Yeonu Ju's Belief (the first “scene" from A Crowd)
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Neil Young, ‘Best Scenes in Korean Films 2000-2020’, Archive Prism #5 (Review on Korean Cinema 2000-2020), Korean Film Archive, 2021. 06., p. 175
"It was entertaining and slightly depressing to hear the dif iculties experienced by [Ku-lim] Kim in making and presenting this landmark film, The Meaning of 1/24 Second. Kim was assaulted by Chungmuro thugs who didn’t want experimental film being made.... The [premiere] took place on 21 July 1969, the day (in Korean time) that Apollo 11 landed on the moon, in a music hall which otherwise wouldn’t have been available for hire. Everyone wanted to watch the moon landing on TV rather than an experimental film. Even some of the people credited in the film didn’t want to come.” Philip Gowman, London Korean Links (2016)
This survey's contributors were asked to select their "best scene in Korean Films 2000-2020." But what about films which don't have "scenes"? Using this word to describe a segment of a film explicitly connects cinema with the theatrical traditions from which it (partially) emerged more than 100 years ago. But such terminology is an unhelpfully restrictive definition of what this art-form was, is, and can be. There have always been other kinds of cinema, flourishing quietly on the wild margins: avant-garde / experimenta. In Korea this type of filmmaking is generally regarded to have begun (very belatedly) with The Meaning of 1/24 Second (see above). Most experimental films are shorts, and usually have structures which cannot be convenientl broken down into "scenes." Exceptional shorts and experimental films never obtain the exposure their merits deserve, including in surveys like this. The battle never ends.
BELIEF
I saw Yeonu Ju's Belief at its first public show, during the Alternative Film/Video festival (Belgrade, Serbia) in Decembe 2019. It comprised a seven-minute barrage of images, derived from hundreds of "found" photographs which the directo digitally scanned. The director magnifies sections of these images so that they fill the frame, their analogue grain becomin clearly visible throughout. The photographs show fragments of (1) crowds assembled at various sporting and entertainmen events in various locations and eras; then (2) clouds in the sky; then (3) clouds of smoke as if from some disastrous fire. The pace of the film is extremely fast, with dozens of images flashing up each second. The effect is a blizzard of impressions, a glorious bombardment of sensations. The loud, roaring soundtrack by Yeji Gu is similarly intense. It seems to be the audio from a space-rocket launch, distorted beyond easy comprehension (snatches of audio are occasionally audible.... could it be Apollo 1969?) The impact of Belief is at once concrete and ethereal, simple and mysterious. During those seven minutes in Belgrade the audience was presented with a kind of uncompromisingly extreme alternative reality to which it was implicitly invited to surrender. This is cinema as sensual pummelling, too much for the eye and the ear to assimilate in conventional terms. In my ranking of 2019's world premieres (combining all genres and lengths) only two Korean productions appear in the top 20: Bong Joon-ho's Parasite and Yeonu Ju's Belief.
When I decided to write about Belief for this survey I did not realise (or perhaps had forgotten) that Yeonu Ju is a woman. Since 1999, the world has paid considerable attention to Kim Ki-duk, Park Chan-wook, Hong Sang-soo, Lee Chang-dong and (especially) Bong Joon-ho, and other male Korean directors. What a two-decade "sausage fest" New Korean Cinema has turned out to be! Korean Screen's widely-publicised survey of global critics to find "The Best Korean Films Of All Time” yielded just one female-directed film in the top 25. No shorts or experimenta made the top 100 (I know The Meaning of 1/24 Second attracted at least one vote—my own five-title ballot). No female director has won Best Director at either of Korea's two main film-awards—Blue Dragon and Grand Bell—since the former resumed after a long hiatus in 1990. But the Blue Dragon for Best Short has gone to female director—either solo or in collaboration with a male—every year since 2017! Further empirical proof that shorts, for various reasons, are relatively immune from the distorting patriarchal structures which have seriously afflicted and held back world cinema since its inception (and whose impact is neatly illustrated via the overwhelming and embarrassing gender-bias among internationally-acclaimed Korean cinema during the period this survey covers.) Short experimental films, even more so. Any effort spent seeking them out is amply repaid. 뜻이 있는 곳에 길이 있다.
This survey's contributors were asked to select their "best scene in Korean Films 2000-2020." But what about films which don't have "scenes"? Using this word to describe a segment of a film explicitly connects cinema with the theatrical traditions from which it (partially) emerged more than 100 years ago. But such terminology is an unhelpfully restrictive definition of what this art-form was, is, and can be. There have always been other kinds of cinema, flourishing quietly on the wild margins: avant-garde / experimenta. In Korea this type of filmmaking is generally regarded to have begun (very belatedly) with The Meaning of 1/24 Second (see above). Most experimental films are shorts, and usually have structures which cannot be convenientl broken down into "scenes." Exceptional shorts and experimental films never obtain the exposure their merits deserve, including in surveys like this. The battle never ends.
BELIEF
I saw Yeonu Ju's Belief at its first public show, during the Alternative Film/Video festival (Belgrade, Serbia) in Decembe 2019. It comprised a seven-minute barrage of images, derived from hundreds of "found" photographs which the directo digitally scanned. The director magnifies sections of these images so that they fill the frame, their analogue grain becomin clearly visible throughout. The photographs show fragments of (1) crowds assembled at various sporting and entertainmen events in various locations and eras; then (2) clouds in the sky; then (3) clouds of smoke as if from some disastrous fire. The pace of the film is extremely fast, with dozens of images flashing up each second. The effect is a blizzard of impressions, a glorious bombardment of sensations. The loud, roaring soundtrack by Yeji Gu is similarly intense. It seems to be the audio from a space-rocket launch, distorted beyond easy comprehension (snatches of audio are occasionally audible.... could it be Apollo 1969?) The impact of Belief is at once concrete and ethereal, simple and mysterious. During those seven minutes in Belgrade the audience was presented with a kind of uncompromisingly extreme alternative reality to which it was implicitly invited to surrender. This is cinema as sensual pummelling, too much for the eye and the ear to assimilate in conventional terms. In my ranking of 2019's world premieres (combining all genres and lengths) only two Korean productions appear in the top 20: Bong Joon-ho's Parasite and Yeonu Ju's Belief.
When I decided to write about Belief for this survey I did not realise (or perhaps had forgotten) that Yeonu Ju is a woman. Since 1999, the world has paid considerable attention to Kim Ki-duk, Park Chan-wook, Hong Sang-soo, Lee Chang-dong and (especially) Bong Joon-ho, and other male Korean directors. What a two-decade "sausage fest" New Korean Cinema has turned out to be! Korean Screen's widely-publicised survey of global critics to find "The Best Korean Films Of All Time” yielded just one female-directed film in the top 25. No shorts or experimenta made the top 100 (I know The Meaning of 1/24 Second attracted at least one vote—my own five-title ballot). No female director has won Best Director at either of Korea's two main film-awards—Blue Dragon and Grand Bell—since the former resumed after a long hiatus in 1990. But the Blue Dragon for Best Short has gone to female director—either solo or in collaboration with a male—every year since 2017! Further empirical proof that shorts, for various reasons, are relatively immune from the distorting patriarchal structures which have seriously afflicted and held back world cinema since its inception (and whose impact is neatly illustrated via the overwhelming and embarrassing gender-bias among internationally-acclaimed Korean cinema during the period this survey covers.) Short experimental films, even more so. Any effort spent seeking them out is amply repaid. 뜻이 있는 곳에 길이 있다.
<The Near> statement
︎Yeonu Ju
- <The Near> web page, 2020
- <The Near> web page, 2020
The Near is an audio project that hears something close to audible sounds and alienated sounds. This project is focused on alienated sounds which people often do not recognize but audible sound.
COVID-19 has changed the sound of our everyday life. Our daily lives have been changed by social distancing clarified what we are able to see or not, and what we are able to hear or not. This audio project focuses on the social regulations for COVID-19 and the way how the regulations affect our lives, and proposes a method of connection beyond specific places and times. The sound separated from an image will evoke the experience of a particular space and place, away from the visually dominated realm of everyday life.
Yeonu Ju, Yeji Gu, and Sunyang Park, who participated in the project, recorded sounds in the form of soundwalk and field recordings. We focused on the city's diverse rhythms and specific sounds from places where people gather or gathered, stay, and pass by while walking or crossing the city by public transportation.
The project consists of External Link and Internal Link. Each part consists of a number of audio defragments. The file name of each audio defragments displays information about the source of the sound, and can be heard through albums at Bandcamp.
External Link is a record of the soundscape changed by COVID-19. The first and second parts contain soundwalk in major park trails and downtown streets of Seoul, and the third part contains audio work which collected various kinds of COVID-19 related announcements that can be heard in our everyday life.
Internal Link covers a collection of sounds heard when staying indoors, which is scheduled to be conducted in 2021. The first part of Internal Link is a Beta Version of the audio output which is researched by the artists. The second part is a joint project that anyone can participate, regardless of physical distance and time difference. Those who want to participate in the project The Near should record the sound they listen while staying in their own spaces.
The Near can be found anywhere via Seoul in 2020 without restrictions. Moreover, audio pieces collected by the project will be later reconstructed and produced in a new form of audio work. The comparison between the first record and the second record which is processed sound will give us an opportunity to hear a sound that was considered to be inaudible and a new type of listening that can clearly recognize the boundaries of the sound.
As Honoré de Balzac asked about human walking, I ask to myself that what kind of sounds do I hear and how? Why the sound is heard by humans’ ears and how we hear the sound? Isn’t the sound heard by the importance of listening depending its familiarity? Isn’t the sound continuously occurring but not recognized by humans? Is alienated sound from the area of listening exists outside of the sound? The first External Link consisted of soundwalk in response to these questions.
The soundwalk is demonstrated at Gyeongui line Forest Park, Mangwon Han River Park, Seoul Forest Park, Children's Grand Park, and Seokchon Lake in Seoul, where we can take a leisure walk. Rather than installing a microphone in a fixed position and transmitting passively audible sound, listening to the sound through walk is prioritized.
And the participants tried to listen to the sound in a balanced or unbalanced environment in order to recognize the boundaries of sound. They followed the walk to listen to dynamic and specific sounds instead of static listening that is isolated from the surroundings. The purpose of this soundwalk is to discover the aesthetic amusement coming from the act of listening by making sounds and being conscious of someone’s sound that is often missed out.
Walk and listen and listen and walk, then stop. What sound do you hear now? What do we call sound is?
COVID-19 has changed the sound of our everyday life. Our daily lives have been changed by social distancing clarified what we are able to see or not, and what we are able to hear or not. This audio project focuses on the social regulations for COVID-19 and the way how the regulations affect our lives, and proposes a method of connection beyond specific places and times. The sound separated from an image will evoke the experience of a particular space and place, away from the visually dominated realm of everyday life.
Yeonu Ju, Yeji Gu, and Sunyang Park, who participated in the project, recorded sounds in the form of soundwalk and field recordings. We focused on the city's diverse rhythms and specific sounds from places where people gather or gathered, stay, and pass by while walking or crossing the city by public transportation.
The project consists of External Link and Internal Link. Each part consists of a number of audio defragments. The file name of each audio defragments displays information about the source of the sound, and can be heard through albums at Bandcamp.
External Link is a record of the soundscape changed by COVID-19. The first and second parts contain soundwalk in major park trails and downtown streets of Seoul, and the third part contains audio work which collected various kinds of COVID-19 related announcements that can be heard in our everyday life.
Internal Link covers a collection of sounds heard when staying indoors, which is scheduled to be conducted in 2021. The first part of Internal Link is a Beta Version of the audio output which is researched by the artists. The second part is a joint project that anyone can participate, regardless of physical distance and time difference. Those who want to participate in the project The Near should record the sound they listen while staying in their own spaces.
The Near can be found anywhere via Seoul in 2020 without restrictions. Moreover, audio pieces collected by the project will be later reconstructed and produced in a new form of audio work. The comparison between the first record and the second record which is processed sound will give us an opportunity to hear a sound that was considered to be inaudible and a new type of listening that can clearly recognize the boundaries of the sound.
“Isn't it really quite extraordinary to see that, since man took his first steps, no one has asked himself why he walks, how he walks, if he has ever walked, if he could walk better, what he achieves in walking... questions that are tied to all the philosophical, psychological, and political systems which preoccupy the world?"
-Honoré de Balzac, Théorie de la démarche
As Honoré de Balzac asked about human walking, I ask to myself that what kind of sounds do I hear and how? Why the sound is heard by humans’ ears and how we hear the sound? Isn’t the sound heard by the importance of listening depending its familiarity? Isn’t the sound continuously occurring but not recognized by humans? Is alienated sound from the area of listening exists outside of the sound? The first External Link consisted of soundwalk in response to these questions.
The soundwalk is demonstrated at Gyeongui line Forest Park, Mangwon Han River Park, Seoul Forest Park, Children's Grand Park, and Seokchon Lake in Seoul, where we can take a leisure walk. Rather than installing a microphone in a fixed position and transmitting passively audible sound, listening to the sound through walk is prioritized.
And the participants tried to listen to the sound in a balanced or unbalanced environment in order to recognize the boundaries of sound. They followed the walk to listen to dynamic and specific sounds instead of static listening that is isolated from the surroundings. The purpose of this soundwalk is to discover the aesthetic amusement coming from the act of listening by making sounds and being conscious of someone’s sound that is often missed out.
Walk and listen and listen and walk, then stop. What sound do you hear now? What do we call sound is?
