Stream of Consciousness Atlas

I guess its important to make things that I care about and to make things that I like making. But also important for me is making things that other people can care about. I want to make art that affects other people in real ways. But I can’t really say for sure what that is.

I guess I can say that I want to be able to go back to where I come from, and say ‘this is what I like to make,’ and have people understand/relate/be able to comment on whatever it is. I hate the idea of making work that people who don’t identify as artists can’t understand. 

Accessibility.

That’s the word. I want my art to be accessible to more than just a select few. 

This is probably what I’ve been thinking about the most recently. Mostly because I am trying to avoid the navel-gazing that I often associate with conceptual art. But I wouldn’t be honest if I said that the reason for this was my concern for ‘other people struggling to understand art or something,’ I also feel that working on conceptual art projects really tires me as an artist, I have to end up answering the “what is this about? why are you/am I making this?” question for myself as well as for others. And it ends up feeling like something that I nor other can really connect to. 

Connections.

I like connecting with other artists and other people, creating intercultural relationships that can be based on shared experience and identity. I want to make art that does this? That should be a statement and not question but I’m okay with still figuring it out. I want to make art that connects me to other people, either through the final product or through the process. 

purple is the most beautiful color

One common platitude about art is the saying "art is the universal language". In truth it is nothing but.  Art is created and defined by the strict cultural code depending when, where and how it was created. Not only that, it often falls victim to circumstances of regional, political limits of the time as well. Korean modern dancer Choi Seung-hee, or better known as Sai Shoki - in Japanese pronounciation, was just such a case. Choi modernized what was then considered low-brow form of art, Korean folk dance, and brought it into wide recognition beyond the borders. Ironically, her genius was recognized by Japanese intellectuals and artists, and she was forced to perform for Japanese troops at front lines. Which branded her as colonist collaborator and forever tainting her accomplishments. Sometimes I wonder what it's like to be phenomenally talented and born at the wrong time, as I am neither. Luckily I am not so unfortunate.

I was surprised when I learned Andy Warhol was a devout catholic. I don't think it is coincidence that creative types are drawn to supernatural things. They are deeply mystic, ritualistic and sometimes downright superstitious. Fortunately many have good sense to be religious. Religious experience and artistic experience are, in essence, same thing. Process, the how of creativity can be methodical and structured, but why of art is unquantifiable and possibly impossible to understand. These thing that are not falsifiable hold immense appeal to those who are prone to think abstractly and understand ambiguity. Having plenty of ambiguity in life is a good thing for artists.

When someone asks me what's the worst job I had I always answer: "the one that I have now". I've been working as a bartender for a while now. People figure I must have a lot of crazy stories. i do. Unfortunately most of them are not fun-crazy stories (although I have plenty of those). They are crazy crazy stories. One night the bar owner says: "Watch out for Jamaicans. They're plotting something". Apparently local thugs (their leader calls himself "fame") are pimping out a girl in the area. And I am not to let her into the bar as she is underage - we could get in trouble. When I heard this i couldn't help but laugh. Not only am I powerless to help this person, my role in her life is going to be just another person makes it little bit worse.

A big part of naturalization process is renouncing your allegiance to your old country. You are sworn to give up all privileges, titles and allegiance to the place you were born for the new one. Most of the questions during citizenship interview is rather straightforward (are you now, or have ever been, member of the Nazi party?). The only question that made me stop and think was when the interviewer asked if I wanted to change my name. Woohyoung, I like it - but I found it rather tiring whenever people pronounce it wrong(always) and I have to correct it, maybe I could anglicize it a little. I stop and think for three minutes. I decide to keep it.

I wonder if I had different name would I still be me? Probably, Maybe- would I be still what I am if I wasn't born where I was? And didn't grow up where I did - or if I had different experiences, I wonder if I will still say what I feel, which is this: No matter what circumstances- privileges, adversities all- I have been, I will be doing art.


Tony Lee

in a fight between an image and a word, who would win?

if you try to look right at a word it turns invisible. on the other hand, if you look at an image in a certain way it becomes ultravisible. visibility is the condition of meaning for an image. it references only itself because it isn't a symbol. in fact, it's the opposite of a symbol, which might be a letter or a word. because of that fact images can go into you very deeply, or they can be totally missed by you while you are looking for a word that will explain what the feeling you are supposed to have is, when you look at the image. when you look at an image, all there is is feeling.

this isn't a good way of explaining what an image is (although it does explain partly why I like images) - after all, what is an image? is the question. an image is something you see that exists as itself without a reference to anything else that exists. it is made of specificity. when we try to make images, we are often trying to make something that is all specifics, because that is how we see. maybe images are just how we see. it's hard to talk or write about what an image is, because as soon as you start talking about it stops being an image. maybe one way to explain what an image is is to not talk about it.

prompt 3 belatedly

In taking Jasper Johns’ advice, I started with a small brown paper bag without knowing what I wanted to make out of it. Paper bags are malleable and stiff and hold their form quite well after manipulation. I decided to crush and fold it, letting my hands sort of do what they wanted until in the shape of the bag I recognized some kind of form, worthy in one way or another to be retained, which I would then react to. Becoming aware of my impulse to do that seemed to me the benefit of this assignment. Following such a stripped-down version of the artistic process allows you to be more clearly aware of what actually makes up that process—the kind of repeated narrowing down of formal and creative possibilities of a specific piece/material through work and reflection, each act a decision to solidify the endless potential decisions into a single concrete form to which you then react in order to come up with more creative possibilities. As I warped and shifted the bag I started recognizing elements of a figure, which I then emphasized, and started making structural adjustments to that figure. 

Eventually it seemed clear to me that I had made a figure draped in a long robe or dress, seated, and holding a sort of bundle in its open arms, so I decided to stop shaping the bag and begin painting it as the Virgin Mary with child (perhaps pressing her cheek to it). As I painted, various “mistakes” and realizations (the figures is more matronly, the top of the head sort of resembles a medieval hat, the bundle’s head has kind of a snout, etc.) led me to go in different direction. I now imagine that I’ve created a royal dachshund wetnurse, or someone cradling their favorite beagle, or a cook en route to dropping a rabbit into a pot, something like that.

psycho atlas

I don't have a clear idea of why I make the work I make. I make that work that I can make, and the only way to have it be made is if I make it myself. I don't remember this fact when I'm writing manifestos, but I sense that manifesto-writing has very little to do with art and I trust that impulse. I can't think for a while and then go do a few hours of challenging but fun whatever I do to make my work to make my work. the work makes itself.

why call it a manifesto anyway? because something should appear if I write it down? that's not how the work makes itself. writing isn't really a part of my artistic practice. writing is thinking my brain enjoys with words, which let me think. art is something my body likes to do, because there are no words and art doesn't want me to think.

thinking is something that happens elsewhere, and what it makes - what language makes - is absence. I have a body, and what I want it to make has everything to do with what I think a body is. but. I want to think my work is about sex and death (which are the thematic focuses of my work.) the work doesn't want that. the work wants to make itself, not the work I make with words.

my body is more honest than I am, which is why I have to let it do it's job. ethical art is letting the body do its job. it doesn't lie. if I was asked to write down my passions in list form, my body would absolutely stop working and I would start thinking about sex and death. I would start thinking about memory and the personal vs. the political. I might start to think about limitation, disjuncture, knowledge/power, and ethics. 

but sometimes by coincidence I might think about how I can be a good person, then almost accidentally pick up some charcoal, make a mark, and be made good.

My Psychic Analysis

1.     When the absence of space becomes space

2.     Time

3.     Memory

4.     Perception v. Reality

5.     When the brain establishes connections between unrelated subjects (especially in surrealism) and what those connections mean

6.     Symbols

7.     Communication with line

8.     The atmosphere created by light

9.     Warped perspective with line

10. Conveying emotion visually

11. Communicating a narrative through picture

12. Drawing

13. Painting

14. Printmaking

15. Photoshop

16. Napa Vineyards

17. Microbreweries

18. Longboard Factory

19. Kickstarter Telekinetic Robot

20. Championship season shirts

21. Watercolor

22. Acrylic

23. Charcoal

24. Ink Drawings

25. Youth

26. The Youth is Starting to Change

27. “I wish that I could swim and sleep like a shark does. I’d fall to the bottom and I’d hide till the end of time. In that sweet, cold darkness. Asleep and constantly floating away.”

28. “I wish that I could break and bend like the world does. I’d fall to the bottom and I’d chase all my dreams away. And I’d let you crush me. My dreams would be constantly melting away.”

29. “So good at being in trouble so bad at being in love”

30. Swimming

31. Freediving

32. Industrialization

33. Relationships

34. Organic shapes

35. Athleticism in the human body

My (uncertain-certain) Atlas

The most interesting of this process is that I realize that I don’t have a single definite answer coming into my mind when posed with this query. I’ve been doing art, making art and creating things up till this point without without a definite answer, and still, I don’t find a definite one answer coming within me of what constitutes my atlas. I have started this kind of inquiry or self-examination only recently and I find it extremely perplexing or even burdensome. But, as suggested, I will try, give it a try, to just start writing, seeing how it goes- and perhaps having not a definite answer will be my answer, and look forward if such uncertainty might be my certainty:
Definitely, I’m full of uncertainty. Or instability. Yet, always seeks for balance or resolution or the end of something.
View things in short-terms. Tasks Tasks Tasks. The things I’m faced with. And perhaps I’ve perceived art making this way as well.
But still, making and creating something new give me something else. Perhaps something of a different kinds of excitement and achievement from finishing work and other tasks.
Visuals. Visuals are what make it different. Making and creating art is a visual process (yet physical) and the result is shown visual. I find many things around myself and my life inspiring or attracting, visually.
What are those? Definitely, nature, colors, people, fashion and the harmony of all.
Obsessively, a particular inclination in the relationship between the nature and people, and finding the ultimate balance and harmony among them-visually.
I always force myself to be busy, but at the same time also seek to feel peaceful and calm- especially through nature/outdoor.
A person of dichotomy and balance at the same time.
I see a lot of both dichotomy and balance in my works. I create to break chaos and to reach balance. Within that lies both uncertainty and peace.
Another strong inspiration: my background, experiences, culture from Korea.
East Asian art and their strong cultural aspects and inclinations in nature. Nature as their prime creator and a means to seek balance and peace in their lives.
Ancient Chinese scrolls- best example of all.
Prefer viewing than creating. Seeking the desired quality through seeing, viewing and experiencing, rather than being engaged in the process of making and creating. – explains my inclination in more of business side of art and fashion industry than being in fine arts and design.
I think, make, create and try to find the- point/level of certainty. Yet I know it might not come at all.
So it comes to- Christianity. A strong, or the strongest force behind myself and my life and my family. The most important factor that holds me within all these uncertain and unstable “atlas”.
I believe in that all these thoughts and my abilities (including making and creating art) come from Him, and He chose these qualities, including my artistic talents, to me- in this sense, I only work as to pursue my given talent- not of solely myself but for a greater means.
Therefore, though I define and know myself to be lost, I know I’m not- and this is why I keep pushing myself- and to push myself to create. 

At least for now, I guess this is my atlas. and I see it a little bit more clear now.