



Horizontal Conversation (2020)
Single Channel Video, 1 minute 44 seconds
There are no borders in internet surfing. With a keyboard and a monitor, we can gain real-time information about what is happening in any part of the world. It seems like nationalism was growing weak in the digital era. Due to the recent outbreak of an infectious disease, chauvinism and nationalism are becoming reinforced but on the other hand, digital stood out as a medium of inevitable communication so I witnessed the integration of all mankind.
The forms that surround us like objects, place, time and streets, are gradually becoming more dematerialized, so we faced digital degradation and such interest led to the cosmology in the aspect where individuals are substituted with materials based on the viewpoint that all mankind is one of the creative elements of the universe.
Since long ago, cosmologists perceived humans as one of the creative matter of the universe and also that historical risks like infectious diseases and war are closely related to the activity period of the sun. Accordingly, the ideology called ‘Integration Project of All Mankind’ was taken as a basis to express an optimistic and futuristic tendency to advance to space and dream about a wakeful world. They saw all mankind equally, and meanwhile, it is similar to the ideologies of communism, socialism, and totalitarianism where it is believed that individuals exist for the nation.
With the topic ,I want to refer to the infinite horizon that is implied by cosmology. At this point, technology is gradually becoming more developed and digital communication is stepping up. With all of this, I become absorbed in an alternative reverie of space as B of digital format. As the boundary between material of digital degradation and immaterialness becomes vague and only half of it is left, how will human interaction unfold? What exactly is the definition of organic relations?
This project will derive from the concept of artificial biosphere. Cosmologists did an experiment where they built an artificial biosphere to head to space and checked whether humans can survive in the artificial ecosystem. However, the result was a failure. It was because humans were cliquey and could not manage to survive self-sufficiently. Meanwhile, there was a living organism that survived. It was ants. Ants were the only organisms that cultivated communal survival through organic cooperative process. In the digital society dotted with an infectious disease, the concept of artificial biosphere was applied and an alternative future will be searched by focusing on the fight for survival, ideology of equality, and organic relations.
인터넷 서핑에는 국경이 없다. 키보드와 모니터를 통해 세계 어느 지역에서나 일어나고 있는 일에 대한 실시간 정보를 얻을 수 있다. 디지털 시대에 민족주의는 무력해지고 있다. 최근 전염병 발생으로 애국주의와 민족주의가 강화되고 있지만 반대로 디지털 기술이 필연적인 소통의 매개체로 부각되며 전 인류의 통합을 목격하게 되었다. 이처럼 사물, 장소, 시간, 거리 등 인류를 둘러싸고 있는 형태들은 점점 더 비물질화되고 있다. 이러한 관심은 모든 인류가 우주의 창조적 요소 중 하나라는 관점에 근거한 물질로 대체되는 측면에서 우주론으로 이어졌다.
오래 전부터, 우주론자들은 인간을 우주의 창조적인 물질 중 하나로 인식했고 또한 전염병과 전쟁과 같은 역사적 위험은 태양의 활동 기간과 밀접한 관련이 있다고 생각했다. 따라서, '모든 인류의 통합 프로젝트'라고 불리는 우주론 이데올로기는 우주로 진출하고 깨어있는 세상을 꿈꾸려는 낙관적이고 미래적인 경향을 표현하기 위한 근거로 받아들여졌다. 그들은 모든 인류를 동등하게 보았고, 한편, 그것은 개인이 국가를 위해 존재한다고 믿는 공산주의, 사회주의, 전체주의의 이념과 유사하다.
이 시점에서 필자는 우주론이 암시하는 무한한 지평을 언급하고 싶다. 기술은 점차 발전하고 있고 디지털 커뮤니케이션도 발전하고 있다. 이 모든 것들과 함께, 디지털 포맷의 B로서 대안적인 공간 몽상에 빠져든다. 디지털 분해와 물성 사이의 경계가 모호해지고 그것의 절반만이 남았을 때 인간의 상호작용은 어떻게 펼쳐질까? 유기적 관계의 정의는 정확히 무엇일까?
이 프로젝트는 인공 생물권의 개념에서 파생될 것이다. 우주론자들은 우주로 향하기 위해 인공 생물권을 건설하고 인간이 인공 생태계에서 살아남을 수 있는지를 확인하는 실험을 했다. 하지만 결과는 실패였다. 그것은 인간의 파벌로 인해 무리가 자급자족할 수 없었기 때문이다. 한편, 살아있는 유기체가 살아남았다. 개미들이었다. 개미는 유기적인 협력 과정을 통해 공동 생존을 배양한 유일한 유기체였다. (알고리즘 이야기하자) 전염병으로 점철된 디지털 사회에서 인공 생물권의 개념이 적용되었고 생존을 위한 투쟁, 평등 이념, 유기적 관계에 초점을 맞춰 대안적인 미래를 모색할 것이다.(수정)



Jisoo Jit Seo ‘Horizontal Conversation’
CAN Foundation, 2020
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I usually check back of my head whenever I see the mirror due to either my body gets weaker or I get older. My daily work is to see whether how much hair was removed and see the crown of my head.
My face had more wrinkles. Thin nasolabial folds get deeper. More wrinkles appear around the eyes that used to be bright.
My parents notice everything. Five years have passed since I left my hometown and started to live in the other area. I used to come back to Korea every vacation. My mother always exclaim at the airport: “Why do you look so old. You look so old.” As usual, people don’t find the difference in the daily routines, yet someone who meets up for a long time notices the difference.
When I look at my mother, I can see the trace of life in her face. I was familiar with the view in the airport bus as if past time is dream.
When I go back to home, I was so relaxed by losing tension and fall into sleep shortly after lying on the bed. My hometown is so warm and bed is so comfortable.
Falling in deep sleep, sound comes out of the kitchen “Wake up and have meal.”
Waking up, it was at 7:00 p.m. It’s time for my father to come back home.
Tens of thousands of dishes set on the table delight me. When I live alone, there were scramble egg, toast, Panini and a loaf of wheat. On the contrary, refreshing vegetable, boiling Kimchijjigae and warm rice were served here.
I missed this taste and I was so warmhearted as I share talks with four family members around the table we have never done so far. While having the meal, my father said:
“You’ve gotten older.”
I said plainly “I know. I get older as time goes by.” It saddened me, because I could observe that my parents were older than before. It was a little sorrowful that I could not be with them for the time being. I went abroad for study due to my desire, yet the world goes as it is. If I get one, I must give up another. I abandoned the environment for acquiring environment.
It is not easy to live in the foreign country, not my homeland, where it takes ten hours on plane. I should endure discrimination as there is a language barrier, culture, weather and environment are totally different and even I am a foreigner. How comfortable I arrive at my country. I have my home, family, people and rice. A meal table, hoping that my overseas life will soon be ended and this happiness will continue.
After finishing the meal, we washed dish and went out for walk around the village. My parents were walking arm in arm and thought myself that it is good to see them and family is better, but suddenly I saw back of their heads. They lost their heads a lot and it’s disheartening that time flies so fast.
Tracing them back, I looked up the night sky. Beautiful but solitary night.
(...)
Cozy time when my whole body was totally relaxed flew fast. I headed to the Incheon International Airport again, bid farewell to my mother before going on to the procedure and went to the gate.
Board the plane.
Welcome aboard to the British Airways. This plane is bound for London Heathrow..
I thought the land getting far away, looking at the window.
“It’s good to have a place to go back.”
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