at an airport in Korea was the bombing at Gimpo Airport in 1986, just before the 1988 Olympics. Media sources say that the terrorist event was the work of a South Korean intelligence agency as the government immediately announced that North Korea was responsible immediately after the incident without proper investigation. Since then, Korean airports have had tight security compared to Europe even though there have been few signs of a terrorist attack in the former since then. When I went to a well-known spot for plane-spotting near Amsterdam Airport, it was so popular that an ice cream truck was there. Although watching and recording the planes has nothing to do with air traffic, their eyes were hunting down rare aircraft numbers as if they were carrying out a serious mission. Shinwook Kim’s “6 Temporary Space: Hobbies, Leisure” theme is more interesting because plane-spotting is a peripheral activity carried out in peripheral space, airport surroundings. Wedding photographers in places with extreme noise where aircraft take off and land, or airline workers staying at cheap hotels near airports, are staying in a living space. On the other hand, watching aeroplanes has nothing to do with living so it seems more peripheral. But the fact that so many people are serious about the surrounding area suggests that Heathrow is a fairly dense area. After all, the custom of plane-spotting is an act that gives new meaning and weight to its surroundings.

If we pay more attention to the things that might look meaningless in that way, and place value on them, then in the end could the periphery become the centre? The area around the airport is likely to forever remain marginal. First of all, it’s not an ideal place to stay as it’s far from the city centre, constantly noisy, and there are restrictions on building height. Above all else, there is always a chilly wind around the airport. Even so, Shinwook Kim still continues to visit there. One day, he hopes that the warmth of his constant attention will eventually increase the temperature of the wind. At that point, the cold camera might obtain the eye of humanity.


‘Unnamed Land: Air Port City’, The scenery of broken consciousness, Hein-Kuhn Oh 

‘Unnamed Land: Air Port City’, an art project by Kim Sinwook, is like a movie with no main character. Airports are often present but it is not a mere story of airports. Aeroplanes are also captured but they just randomly fly over residential areas near the airport. In fact, most of his photos were taken around airports rather than inside the complex. Therefore, you rarely see typical scenes from airport terminals or lonely travelers sitting in an airport café. Rather, you see an empty house which stands the other side of the airport fence or a couple taking wedding pictures in the middle of an open field near the airport. Consistently, he has wandered around airports capturing the unfamiliar surroundings and drifting characters found in such space. The lack of a main character with dramatic storylines, and the many sub-characters and trivial stories, may make it seem like an uneventful movie. Personally, however, I find it very interesting as it ironically presents the marginalized characters in such surroundings.

From London to Heathrow

Since 2010, Kim Sinwook has consistently travelled to and from airports numerous times for personal reasons. Since 2013, he started an art project as a photography for which he delicately captured the gradual changes in scenery along the boundaries of the megacity of London and its marginal area, Heathrow airport. He commented on how the boundary between the two became more ambiguous due to the gradual expansion of the body of the airport throughout its 71 years of operation since 1946. The artist reflects on Heathrow as a living organism which consistently encroaches upon the margins like Hydra. Similar to other large modern public facilities, the airport faced the challenge of expanding to meet fast-growing needs in contrast to the initial plan. Eventually, an awkward landscape of coexistence between the newly expanded space and the old original site appeared. What he focused on is not the physical boundary or geological landscape but the scenery of ‘scattered and broken consciousness’ within all the changes. The broken consciousness does not display distinct wounds, and this makes it necessary for the photography to adopt an ambiguous attitude towards it. In this respect, the new colour artists from the 1970s also present the absurdity of daily life and a similar attitude is reflected in Alec Soth’s recent Mississippi artwork. According to the art of Soth, the superficial wounds of consciousness are not linear structures or organised passages. In this sense, the ambiguous attitude of Kim Sinwook in his artwork, without a main character and clear narration, seems quite convincing to me.

“Unfamiliar” landscapes are often mentioned in his work notes. For a photographer acknowledging ‘unfamiliarity’, there remains more to explore. I hope he is able to continue with this unfamiliar project ‘‘Unnamed Land: Air Port City’’ until he returns to his familiar landscape of Korea.


AIRPORT CITY, Sola Jung (Curator)

# Memory 1. As part of an unexpected prize, I was given a free stay at a relatively inexpensive hotel near the airport in New York. Although it was unfamiliar and uncomfortable, I didn’t mind too much since it was only for a few hours during the night, and it became my first experience to stay nearby an airport. That is all I can remember of that place since I headed to Manhattan in NYC as soon as I woke up the next morning.

# Memory 2. Over 20 years ago when traveling overseas was not as popular as it is now, it was exciting just to go near an airport even though I wasn’t going anywhere. It wasn’t just me, a friend of mine also had a similar experience, going for a drive to the airport just to see the planes take off.

An airport is a public place for people to come and go in order to travel to a faraway location. It is where individuals from different cultures, religions, and borders are mixed up and scattered repeatedly. We appreciate the airport as a representative landscape image of the modern society and connect it with two concepts that penetrate the modern society – speed and movement. However, on the contrary to the airport that is bordered by visible and invisible lines, the surrounding area outside the airport is a very ordinary place filled with keywords like slowness, settlement, or emptiness. Shinwook Kim, the artist, while he was living in London, had gone back and forth from the Heathrow Airport over thousands of times picking up and dropping people off as part of his work. Naturally, he became interested in life and people around the airport. Paradoxically, however, the “surrounding” area that he saw and observed revealed various implications and ultimately made him face expansion, development, and disdifferentiation of center and periphery of the modern society and high-rise urban culture.

The scenes around the Heathrow Airport in the ‘Unnamed Land: Air Port City’ series maintain absolute silence and calmness as if time had stopped. Seemingly to express a pause in advancement and development, they express a less modern scene. Provincialized city buildings withholding cool air, posters against airport expansion on walls and bulletins, take-off planes seen between buildings, small events held in non-central communities, and wedding ceremonies of different cultures – in all these photographs, the airport does not appear directly, it only exists as a small plane in the background behind the main buildings and people. The main characters of these scenes, however, still seem empty and lonely from the point of view of the artist. Despite the fact that he attempted to present the scenery and characters around the airport as naturally and objectively as possible and to express their presence in modern society serenely, these empty and lonely feelings are attributed to his feelings and thoughts, which he had felt as a stranger when he was going and coming to the airport. Interesting point is that these scenes of the surrounding areas actually show the real meaning of modernity that is hidden behind the airport itself. Our modern life shown through these indirect methods may be something that we are always trying to avoid.

In addition to the series of photographs taken at the Heathrow Airport, photographs taken around Incheon and Kimpo Airport will also be exhibited. These include the artist’s early works from 2014 to 2016 as well as recent photos taken at Incheon Airport. These series purposely exclude people and objects, emphasizing the surroundings of the airport and its extreme oppositions. Photographs of Shinwook Kim select huge and dynamic places, observe the surroundings intentionally, and reveal obvious differences between the center and the surroundings. As a result, we are able to look back at the coexistence of conflicting values, differentiated compositions, and other problems in this society.


The Night Watch – Ralph Day

This series began when the artist worked as a night watchman at the Demilitarised Zone between North and South Korea. Straying from his post one night, and drifting in and out of wakefulness, he stumbled into a tree and mistook it for another man. The photographs that he developed out of his experience of the night watch suture the cleft between blindness and vigilance, recording the sensory experience of an artist with eyes wide shut.

In Shinwook Kim’s contribution to The Night Watch, the clarity of the camera flash counters the cloudy gaze of the sleepwalker. He exposes skeletal, swaying trees and wrenches them cleanly, without shadows, from their natural surroundings, abstracting them into two dimensions. Eerily and ethereally illuminated by his camera lens, they are flattened and fetishised, almost superimposed onto the night sky.

‘Long exposure’ is a metaphor that permeates the series. The artist himself, during The Night Watch, was pushed past exhaustion into a waking dream. His camera gradually gathered light to record this comatose nocturnal reality. It can be seen, thus, that night-time registers tangibly in these photographs, both in their conception and in their technical realisation.

In order to produce these images, the artist went in search of borders. The florae that he photographs have spread their roots at territorial boundaries across Europe. Yet, while the Demilitarised Zone is emotive, contended and mediating space electrified by grand-scale political and civil conflict, the border sites that Shinwook Kim chooses to photograph are comparatively meek and unassuming.

In The Night Watch, he begins to build photographic identities for these otherwise uncelebrated slices of no man’s land.


The Night Watch By Viana Conti
Shinwook Kim is an artist who creates a personal introspective nocturnal dimension with the medium of photography, carrying out the mise en abyme in which a passage of threshold from the watchful state to the hypnotic one is incessantly duplicated. A visual example of this operative process can be read in the cycle of works entitled The Night Watch 2011- 2017, which during the military service resumes one of its night-time solitary tours, in a border area between North Korea and that of the South. The state of exhaustion combined with the tension throughout, crossing a demilitarizes zone, but at risk, brings him to mistake a large tree trunk he suddenly stumbles over for a person. With his dominant greens and violets he resumes his photographic shots with their ghostly aspect of the forest in which he roams as in a daydream. The night, the spectral light, which illuminates the edges of the tree canopy, gives to his work a Gothic aspect which is attractive and psychic. Shinwook Kim is deeply drawn to the immaterial boundaries between different countries, from nobody’s land, from non-places, like airports and waiting rooms, theorized by Marc Auge, from the states of shift between the real and the imaginary.


디지털 거울을 통해 본 암흑의 시대

이영준 (기계비평가)

밤 이 되면 어둠이 찾아오고, 어둠과 함께 괴물이 온다. 그러나 괴물은 멀리서 오는 것이 아니다. 그것은 내부에서 온다. 당신, 인간이 괴물의 집인 것이다. 괴물은 멈추지 않으며 잠들지 않는다. 괴물을 길들이지 못한다면 괴물은 내면에서 당신을 파괴할 것이다. 왜 괴물을 두려워할까? 그것은 혼란을 가져오기 때문이다. 장난꾸러기 아이처럼 괴물은 자리잡은 것을 불안하게 하고, 안정된 것을 흔든다. 괴물은 어둠 깊숙이 숨어 있어 쉽게 발견할 수 없다.

따라서 카메라는 빛을 통제하는 인간의 도구이다. 시간을 얼리는 작은 기계가 괴물을 길들이는 데 필요하다. 카메라의 언어가 빛이라고 여겨졌지만, 카메라의 언어는 어둠이라는 것이 밝혀졌다. 카메라 내부에는 어둠의 흐름을 연결하는 회로가 있다. 카메라라는 단어의 기원은 암실을 의미하는 ‘camera obscura’에서 왔다. 따라서 카메라가 밤의 어둠 한가운데에서 편안함을 느끼는 것은 당연하다.

그러나 카메라를 어둠 속에 방치해서는 안 된다. 근대에 카메라 자체가 괴물로 밝혀졌다. 사실 기술적으로 재현된 풍부한 이미지의 사회에서 카메라는 항상 괴물이었다. 프리드리히 니체는 이미 “괴물과 싸울 때 너 자신이 괴물이 되지 않도록 조심해야 한다. 심연을 오래 바라보면, 심연 또한 너를 바라본다”고 경고하였다. 어둠의 괴물과 싸우다 보면 카메라가 괴물이 된다. 과거에는 어둠이 무지와 빈곤 속에 있었다. 요즘에는 빛의 한가운데에 어둠이 자리잡고 있다. 너무 밝은 빛은 눈을 멀게 한다.

그래서 카메라는 통제 하에 있어야 하고 따라서 사진가가 있다. 김신욱은 괴물 같은 어둠 속에서 혼란스런 장면에 개입한다. 그의 카메라는 어둠속에서 응시한다. 밝게 빛나는 나뭇가지와 줄기는 어둠의 지옥에 서서 지키고 있다. 그러나 이 빛은 인위적이다. 매우 밝아 보이는 것은 실제로는 노출 시간과 조리개의 play 이다. 이 빛의 양은 그날의 밝은 햇살에서 무시될 수 있다. 일부 사진에서는 어둠 그 자체가 인공적이다. 그것은 여러 가지 색이 섞인 도시의 빛으로 오염되었다. 가로등, 간판 및 실내 조명과 같은 복잡한 빛은 어둠이라고 할 수 없는 특정 색상에 치우친 어둠을 만든다. 요즘 순수한 어둠은 없다. 오염된 것은 단지 공기가 아니라 어둠이다. 그래서 사진가는 순수한 어둠을 추구하기 시작했지만 빛과 어둠의 뒤섞임에 휩쓸린 자신을 발견하게 된다.

밤과 어둠의 화가 렘브란트(Rembrandt)에게 어떤 일이 일어났는가? 그의 유명한 작품 (1642)는 오랫동안 밤 풍경을 묘사한 것으로 여겨져 왔다. 그러나 페인트를 걷어내보니, 그것은 낮을 표현한 것으로 밝혀졌다. 그것은 어두운 안뜰에서 눈이 부실 정도로 밝은 곳으로 나아가는 머스킷 총병들의 파티였다. 어두운 오해가 오랫동안 이 그림을 둘러싸왔다. 그는 인기 있는 화가이자 부자였지만, 사치스러웠고 그의 인생은 비참하게 끝났다. 마침내 그는 이름없는 무덤에 가난한 사람으로 묻혔다. 그의 사후 20년뒤 그의 유골은 당시의 규칙에 따라 옮겨지고 사라졌다.

어둠의 사진가는 어떻게 될까? 사람들은 시각적 언어에 대해 이야기한다. 어둠의 사진가는 어둠의 언어에 대해 이야기한다. 사람들은 오랫동안 사진의 내용이 시각적 언어로 묘사된 것으로 생각해왔다. 내러티브 방식으로 인식되고 해석될 수 있는 것이 그 내용이라고 생각해왔다. 이론가와 비평가조차도 사진이 말하는 것을 읽으려고 한다. 이 순간부터 사진의 내용은 빛과 어둠의 투쟁으로 정의되어야 한다. 이 투쟁의 역사는 기술, 예술, 인문학 및 사회적 관행의 복잡한 라인을 따라 얽혀있다. 어둠의 시대는 토마스 에디슨(Thomas Edison)에 의해 1890년에 전구가 발명된 이래로 빛의 시대에 굴복하였다. 그러나 어둠은 LED 조명의 시대인 21세기에 여전히 배회하고 있다. 그래서 김신욱은 어둠의 괴물뿐 아니라 빛의 괴물도 길들인다.

그의 사진 속의 빛은 기계적으로는 재현할 수 없는 섬세한 방식으로 준비되고 실현되기 때문에 소중한 실재물이다. 그래서 발터 벤야민(Walter Benjamin)은 “기술복제 시대의 예술 작품”이라는 유명한 글로 속단하기 전에 김신욱의 작품이 공개될 때까지 기다렸었어야 했다. 그는 전통적인 예술 작품의 아우라가 이미지 재현의 기술적 수단의 출현과 함께 파괴되었다고 했다. 그가 알아채지 못한 것은 이미지를 만드는 기술적 수단의 미묘한 배치는 재현될 수 없다는 것이었다. 이미지를 만들기 위해 기술적인 수단을 사용하는 상황은 벤야민이 상상했던 것보다 훨씬 복잡하고 미묘하다. 끝없는 일련의 이미지(series of same images)를 만드는 기술적 재현은 없다. X선, 자외선 및 적외선을 사용해야만 탐지할 수 있는 미세한 차이들이 있다. 따라서 기술 재현성이라는 포괄적인 용어에 대해 이야기할 때는 주의해야 한다. 김신욱도 그렇다. 그의 사진은 신중한 발자국으로 제작되어 어둠 깊숙한 곳으로 인도한다. 그의 작품을 보는 사람 또한 조심해야 한다. 카메라 장치 덕분에 김신욱이 연출한 세부 사항들을 놓치지 않아야 한다.

그래서 21세기의 사진가에게는 20세기 초기의 사진가와는 다소 다른 임무가 주어진다. 그는 이미지 생성의 기술적 수단을 다른 존재론적 근거에 둔다. 그는 어둠의 소리를 듣는다. 그는 누구도 완전한 통제권을 가지고 있지 않은 객관적 세계의 이야기를 듣는다. 오랫동안 인간은 그것을 무의미하고 불길하며 어둡다고/흐리다고 비하해왔다. 김신욱은 어둠의 미덕을 되살린다. 밝은 빛 아래에서 보이지 않는 것들의 윤곽을 볼 수는 없을까? 조용하고 소음 없는 이 귀중한 보석의 미덕은 오랫동안 잊혀져 왔다. 어둠 속에서 우리는 잠들 수 있다. 그 때 우리 내부의 사이렌이 작동하기 시작한다. 우리는 그것에서 평화를 찾을 수 있다. 김신욱의 사진은 어둠의 가치를 다시금 발견한다는 점에서 역사적이다. 그의 사진에서 몽유병자는 행복하다. 그는 목적지와 모든 경로를 알고 있고 우리는 그저 따라갈 뿐이다.

(원문은 영문이며 한글로 번역한 것임)

 

우리는 왜 신화에 열광하는가?

김신욱은 주변의 이미지를 수집하고 관찰하면서 무언가를 알아가는, 혹은 찾아가는 과정을 ‘자신’이 속해있는 상황에 깊이 개입하는 스냅형식의 사진으로 담는다. 이렇듯 자신의 주변세계에 대해 고찰하는 작업을 지속해온 김신욱은 제7회 아마도사진상 전시 《In Search of Nessie》에서 네스호의 괴수, ‘네시’를 둘러싼 이야기로 그 세계를 확장한다.

이야기가 만들어지고 의미가 구성되는 과정에는 기억과 상상이 함께 관여한다. 그리고 대중의 기억과 상상은 대중문화에 의해 재현된 이미지에서 크게 영향을 받는다.

1934년, 단 한 장의 사진은 이야기를 만든다. 당시 주간지인 ‘인버네스 쿠리어(Inverness Courier)’는 호수 표면에 공룡 비슷한 검은 형상의 물체가 떠 있는 로버트 윌슨(Robert Wilson)의 사진과 함께 ‘네스호의 낯선 구경거리(strange spectacle)’란 제목의 기사를 실어 큰 주목을 받았다. 사진이라는 매체가 처음 등장했을 때, 사람들을 가장 매혹시킨 것은 그것의 정확한 현실 ‘복제’ 기능이었기에 괴물이 오롯이 담긴 이 사진에 대중은 열렬히 환영했다.

토마스 만의 소설에 먼 옛날, 사자가 아직 사자라는 이름을 갖기 이전에 사자는 악귀와 같은 무서운 초자연적인 존재였지만, 사자라는 이름을 갖게 되면서 인간이 정복 가능한 단순한 야수가 되어버렸다는 내용이 있다. 대중에게 인식되고 명명된 네스호의 괴물 네시는 이후 목격증언이 잇따른다. 네스호 인근에 자동차 도로가 놓인 1930년대 전후, 많은 인파가 네스호를 지나게 되었으며 이후 ‘네시’를 봤다는 증인만 1만 명을 넘어 섰고, 수많은 아마추어저널리스트들의 증거 사진이 공개된다. 당시 유행하던 설인, UFO 등 초자연 현상 연구 붐에 편승해 네시의 소문이 증폭되었다. 사진 이미지는 곧 사실이라 믿어지던 시대의 조작된 이미지 한 장은 이야기를 전설과 신화로 만들어갔다.

종교계에서는

티베트 불교, 힌두교 경전에 등장하는 종족 나가(Naga)와 가톨릭 성인의 열전에 담긴 이야기에 ‘사실’을 부여하기 위해 네시를 편입시키려는 시도들을 보인다. 스코틀랜드의 라마, 질롱마 짱모(Lama Gelongma Zangmo)는 불교 사상의 총체적 잠재력을 재확인하고 가상의 호수 괴물을 포함한 어떤 현상도 불교적 세계관 안에 위치하게 하여 불교적 관행에 수용될 수 있음을 보여주기 위해 네시를 사용한다. 또한 가톨릭계에서는 서기 556년의 문헌에, 네스호를 지나던 성인 콜룸바(Saint. Columba)가 호수의 거대한 괴물이 사람들을 괴롭히는 것을 보고 나무라자 사라졌다는 기록과 네시를 결부시키며 전승되는 이야기에 힘을 실으려 한다.

그러나 1994년 3월, 영국 ‘선데이 텔레그래프(the London Sunday Telegraph)’지는 1993년 11월 사망한 윌슨의 아들의 고백을 기사로 실었다. 당시 아버지의 부탁을 받아 14인치 크기의 장난감 잠수함을 개조해 플라스틱 나무를 붙인 네시를 만들고 사진을 찍었다는 것이다.

 언제나 그렇듯 과학적인 탐사가 시작되었다.

분석 결과 사진은 조작된 것으로 판명되었다. 그러나 과학계는 실험을 거듭하며 네시의 존재를 부정하면서도 한편으로는 일화가 진짜 현상임을 밝히기 위한 실험을 지속한다. 네시를 찾기 위해 잠수함을 타고, 음향 측정기를 사용하여 커다란 물체가 호수 아래 20m 깊이까지 가라앉았다가 위로 올라오는 것이 추적되기도 하였다. 수심 약 30m에서는 곤들 메기류가 떼지어 서식하는 것이 밝혀지기도 하였다. 학자들이 네시를 의심하는 이유 중 하나는 혼탁한 호수에는 괴물의 먹이가 될 만한 충분한 물고기가 없다는 것이었다. 그런데 20cm가 넘는 곤들메기의 발견은 이런 견해를 반박하는 근거가 되었다. 첨단 장비를 갖춘 로버트 라인스 박사를 단장으로 조사단은 1970~1975년에 걸쳐 네스호의 수중을 지속적으로 탐사하여 큰 동물로 추정되는 다양한 흔적과 커다란 지느러미를 가진 듯한 이상한 물체를 촬영하기도 하였다. 그러나 더 확실한 증거는 나오지 않았다. 1976년, 네스호 조사단의 매콜 교수는 네스호에 물고기를 먹고 사는 중형 또는 대형 동물의 집단이 살고 있다고 발표했다. 최근에는 호수의 DNA분석으로 과학계에서 네시를 찾기 위한 노력이 계속되었다. THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE.

이성에 의해 방치된 환상은 있을 수 없는 괴물을 낳는다. 그러나 환상이 이성과 합치된다면 그것은 모든 예술의 어머니이자 경이로움의 원천이 된다.

종래의 상식으로 설명할 수 없는 현상과 갑작스레 마주하였을 때 우리는 환상 속에서 두 가지의 선택지 중 하나를 선택해야만 한다. 하나는 모든 것을 오감의 환각, 상상력의 산물로 보는 것, 그리고 또 하나는 이 사태는 정말로 일어난 것이며, 현실의 일부라고 생각하는 것이다. 전자의 경우 종래의 상식과 법칙은 온전히 보존되고, 후자를 선택한다면 현실은 우리가 모르는 법칙에 의해 구성되었음을 깨닫는다. 토도로프(Цветан Тодоров Тодоров, 1937-2017)는 전자를 ‘괴기’라고 부르고, 후자를 ‘경이’라고 불렀다.

이때 눈앞에 나타난 이상 사태를 ‘괴기’스러운 것으로 받아들일 것인지 혹은 ‘경이’로운 것으로 규정할 것인지 사이에서 판단유보 상태로 ‘망설이게’ 된다. ‘괴기’와 ‘경이’ 사이의 선택을 통해, 지금까지 알고 있던 세계에 대한 인식방법을 유지할 것인가, 혹은 그것을 전복시킬 것인가?

‘경이’를 선택하게 될 경우에 세계의 법칙이나 영구불변한 것으로 보였던 진리의 관념들, 카논이나 관습 등은 가변적인 모습을 보이고, 이 ‘망설임’의 순간에 의식은 역동적으로 진동하기 시작한다. 김신욱은 진짜처럼 그럴듯하게 꾸민 가짜 사진을 제시하는 대신 다양한 환경을 만들어 그 안에 리서치 자료와 네스호 주변 이미지를 담담하게 찍어 전시한다. 이러한 방식은 관람객에게 ‘경이’를 선택하도록 하여 현실에 대한 비판적 인식의 정지 상태를 깨뜨리고 새로운 세계관을 정립시킬 것을 촉구하고 있다. 네스호와 네시의 이미지를 반복적으로 구성하며 괴물의 가능성을 모색한 것도 그러한 기대에 근거한 것이다. 일반적으로 SF적 상상은 황당무계한 것으로 간주되고 경시되는 경향이 있었다. 하지만 이러한 상상을 촉발하는 본 전시의 작품들은 현행의 규범적인 것들을 다시 묻고, 현실 그 자체의 재인식을 촉진하는 전복(転覆)적인 이미지가 된다.

김신욱은 ‘네시’가 아닌 ‘네시’를 둘러싼 이야기를 쫓는다.

이야기의 중심이 되는 네스호, 네스호 인근의 사람들, 네시를 찾는 사람들을 찍은 다큐멘테이션 사진과 다양한 리서치 자료들을 수집했다. 작가는 그간의 다큐멘테이션 사진, 전설과 신화의, 그리고 종교적 메타포를 함의한 풍광 사진들을 통해 예술, 과학, 문화산업, 종교가 ‘네시’라는 존재를 어떻게 수용하였는지 아카이브 전시의 형태를 빌어 선보인다. 《In Search of Nessie》는 이러한 시각 장치와 언어 장치, 공간 장치를 활용하여 10개의 크고 작은 공간으로 분할된 아마도예술공간을 갤러리로, 연구실로, 문화산업박람회실로, 때로는 성소(聖所)로 가장(假裝)시킨다. 결국 본 전시는 형식적으로 아카이브 전시의 형태를 차용하지만 그러한 전시의 속성을 따르거나 작가적 시선으로 사건을 재구성하려는 것이 아니다. 전시 안에 구성된 이미지―사진 작업, 리서치 자료 등―는 상상력을 자극하는 매개체인 동시에 허구를 사실로서 존재하도록 작동시킨 믿음의 역사에 대한 언급이기도 하다. 우리에게 이미 익숙한 이야기들과 신화가 가지고 있는 의미를 비틀어 봄으로써 ‘믿음’이란 어떤 과정을 통해 특정 장소와 대상에 발현되는지, 무엇이 그러한 믿음을 유지하고 작동하게 하는지에 대한 질문이며 이야기가 어떻게 전설이 되고 신화가 되며, ‘믿음’으로 이어지는지에 대한 고찰이다. 나아가 눈에 보이지 않는 신화가 어떻게 실제 장소에 스며들었고 어떤 장치들이 설계되고 파생되어 그것을 상상하도록 하였는지 탐구하여 특정 대상에 대한 믿음, 사람들이 무언가를 믿는 이유 그 자체를 환기시킨다.

글. 박성환 아마도예술공간 책임큐레이터

 

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