Researcher Design / Authoring the city / Micropolis
01.09.03 - 31.08.05
The main interest of the research is what has been called the ‘uncanny’ or unhomely spatial experiences, and particularly the role of graphic design in shaping, mediating, and representing those experiences. The sentiment of uncanny, from the vague fear, anxiety, suspicion and alienation to the more extreme forms of phobia, has been reportedly experienced in such banal urban spaces as dark and damp basements, high-speed elevators, ghostly parking lots, spectacular shopping malls and sublime motorways. It has been an important subject of exploration in aesthetic practices and discourses, from Joy Division’s music to Anthony Vidler’s architectural writings and Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby’s product design proposals. To the best of my knowledge, however, graphic design has been a notable exception, and my research attempts to fill this void.
The practical aim of the research is to construct a convincing ‘conspiracy theory’ regarding the uncanny locales in and around Maastricht, by means of writing and design. Conspiracy theory is the popular form of explanation to the apparently abnormal phenomenon, which will otherwise remain as the source of fear and anxiety. Certainly, it is a form of myth; but my hypothesis is that, used carefully, the conspiracy theory could provide a useful model for critical discourse and practice, not so unsimilar to the Paranoid Critical Method of Salvadore Dali. One sets up a paranoiac theory about the world, and then ‘collect’ the evidences, sometimes even ‘forging’ them. Then the theory becomes a pseudo-reality, affecting the perception of the world itself.
As in many conspiracy theories, the military plays an important role in my initial theory, which is: every modern city is, to different degrees, penetrated by such broadly militaristic concerns as security, control, and discipline, as well as technologies with military and police/political implications – the networks of surveillance and communication. As Vidler noted, the uncanny is essentially about the fundamental insecurity of the modern subject, and in this respect, the military seems to have much resonance to my research interest, as the ultimate force of security as well as its disturbance, both actually and imaginatively.
This apparently delusional suspicion of the military city is sometimes reinforced in actual spaces: elevators with their ‘emergency stop’ buttons; basements with their myriads of cables, vessels and dim lights; parking lots with a lot of numbers, arrows and CCTV cameras. Their seemingly logical yet sometimes mysterious graphic elements, combined with the brutally mechanical and impenetrable physical surfaces, encourage what the literary critic Shawn Rosenheim called the ‘cryptographic imagination’: ‘an obsession with language, a dark paranoid about the world and a profound skepticism bordering on despair about discovering the true nature of things’. The starting point of the project, thus, will be finding a range of places in the city of Maastricht that lend themselves to this cryptographic imagination and interpretation.
The outcome of the research will consist of two parts: first, a series of essays exploring the above issues; secondly, one or more design projects intervening in the actual places in Maastricht. The design project will attempt to implement and deploy a set of graphic devices in the site, to add another textual layer to the existing built environments, to produce a new reading of the space, to superimpose a fictional space on the actual one.
Seoul, KR.
MFA Graphic design. Yale University School of Art. New Haven, US.
BFA Visual communication design. Seoul National University, KR.
Freelance designer. With Sulki Choi.
Editorial member. Design Text, Seoul, KR.
Design director. Dongbu Information Systems, Seoul, KR.
Senior designer, Imagedrome Inc., Seoul, KR.
Annual report 2003. With Sulki Choi. Maastricht, NL: Jan van Eyck Academie.
Jan van Eyck Academie website. With Sulki Choi. Maastricht, NL: Jan van Eyck Academie.
Leuven Now. Proposal for the urban communication interface renovation for the city of Louvain, BE. With Sulki Choi. As part of the Jan van Eyck research project Micropolis.
Programme brochure 2005. With Sulki Choi. Maastricht, NL: Jan van Eyck Academie.
The Yale Architectural Journal Perspecta 35. Building codes. New Haven, US: Yale University School of Architecture.
Entre Deux. Publicity material including the invitation, the flyer/poster and the website for a series of exhibitions and presentations. With Sulki Choi. Maastricht, NL: Jan van Eyck Academie.
Opening week 2004. Invitation. With Sulki Choi. Maastricht, NL: Jan van Eyck Academie.
Programme brochure 2004. With Sulki Choi. Maastricht, NL: Jan van Eyck Academie.
Trichtlinnburg. Poster for the Jan van Eyck research project on urban developments and cultural interventions in the city of Maastricht, Salzburg and Tallinn. With Sulki Choi. Maastricht, NL: Jan van Eyck Academie.
Graphic Design Thesis Show 2002. Invitation. New Haven, US: Yale University School of Art.
Wired. Design and editorial renovation proposal for the techno-cultural magazine. With Sung Joong Kim and AMO, New York, US.
Workspirit. Typeface for the Vitra publication. Commissioned by 2x4, New York, US.
This is not a loveletter. With Sulki Choi. Seoul, KR: Marronnier Art Center.
Transport Text. Typeface based on the British road sign letterform.
Cryptographic space. A (typo)graphic study on the urban uncanny.
Bask. Sans-serif type family based on the proportion of Baskerville.
Graphic design in the Netherlands. In: Design Net, June.
The crystal goblet: or could typography be invisible? In: Design, March.
Critical notes on the future of typography. In: Design Text, no.1.
On an unfinished project: a review of Robin Kinross’s. In: Modern typography,
Design Net, December.
Jan van Toorn, Communication design: a social practice. In the Korean edition of Jan van Toorn (Ed.), Design beyond design. Critical reflection and the practice of visual communication. Seoul, KR: Shigongsa.
Anthony Dunne, Hertzian tales: electronic products, aesthetic experience and critical design. With Park Hae-Chun. Seoul, KR: Hong Design.
Manuel De Landa, Meshworks, hierarchies and interface. In: Design Text, no. 2.
Alexander Gelman, Infiltrate New York. Amsterdam, NL: BiS.
Anna Gerber, All messed up. Unpredictable graphics. London, GB: Harper Collins.
Design Net, no. 78 (March), KR.
IDEA, no. 307, JP.
Design News (August), JP.
Hongik University, Seoul, KR. (6 October).
Cumulus conference. (1 October). With Sulki Choi. Utrecht, NL: Hogeschool voor de Kunsten.
Werkplaats Typografie. (4 November). Arnhem NL.
Het Best Verzorgde Jaarverslag. Grafische Cultuurstichting NL.
Alexey Brodovitch Prize. Yale University, US.
Bronze Prize in Student Work. Interactive Media Design Review, ID Magazine, US.
24th Annual 100 Show. American Center for Design, US.
Silver Prize in Typography. Elex Design Awards, KR.