Call of Duty: Operation 100
by
Sung Rok Choi
B.F.A., Hongik University, 2004
Thesis
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of the Degree of
MASTER OF FINE ARTS
in
ART
at CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Approved By:
Andrew Johnson,
Project Advisory Committee Chair
Sarah Eldridge,
Project Advisory Committee Member
Larry Shea,
Project Advisory Committee Member
Hyewon Yi,
Project Advisory Committee Member
John Carson,
Head of the School
Dan Martin,
Interim Dean, College of Fine Arts
Date Degree Conferred May 2012
2
History repeats itself, First as tragedy, Second as Farce
- Karl Marx-
Deconstructing the history of violence, memory and technology can reveal, simulate and expose
our fable that creates a theater of both cruelty and absurdity.
- Sung Rok Choi -
Abstract
This thesis explores the relationship between art, history, memory and politics by presenting
three main projects that incorporate my personal memories, cultural investigations of politics and
history, and experimental storytelling within multiple art forms. Through discussing three
projects, I will reveal how an individual's story is related to universal history in both personal
and political contexts and how such stories are created and presented by the art forms of painting,
drawing and animation, accompanied by suggested historical and philosophical contexts and
references.
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Table of Contents
0. Introduction
1. Rainbow Bomb, Vomiting Yellow and M16 10
5
12
Soo Bok Choi's Landscape: The Sixth of August 1945, 11:06 a.m
12
Won Bo Choi's Landscape: A Disaster at Sea 1971
13
Sung Rok Choi's Landscape: The Third of May 2004
15
Art, History and War
21
Anonymous Landscapes and A Faceless Enemy
24
2. Historiography of Choi
27
3. Portraits of Choi
31
Anthropological Frames
4. Daedong River Slayers 1866
34
Steamboat and Primitivism
41
Sounds of War and Two Diaries of Soldiers
43
The General Sherman Incident 1866
The Diary of Bob
The Diary of Kim
5. Call of Duty: Operations
47
Military Culture, Comics and Propaganda
6. Operation Mole
56
Propaganda, Fantasy and Memory
Conclusion
75
4
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my family, professors and colleagues. It would be impossible to have completed this
thesis without their support and love. I especially thank my wife Eo ryoung and my baby Rae na who are
my love and hope. I dedicate my thesis to the following people:
Choi Soo Bok
Bae Choon Neo
Choi Won Bo
Kim Kyoung Ja
Choi Dong Woo
Ahn Soon Young
Choi Eo Ryoung
Choi Rae Na
Choi Sun Ae
Lee Myoung Han
Andrew Johnson
Sarah Eldridge
Larry Shea
Hyewon Yi
John Carson
Susanne Slavick
Melissa Ragona
James Duesing
Ayanah Moor
Bob Bingham
Lowry Burgess
Clayton Merrell
Rich Pell
Yoon Woo Hak
Sook Nyu Lee Kim
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Introduction
There was a mushroom cloud in the sky over the mountain. A man was watching the white cloud
when he was in his tobacco field on August 6, 1945. Nine days later, the man, who was my
grandfather, was a farmer who had been liberated. Korea had been released from Japanese
occupation — a forced presence that had been active for 35 years. In 1952, during the Korean
War, my grandfather passed away. When my father was seven years old, his father was beaten
by North Korean soldiers, a severe trauma that eventual caused his death. Nineteen years later
(1971), my father—a master sergeant in the Korean Army—was travelling on a transport ship
that was on its way to Vietnam. He was armed with an M-16 rifle. Twenty-one years later, I was
watching my father's hands suffer the pain caused by Agent Orange and I was taught in military
boot camp to stab a fake North Korean Army target with the bayonet of an M-16 rifle — to not
forget who my enemy is.
All of my questions and claims begin with my family's stories since I have been away from my
home, South Korea, where I was born and raised. It was one year ago when I started
remembering everything that I left in my motherland. I asked myself where am I from and who
am I. These questions led me to the question of the epistemological perception of self-identical
ego of pure self-consciousness, mentioned by Hegel in The Philosophy of Nature1. Hegel's vast
metaphysical thinking on how epistemology and theory of history are reflected in each other
threads its way through my own investigations. I followed steps and traces which are
coincidently and intentionally connected with universal history.
Investigating the relationship between ‘major history’ and an individual's time and space is the
main concern in this thesis. I will examine how ‘major history’ affects the individual's space and
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time, and how an individual's time and space are abandoned and erased by ‘modern technology’
in our universal history. The investigation of the relationship of the individual's destroyed time,
space and technology originated in Heidegger's The Question Concerning Technology2. His
critique of modern technology is related to my visual language of evidencing historical events
and it is connected to the question of how modern technology has been destroying the
individual's time and space in our major history. This critique merges with my interest in
historical battle stories and scenes and led me to ask: how can I deal with these unforgettable
memories and phenomena, and look for ways of revealing and transforming stories into fables?
Nietzsche claims in The Use and Abuse of History3 that it is historical individuals who determine
the meaning and understanding of the past and future by ‘standing present.’ My artistic
investigation is connected to making a historiography of lost memories and ruined land through a
phenomenological thinking of history, and by fictionalizing, documenting and coloring
‘authentic’ stories and actual events. I also take ‘artistic license’ in my interpretation of these
narratives, as well as different spoken languages to stand outside of traditional frameworks.
Under this methodological influence, I intentionally construct ‘non-traditional’ perspectives in
my paintings and animations, and present the idea of hyper reality as video games and virtual
environments do. I'm attempting to create an alternative perspective, not by leaning on rational
or traditional viewpoints or by drawing on preexisting Eastern or Western philosophical
landscapes, but rather by creating an alternative subjective view. The concept of an alternative
view is another important idea of this thesis because it is closely connected with the idea of
critiquing the concept of ‘the absolute subject.'
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There is no permanent subject in my way of thinking. The subject is always shifting and flowing
in the concept of time and space. Heidegger claims in his application of hermeneutics on the
methodology of phenomenology in Being and Time4 "The methodological sense of
phenomenological description is interpretation." Heidegger's ontological approach has been
crucial to my interpretation of time, space and historical events and a great influence on how I
turn my tales into a personal visual language.
I have been investigating philosophical ancestors such as Hegel, Husserl, Heidegger, Benjamin
and Marx and through them trying to figure out connections between humans and structures that
I choose to call ‘civilization.’ I'm particularly interested in Hegelian-Marxist claims about the
concept of history and its connections with structuralist theory of history. In my work I attempt
to connect larger philosophical and phenomenological insights on ‘universal history’ and my
individual, more intimate investigations of minor historical events and fables. It is interesting to
consider how those phenomenological events affect each other's philosophical concerns and how
resulting insights can be expanded to another concept of visual language.
I have researched historical artists who were also trying to question the main role of artists living
between major history and minor history to see what happened in their time. In particular I
focused on artists who depicted historical events that revealed power structures: war, ideological
conflicts, and political issues. The French Romantic artist Gericault's historical painting of a raft
on a seething sea (see fig. 1) and William Turner's painting of a burning ship on the Thames
River (see fig. 2) are both political commentaries. These artists grasped the notion of violence;
their existence and identities were affected by major conflicts. In presenting my art practice I
will discuss the concept of violence and follow each project description with a timeline and tale.
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Fig. 1. Theodore Gericault, The Raft of the Medusa. 1819, Louvre Museum, Paris
My work mainly focuses on minor historical events and how they are integrated into personal
history, sometimes in traumatic memories. Through my art work, I pull out those memories and
events buried in my consciousness as trauma or nostalgia. I critique the structure that caused
these events and recreate another structure, an alternative landscape that could be a backdrop for
fables of the last century. I will talk about the relationship between social structure and
individual art practice, specifically, the place where I was born and raised — Korea. This place
has been physically, politically and ideologically divided for 58 years into two separate countries:
North Korea and South Korea. In order to keep the borders sealed, the concept of ‘enemy’ must
be maintained. We are physically and ideologically trained, and this conditioning has
innumerable effects on our society. Many of these side effects exist within the notion of violence.
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Fig. 2. Joseph Mallord William Turner,. The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, 16th October, 1834 1835. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia
I trace the concept and reality of violence within both my personal memory and our social
structure. I try to bring sublimated violent memories and images back up into my consciousness
with humor and satire, colors vivid and sometimes comical, silly behaviors and incidents and the
simplicity of folk images. By investigating the phenomena of social structures on which I stand
by following my ancestors’ footsteps, I create correspondences between the idea of philosophical
history and phenomenological thinking and contemporary events. Documenting evidence and
investigating past events in our social structures are directly connected to the idea of the political
role of an artist. For an artist who is also an individual in the body social, the question of how to
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reveal and depict his own surroundings as historians do is crucial to ask and to answer. I have
begun the journey to reveal these questions.
Rainbow Bomb, Vomiting Yellow and M16
My recent project, "Rainbow Bomb, Vomiting Yellow and M16," investigates how my ancestors
over the last century of war physically resisted the universal history. I am an individual who
wants to dedicate and document their ignored struggle in time and space through my art practice,
much like an historian but more like an artist who feels the way of ancestral pain. I strive to
transmit their authentic experiences in the form of a visual language that is related to the
language of Folk Art. The methodological thinking of visual execution is directly engaged with
the conceptual projection of my ancestors’ landscapes in order to recreate their experience. In my
paintings and animations, I explored how to deliver and portray their personal encounters and
conflicts during major events through my choice of colors, voices and actions.
In another way of analyzing this project, I attempt to critique modern technology which has
caused the destruction of my grandfather’s, father’s and my own landscape. I expand the
relationship of individual and universal history to include the relationship of human history and
the history of weapons. The concept of ‘threat’ or ‘danger’ is the basic idea that drives the
development of modern technology that destroys the minor history that is comprised of my
individual and my ancestors' time and space.
Weapons have come full circle: what my father had once used, I too now wield. The history of
tools — as weapons and as objects for farming—is inextricably tied to my family’s own history.
Tools and their uses directly illustrate my family’s own timeline—its traffic with colonialism,
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ideological conflicts, and the progression of technology. In other words, ‘tools’ have significant
meaning and can function allegorically to mirror objects that exist in our consciousness.
I will argue that the evolution and circulation of technology parallels power shifts— and that this
can be traced from the local levels of family to larger national policies about the function and
deployment of tools and weapons. To illustrate how this circulation of tools and weapons occurs,
I will discuss three different paintings that I have constructed that show (1) tools for cultivation,
i.e. my grandfather’s shovel, (2) the body transformed into a weapon (my father’s transport to
Vietnam on the open sea), and (3) our virtual relation to war’s technology (war video games and
my own “rehearsal” for war as a reserve army soldier). Considering the technology of violence
through these works allows me to think about physical distance and the distance of
consciousness as well as Heidegger's 'question of being' or 'the question of history of being.'
Soo Bok Choi's Landscape 11:06 am August 6th 1945
The first painting is my grandfather's scene. I asked myself what my grandfather experienced
when he worked his potato field at 11:06 a.m. on August 6th, 1945 when the US air bomber
'Enola Gay' dropped the first nuclear weapon, the atom bomb innocently named 'Little Boy' on
Hiroshima. I imagined that far over the mountain there was trace of a white mushroom cloud
(see fig. 3).
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Fig. 3. Sung Rok Choi, A still from Rainbow Bomb, Vomiting Yellow and M16. 2010
Then I imagined that he might have seen the white light and the huge cloud over the mountain.
Would he have been curious or suspicious about a scene that he could not possibly have seen
before? It is interesting to question our relationship to historical action. Juxtaposing the personal
action of my grandfather working his peaceful fields with his pickaxe, reminiscent of the painted
landscape in Jean-François Millet's The Angelus (1857-1859), with an atomic explosion echoes
Heidegger. According to Heidegger in The Question Concerning Technology:
The work of the peasant does not challenge the soil of the field. In
the sowing of the grain it places the seed in the keeping of the
forces of growth and watches over its increase. But meanwhile
even the cultivation of the field has come under the grip of another
kind of setting in-order, which sets upon [stellt] nature. It sets
upon it in the sense of challenging it. Agriculture is now the
mechanized food industry. Air is now set upon to yield nitrogen,
the earth to yield ore, ore to yield uranium, for example; uranium is
set upon to yield atomic energy, which can be released either for
destruction or for peaceful use.5
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Did historical action affect my grandfather's mundane life? When he woke up on the day after Dday, did he realize already that he would be liberated? And how long did it take my grandfather
to sense that he would be freed because of the destructive power and use of atomic energy?
Heidegger's concept of ‘distanceless’ influenced my consideration of physical distance and the
distance of consciousness. I assume that my grandfather was heading to his field to take care of
his plants and yellow cow as he had been doing all his life. The conjunction of universal history
and personal history created a new landscape of my grandfather's experience with the question of
history of being. And the question is continued in my second painting.
Won Bo Choi's Landscape: A Disaster at Sea 1971
The second painting is about my father's experience when going to the Vietnam War in 1971.
The scene shows the moment when he and thousands of his fellow soldiers were spewing yellow
vomit (from eating too many of the provided tangerines) over the side of a huge transport in the
South China Sea (see fig. 4).
My father usually told me this tale whenever I asked to hear his war stories. In Soo Bok Choi’s
Landscape, I questioned how one man contemplates historical spectacle. In Won Bo Choi’s
Landscape painting, I try to tell how one man resists or fights against ineluctable universal
history, which cannot be denied or dismissed as long as he is a human who existed in this time
period. I imagine my father eating so many tangerines supplied by the Korea Army. In fact, his
body was starting to struggle against his fate; the anxiety over unpredictable circumstance is
visualized by the image of yellow vomit turning into floating elements on the sea. His body
knew faster than his intuition or sub-consciousness that it was about to transform into another
body, just as universal history was transforming into his authentic history. His individual
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Fig. 4. Sung Rok Choi, A still from Rainbow Bomb, Vomiting Yellow and M16. 2010
body was also being used by the national body as a practical tool and weapon. Here it is
interesting that the man's body used as a weapon turns on and against itself; vomiting is literally
the portrayal of resistance. The body resists becoming a weapon. My painting questions and
depicts the result of the struggle between the personal and national. The subject of marine
tragedy connects with Géricault’s painting ‘The Raft of The Medusa' that depicts a moment from
the aftermath of the wreck of the French naval frigate ‘Meduse’, which ran aground off the coast
of today's Mauritania on July 5, 1816. At least 147 people were set adrift on a hurriedly
constructed raft; all but fifteen died in the thirteen days before their rescue, and those who
survived endured starvation, dehydration, cannibalism and madness. The work exemplifies how
individual plight can be representative of historical tragedy in painting.
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Sung Rok Choi's Landscape: The Third of May 2004
Fig. 5. Sung Rok Choi, A still from Rainbow Bomb, Vomiting Yellow and M16. 2010
In the third painting of my own generation’s landscape (see fig. 5), I depict a scene from my
annual army reserve tactics training on an army base near my hometown in 2004. The training
taught physical combat and techniques such as shooting a rifle, using a bayonet and throwing a
fake grenade. One thing that interested me was that there was no tension inside that place. It
should have been a sobering experience to be taken seriously because we were dealing with
weapons that can kill a human being. I started to think about why we are so nonchalant and
insensitive while handling lethal weapons.
The history of our situation goes back to 1951 when North Korea invaded South Korea's territory.
Since the end of the war, conflict has been largely confined to the Demilitarized Zone, a strip of
land running across the Korean Peninsula that has served as a buffer zone between North and
South Korea for 58 years. As a male citizen, I had to serve in the Korean Army for 28 months.
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After that, I had to participate in the army reserve training twice annually for eight years which
was extremely boring and tedious. I believe that this extended military service is a useless
obligation, even though our national situation is very intense and precarious. We have started to
lose our sense of caution and our memory of tragedy. No one expects a renewed war or that
tragedy will happen in our lifetime.
The disparity between the image of war and the actual experience of war has never been greater.
My generation was addicted to playing war games such as Call of Duty 4-Modern Warfare 2 (see
fig. 6) which I considered to be the most violent war game ever. Images of war now primarily
exist in a virtual world rather than a physical world. Youth are getting experience from a virtual
environment created and based on real weapons. Moreover, these games make us forget the
enemy’s true identity. The enemy is anonymous, interchangeable, unimportant. The important
thing is to train to kill and destroy. In fact, this training is destroying the concrete steps and
structural change we have been building toward reconciliation.
Making and internalizing the concept of an ‘enemy’ is not only a really important part of training
a soldier but is also crucial to the concept of ‘deterrence'. The enactment of a power game
requires an adversary, abstract or otherwise. It is almost brainwashing when a soldier's mind has
no concept of an enemy. In their experience, there is no real enemy, no distance, no critical
thought and no desire for "raising consciousness" in relation to the war. Jean Baudrillard
discusses the real face of deterrence and how the nuclear, the most horrible, threat is indicative of
the concept of simulation in "The Orbital and The Nuclear” in Simulacra and Simulation:
It is not the direct threat of atomic destruction that paralyzes our
lives, it is deterrence that gives them leukemia. And this deterrence
comes from that fact that even the real atomic clash is precluded precluded like the eventuality of the real in a system of signs. The
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whole world pretends to believe in the reality of this threat (this is
understandable on the part of the military, the gravity of their
exercise and the discourse of their "strategy" are at stake), but it is
precisely at this level that there are no strategic stakes. The whole
originality of the situation lies in the improbability of destruction.6
Fig. 6. Activision Co, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 Multi play, 2009
The face of an enemy in a war game is a simulation; it is irreverent. It serves solely as an
antagonist, a necessary component of the game. It is the same when I stab the fake North Korean
army target which was made of plastic, that watched me with a really angry, but ultimately fake
face. I had to stab its chest with full force, exerting my maximum actual effort in an action of
pretense. This is how we faced and still make our enemy these days. This is a fundamentally
different image of cruelty and disaster than pictorial representations of actual events. The
Spanish romantic painter and printmaker Francisco Goya’s painting, 'The Third of May 1808'
(see fig. 7) shows the horrors of war in an actual political situation. This painting directly
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influenced Picasso's painting 'Massacre in Korea' (see fig. 8) which was made in 1951 as a
critique of American intervention in the Korean conflict. The painting is a reflection on human
existence and, at its core, a mockery of the idiocy of war.
Fig. 7. Francisco de Goya, The Third of May 1808. 1814. Prado Museum, Madrid
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Fig. 8. Pablo Picasso, Massacre of Korea. 1951. Museum Picasso. Paris
My third painting, Sung Rok Choi’s Landscape, presents a mundane scene of army reserve troops
training in a landscape. It is representative of a common experience of the younger generation of
Koreans, at least of male Koreans. Their M16 rifles shift from being physical weapons to virtual
weapons, as they use their M16 rifles in a game environment, shooting and stabbing a simulated
enemy. Now, many soldiers are training by virtual war games instead of shooting real bullets,
further removing any concept of a real enemy. This situation raises the question of actual and
virtual and reveals the increasing gap and confusion between them.
All three of the Choi Landscape paintings explore personal histories within grander historical
schemes and landmark events. They are about the relativity of human beings and history, the
questions of tools verses weapons, how an individual can resist history, the destruction of
personal experience, and critical thinking that defines the enemy.
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Art, History, and War
In making the theater of cruelty, I'm trying to think about Art and History as well as Art and War.
There is Theodor W. Adorno's pronouncement7 about the impossibility of writing a poem after
Auschwitz.7 It corresponds with my thinking about the impossibility of painting beautiful
landscapes of my family’s experiences. In my grandfather's landscape, there is a rainbow
mushroom cloud over the mountain that was caused by the atomic bomb. The bomb took
140,000 human lives in one of the most tragic mass destructions ever on earth. On the other hand,
it ended my grandfather's subjugation that could have lasted his whole life. That is the reason
why I painted the atomic bomb’s aftermath, converting a cruel cloud into a rainbow cloud in an
ecstatic presentation without pity. The lethal becomes delightful, even exquisite in my landscape
painting. The rainbow light illuminates my grandfather and his fellow yellow ochre cow, but
they slowly are darkened by the remaining artificial shadow.
Here is the question that interests me: is my art sacred or profane? In effect, I want to present
two contrasting ways of decoding history. Apparently, there is no answer to this question
because as long as we position ourselves in a linear history, we cannot retreat or turn back the
clock to fix past events. I think of Einstein's theory of relativity and our feet on political territory
that represents the ideology that is space. In my father's landscape, his experience is one of an
unconditional commitment for he is a soldier going to war. The vivid yellow fluid he expels
presents his body reacting against the obligations of his nation state. Depicting vomiting yellow
from soldiers’ bodies was a way for me to making a contemporary painting that follows the idea
of 'pitiless art,' a category defined by Paul Virilio for art that addresses issues of murder and
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torture. He writes about the ending of representative art and the beginning of presentative art,
using Gericault's painting as an example as cited in Virilio 'Art and Fear'.
To suffer with or to sympathize with? That is a question that concerns
both ethics and aesthetics, as was clearly intuited by Gericault, the man
who made his famous portraits of the insane' at La Salperriere Hospital
in Paris over the winter of 1822 at the invitation of one Dr Georget,
founder of 'social psychiatry'. Gericault's portraits were meant to serve as
classificatory sets for the alienist's students and assistants. Driven by a
passion for immediacy, Gericault sought to seize the moment whether of
madness or death live. Like the emergent press, he was especially keen
on human interest stories such as the wreck of the Medusa, that TITANI
C of the painting. 8
I would like to focus on the idea of 'Immediacy' that conceptually and methodologically relates
to my painting. Transmitting fact and memory on canvas with color and form has directness of
action, which is a radical way of constructing an image. Moreover, I intend to interfere with the
relationship of humanity and history by using dialectic imagery of my family. The green color
that I use in my grandfather's scene is different from Monet's beautiful green. My green color has
an aggressive tendency because of the specific time and history embodied in a catastrophic
landscape that defies history. I could not make the green beautiful in that scene because it was
too ruined by the cruelty of history; but, I try to remedy his landscape by using appealing and
seductive rainbow colors that present atomic energy.
In my father's landscape, anonymous soldiers are vomiting yellow to resist their destiny and
nightmare. Telling his story, my father metaphorically vomits the yellow color that presents his
psychological condition. His deep fear made him expel the residual traumas that destroy his
experience. My yellow color is presenting a physiological response of resistance instead of
representing optical illusion. I can easily summon Van Gogh's final painting 'The Wheat Field
with Crows' (1890) (see fig. 9) in thinking about how he used yellow pigment for presenting his
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sadness and loneliness. His yellow color not only conveys his psychological situation but also
offers a physical impact through the painting’s surface; all is immediacy and directness.
Transforming the human condition through color and abstraction also occurs in the works of J.W.
M. Turner who elevated landscape painting to rival historical painting.
To think that an era can be so consumed by war, and not have every aspect of
its society affected by it, even the arts, would be naive. So, in every piece of
literature that we pick up, we should begin to look for traces of the effects of
war and political unrest, for there are telltale signs in most works. 9
Fig. 9. Vincent van Gogh, The Wheat Field with Crows 1890.
Anonymous Landscape and Faceless Enemy
In my painting The Third of May 2004 the unidentified landscape, figure and action all speak to
erasure. Erasing of the face is represented in both the painted human subject and in the fake
North Korean soldier target, the simulated enemy. The soldier loses his face as soon as he holds
a weapon and starts to stab an unreal foe. Fighting a fake enemy is not only a tedious for
reservists at an actual army base but also in first person shooting games in the virtual world.
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Engagement in the violent game world is as much a threat as stabbing a fake plastic enemy, for
both desensitize us and strip us of our humanity. I think that the idea of simulation is related to
the aesthetic of disappearance. Responding to the disappearing face, we start to make a simulated
face to replace the empty space, which is a process of fabricating inhumanity. I think it is a
fundamental automatic, unconscious gesture of contemporary culture that we can call 'cut and
paste'. Whether in text or image it is increasingly easy to select, delete, substitute and delete
elements. In my painting, I show how I felt about the disappearance of my face at the moment
that I saw a cold plastic target in a desolate place.
Fig. 10. Luc Tymans, Gadkaner (Gas Chamber). 1986. The Over Holland Collection.
The paintings of Belgian painter Luc Tuymans transform mediated film, television, and print
sources into an examination of history and memory. There are many unidentified places and
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faceless figures that relate to the historical moment in his work, especially his project on the
history of World War II. For example, 'Gas Chamber' (see fig. 10) represents a place where
Nazis exterminated people with gas. His landscape is a presentation of disappearance of
existence rather than representation of actual place.
My experiences contemplating anonymous landscapes and faceless enemies are connected to my
other experiences of virtual space. Video games and the contemporary military technology share
a similar visual structure. Both technologies have similar purposes in that they can kill humans,
instantly and remotely, with a simple and efficient visual display.
Fig. 11. A still from ‘Collateral Murder’ video
footage. 2004. Wikileak 2010
Fig. 12. a still from the video game Call of Duty
4 Modern Warfare 2, 2009
The controversial video clip (see fig. 11) documenting U.S. helicopter guns killing Iraqi civilians
and Reuters reporters on July 7, 2007 was shot from the soldier’s perspective. Their deaths are
categorized as 'collateral murder. When I saw this horrific scene of massacre, I recognized its
exact resemblance to a scene from the video game Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare 2 (see fig. 12).
In that game a player can use a helicopter gun to kill other players with the same display
technology used in actual military killings. The gap between virtual and actual collapses.
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Military optics of war portray faceless bodies. Actual people and their images are transformed
and reduced to virtual pixel images, disembodied and unreal.
2. Historiography of Choi
After making the three Choi landscapes, I diagrammed and conflated their relationships with the
political history of Korea over a timeline of 100 years in the animated ‘Historiography of Choi
2010’ (see fig. 13),. With the anthro-autobiographical moving visual collages of the key political
events in South Korea, I investigate how the political events are connected to each generation's
time and memory. In this investigation, I examine and adopt cartoon style animation used in
documentaries and history books that have an educational and propaganda purposes.
Fig. 13. Sung Rok Choi, Historiograhy of Choi. 2010
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The timeline starts with the rising imperial flag of Japan, linking the Japanese occupation of
Korea with the birth of my grandfather in 1910. It ends with the 2010 sinking of the South
Korean naval ship, Cheonan. The cause of its sinking has not been solved officially and many
attribute it to a South Korean government conspiracy.
In this work, I explore the idea of historiography as defined by Fury and Salevouris in The
Methods and Skills of History: A Practical Guide :
The study of the history and methodology of history as a discipline, or to a
body of historical work on a specialized topic"… "The study of the way
history has been and is written — the history of historical writing... When you
study 'historiography' you do not study the events of the past directly, but the
changing interpretations of those events in the works of individual
historians.10
Along the animated historical timeline, I reveal and interpret events that my family has
experienced over the last 100 years through a series of cartoon ideographs, as my own form of
historical methodology. As I tell my family's experiences, I want to depict their history as a
drawn history rather than a written history — as an artistic historiography. Moreover, through
reconstructing the events of the Choi family and political events of Korea, I try to socially and
politically critique Korean political history. As the timeline shows, most of Korean modern
history has been dominated by military governments. It took 30 years of pro-democratic
demonstrations against military authority structures to gain a democratic social structure,
culminating in the democratic president Kim Young-Sam assuming office in 1993 after a
succession of democratically elected, albeit autocratic military rulers. The former South Korean
army general Park Chung-Hee, who took over the South Korean government in the May 16
military coup d'état of 1961, was elected president in 1963. After South Korea had a politically
stable government, the military governments built a rapidly industrialized economy. The
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subsequent failure of that economy is what Koreans called the IMF period. In 1997, when the
International Monetary Fund bailed out South Korea, I was a college freshman who just had
started painting.
There are precedents in making a timeline that reveal two polarized ideas in examining the
relationship between art and society as well as between minor history and universal history.
Group Material, a collective of young New York artists, formed in 1979, and addressed
numerous social and political issues with project based installations. They created two timeline
projects. One is Timeline:
A Chronicle of US
intervention in Central
America and Latin
America (1984) (see fig.
14). It reveals how US
military interventions
affected political, cultural
Fig. 12. Group Material, Timeline: A Chronicle of US Intervention in Central
and Latin America, 1984. ', P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York.
Photograph: Dorothy Zeidman. Courtesy the artists
and economical change by
installing multiple artifacts
and documents from local areas in Central and South America. AIDS Timeline (1989) is a
second well known timeline project that reconstructed the history of AIDS in order to show the
relationship between culture and politics. It insisted that the government’s reactions and inaction
to the AIDS crisis made it complicit in the spreading health crisis.11
28
3. Portraits of Choi
Along with the landscape animation ‘Rainbow Bomb, Vomiting Yellow and M16’ and the
timeline work ‘Historiography of Choi’, I created a family video portrait ‘Portraits of Choi’ (see
fig. 15). It is based on actual portrait pictures in order to create an anthropological frame that
shows how each generation’s story is told through their appearance. I heightened whatever subtle
sentiment existed in the static pictures, making them both humorous and uncanny through simple
animation of their eyes or clothes and playing with symbolic signs that represent their time and
space.
Fig. 15. Sung Rok Choi, Portraits of Choi. HD Video Portrait. 2010
In Korea, it is common to see ancestrals portrait to deify their presence in the descendants’
homes. My father also has my grandfather’s drawn portrait in our house. Every time I saw the
picture, it made me imagine him smiling or blinking his eyes as in typical horror or fantasy
movies in which subjects in enchanted portraits blink their eyes, spy or stare undetected.
Although I never met my grandfather because of his early death, I want to build a kin connection
through simulating his virtual presence. The photograph of my father, who served in the South
29
Korean army for thirty-three years and retired with honors, portrays his glorious past. Every time
I saw his portrait, I wanted to emphasize his power by animating the signs and colors on the
badges of his military uniform that illuminate his history and achievement. By animating these
dated family pictures, I restore their presence and strength in order to glorify their forgotten
history, even through my own mundane self–portrait.
Fig.16. Left: Park Chung-Hee, the 5,6,7,8,and 9th President of South Korea. Center: Chun Doo-hwan, the 11th and
12th President of South Korea. Right: Roh Tae-woo, the 13th President of South Korea. Courtesy of South Korean
government
From a farmer to a soldier and then to an artist, this shifting of identity within my family
somehow presents how the political and social history of Korea has been changing in the 100
years since Japan occupied Korea in 1910. Representing an agrarian society under Japan’s
colonization and a militarized society after suffering the Korean War and three militarized
governments (see fig. 16), as well as the rapidly industrialized economy of capitalist society, the
Portrait of Choi evokes not only personal memory and history but also presents the socialpolitical shifting of Korean identity over the 100 years from 1910 to 2010.
Many documentary photographers are able to frame socio-political structures by revealing
concealed facts and stories through their images. For instance, An-My Le, who photographs U.S.
30
soldiers military operation scenes, documents actual lives in real military environments while
simultaneously using those same photographs to retell stories by pointing out irony in their
situations (see fig. 17).
Fig. 17. An-My Lê, Patient Admission, US Naval Hospital Ship Mercy, Vietnam, 2010. Courtesy of the artist
4. Daedong River Slayers 1866
Barbarism will still respect nothing but power, and barbaric civilization repels alike
interference, association, and instruction.
—United States secretary of the navy George M. Robeson, 1871
Western barbarians foully attack! Should we not fight, accord must be made! To urge accord is
to betray the country!
—Korea's prince regent, the Taewon'gun, 1871 12
31
In the 19th century, colonization and the mobility made possible by steam technology introduced
western artists to non-western artistic expressions. Multiple perspectives, collapsing discursive
perception of the object and simple expressive linear drawing were among the technical and
conceptual methods that opened up the possibility of alternative art realms to European Artists
such as Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Eduard Munch, Paul Cezanne, Pablo Picasso, and
Jean Dubuffet. The artists associated with Post Impressionist, Symbolist, Cubism, and Outsider
Art were influenced by the both primitive and refined expressions of Asian artists among others.
My work is saturated with history, politics and technology. It is interesting to think about the the
notion of the 'primitive' in relation to artistic methodology as it is tied to issues of universal
history and to analyzing relationships between the history of technology and the history of art in
political contexts. When a steam gunboat opened fire on another land, cannonballs delivered a
notion of 'diplomacy' that was typical of 19th century colonialism. The notion of “primitive” art
began when cannonballs exploded on the land of the soon-to-be vanquished or colonized. It is
also worth considering how power structures engage with artistic practice and affect the pictorial
space of painting. The main conception of Primitivism stems from a regrettable conflict of
civilizations and technologies of mankind; the idea that western artists methodologically and
conceptually use the idea of Primitivism in order to critique their own social and power
structures is compelling and ironic. While the adaptation of 'rawness' was meant to revitalize a
stagnant academic art practice, its origins came from the Primitivism seized by gunpowder, the
technological vehicle of power.
32
Fig. 18. Sung Rok Choi, Daedong River Slayers 1866. 2011
My engagement with the concept of Primitive art may be seen in one of my historical
investigation projects "Daedong River Slayers 1866" (see fig. 18). This animation investigates
an 1866 event known as “The General Sherman Incident”13 and tries to create a historical fable
based on the actual historical event through an animated drawing and voices. This event was the
first battle between the Koreans and the U.S. Navy and marked the end of Korea’s isolationism.
In this event, I saw the history of violence through the conflict of modern and ancient warfare
technologies. When the General Sherman ship (see. fig. 19) opened fire on the river bank of the
Daedong river, many Korean rebels poured soy oil on the river to make a fire to burn the ship.
The trajectory of the steel steamer's cannonballs transmits the notion of violence between
civilizations. The encounter between two combat technologies represents the clash of
civilizations and disparate world views as well. I’m intrigued by the scene of battle, that chaotic
bloody landscape of our civilizations and how we can use images of historical events as our
documents of propaganda. Two issues of North Korean stamps depict the scene of The General
33
Sherman Incident; one was made in 1964 and another one in 2006 to celebrate 140th anniversary
of the sinking of The General Sherman (see. fig. 20 and 21).
Fig.19. USS General Sherman (1864-1865) at Bridgeport, Alabama in 1864, U.S. Naval Historical Center
Photograph
34
Fig. 20. North Korean stamp. 1964
Fig. 21. North Korean stamp. The 140th anniversary of General Sherman incident. 2006
I methodologically examine the mixing of two perspectives: one is the western style view point
that concretizes the logic of perspective and discursive contemplation; another is the eastern
35
view point that destroys the physical logic of our visual sense by deconstructing the order of time
and space. I not only mix these two opposing conceptions of space and the ideologies embedded
within them, but also create and mix conflicting fictional structures through separate narratives
of two combatants, an American soldier and a Korean rebel. These two figures came from an
animated drawing in which I created two other fictional stories which are their diaries. Their
binary stories within a single landscape create another layer of questioning. The piece examines
how we can excavate, read and recreate historical events and stories as well as think about
alternative methods of storytelling that blend the fact and fiction of imagination.
Daedong River Slayers 1866 embodies the idea of post-structuralist notion of binary opposition
that we see in much recent conceptual art. Primal drawing/digital animation, one-point
perspective/multi-point perspective, document/fiction, realism/idealism, universal/local,
cruelty/pleasure, linear/nonlinear, construction/deconstruction — are all in play. These ideas
conflict and negotiate with each other in one space with shifting forms of motion, color and
voice. This process of deconstructing an historical violent event into an absurd situation is the
one of the main concepts in my art practice. Constructing absurdity by definition means
combining contradictory, incongruous narratives that point to the simulated and fictional, the
landscape of violence and fable.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder's painting The Triumph of Death (1565) (see fig. 22) depicts a landscape
of skulls in a deconstruction of a historical story and war scene. Through simulating and
manipulating actual documents and superimposing fictional figurative perspectives on that
situation, he paints aspects of everyday European life in the mid-16th century. I am interested in
how Bruegel blended fact and fiction in order to compose a stylized and idealized landscape of
daily life and the everyday struggle with death. Another relevant work is “Namban,” a 1570
36
Japanese screen painting from the Momoyama period that depicts the arrival of a western ship, a
“barbarian from the south (see fig. 23). At that time, Japan first allowed European trade with its
merchants in spite of its “Sakoku”13 (“locked country”) policy. The joyful cruelty of human
violence in this portrayal may also be found in Henry Darger's drawing (see fig. 24) that shows
the coexistence of children's play and sadistic scenes. Through idealized and highly stylized
methods, both painters depict figures with expressions that convey human psychology and
deliver stories that must be remembered. These idealized and stylized methods are connected to
the notion of Primitive and Outsider Art.
Fig. 22. Pieter Bruegel, Triumph of death. 1565. Prado Museum. Madrid
37
Fig. 23. Kano Naizen. Namban (“Barbarian from the south”). 1570
Fig. 24. Henry Darger. At Jennie Richee. 1940
38
The Daedong River Slayer 1866 project consists of 2D digital animation and four sound pieces.
The animation is based on a manual drawing that I made while the separate sound works consist
of three narrations and war sounds using my voices. While I was drawing the scene of the
General Sherman Incident, I wrote diaries for two soldiers in the fictional battle. The first diary,
written at the end of the battle, is that of an American soldier who shot a Korean who he claims
attacked a woman. The second diary is written by a Korean rebel who was abducted and taken to
The General Sherman ship by the U.S. navy, an account of what he experienced while on the
ship. The two figures show up in each other's diary and they meet to illuminate each other's
perspective. Their personal histories interweave in one timeline and one landscape. I recorded
these two narratives, making sounds onomatopoeic sounds like many children make when they
play war. Making infantile sounds with my own mouth and making crude, direct drawing brings
out a rawness that I associate with the raw and the primitive in a rough form of abstract
storytelling.
Three narrations for one landscape
In this section, I will introduce the three narrations that I showed for my second solo show at the
Pittsburgh Center for the Arts that opened on April 8, 2010. The two narrations were recordings
of two different readers: Professor Lowry Burgess and Jimmy Krahe, both at Carnegie Mellon
University. I recorded my own voice for the Korean narrative.
The General Sherman Incident 1866
In order to have a factual voice, I used text from a Wikipedia entry for the following script.
39
“Determined to open up Korea to trade, the British trading firm Meadows and Co., based in
Tientsin (present day Tianjin), China, sent a former civil war battleship, the American merchant
ship The General Sherman (named for William Tecumseh Sherman) into Korean waters in an
attempt to meet with Korean officials to begin negotiations for a trade treaty. The 187-ton sidewheel steamer allegedly carried a cargo of cotton, tin, and glass and was heavily armed. The
crew consisted of Captain Page, Chief Mate Wilson, and thirteen Chinese and three Malay
sailors. Also on board was the ship's owner, W.B. Preston, and Robert Jermain Thomas, a
Protestant missionary acting as an interpreter. They departed Chefoo (present day Yantai),
China on August 6, August 16, or August 18, 1866, and entered the Taedong River on Korea's
west coast sailing towards Pyongyang. The depth of the Taedong River changed frequently due
to rains and the tides, but the ship was able to navigate it and stopped at the Keupsa Gate, lying
at the border between Pyongan and Hwanghae provinces.
Local officials then met the crew and were able to communicate well enough to learn the ship
was purportedly interested in trade. The Koreans refused all trade offers but agreed to provide
the crew with some food and provisions. The ship was told to wait while higher level government
officials could be consulted. However, the ship then departed again and went further up river,
until it became stranded near Yangjak island near Pyongyang. Park Gyu-su (The governor of
Pyongyang) then sent his deputy, Yi Hyun-Ik, with food and told the ship that it was supposed to
stay at the Keupsa Gate and again to wait while the Korean ruler was consulted. At that time
Korea was ruled by a Regent, the Heungseon Daewongun, in the name of his minor son King
Gojong. The Daewongun sent orders that the ship was to leave immediately or all the crew
would be killed.
40
There are several discrepancies as to what happened next, but one eyewitness noted that as
troops were sent towards the ship, hostile actions followed. The crew abducted Yi who was
attempting to pursue a small boat launched from the General Sherman containing six men
attempting to reach shore. After Yi was not released, the Koreans opened fire but were unable to
cause any damage. The ship then fired its cannons onto the spectators, hitting several and
forcing the troops to retreat where they were ineffectual. Fighting continued for the next four
days, with a Korean turtle ship dispatched, but causing no damage. The Koreans then tied
several boats together filled with wood, sulfur, and saltpeter. The first two boats failed to inflict
any damage, but the third boat set the General Sherman afire. At last, Park Gyu-su commanded
to pour soy oil into the river and set it afire. Unable to stem the flames, the crew jumped into the
water, where they were hacked to death.”14
The Diary of Bob
August 20th, 1866
"in the morning, when I woke up, I heard the sounds coming from the riverside where many
Korean people were watching us. they were shouting at us to leave because their regent hates us
and we must leave his land. honestly, I want to go home and have a warm black bean skillet
which is my mom's favorite. but I had bread instead, which was the last of my bread, and tea.
then, my officer ordered that we have to get ready for battle. he saw many Korean rebels
preparing for battle. they prepared tons of mortar flame cocktails. damn it, I don't want to die
by being burnt with hot soy oil. after I had lunch, I went up to the wheelhouse to chat with James
who is from Florida. yesterday, I shot a couple of Korean rebels who were throwing flame
cocktails to our ship. and I took a shot at one naked Korean guy while he was apparently having
41
fun with woman who seemed like not to want that happening. he could have been assaulting her.
I saved the woman. two hours later, I saw that burning rafts were floating down to our ship. This
situation is getting crazy. captain ordered us to prepare for fire on the ship. so, I had to bring a
couple of buckets and pour water. the first raft was reaching our ship but we dodged it. and the
second one slowly came and hit our ship. I saw a huge fire on the bow of our ship. it was awful
burning our ship. captain shouted to get ready for abandoning the ship. and I realized that I'm
not good at swimming. I didn't want to be drowned. at that time, James was jumping into the
water. but the water was also
burning because Korean Rebels
poured soy oil on to the water to
toast us. they such barbarians.
finally, I had to jump into the water.
I smelled soy oil and my hands and
hair were covered with soy oil. I
didn't like the slippery feeling on
my hand. the river was warm
Fig. 25. 5 Korean Prisoners. Photographed by U.S Navy 1871
because of the huge fire. I dived
down to avoid the fire. I saw my mom's face and she was talking to me 'come to me, come to me'
but I said ' not now', and then I swam until I had enough breath to dive under the water. at that
time, James's half burnt face was passing into view."
42
The Diary of Kim
This story is written based on an actual story of Korean Prisoners (see fig. 25) who were
abducted by the U.S. Marines during the 1871 battle between Korean rebels and the U.S. Navy.
It is written in both Korean and English.
아침에 일어나니 콩죽 냄새가 진동한다 when I woke up in the morning, I smelled something
like bean soup. 양 놈들은 무슨 콩죽만 먹네 냄새 나는 것들. big noses only eat damn bean
soup, stinky bastards 이름이 제임스 란 놈은 씻지도 않나 보다 the guy who has name 'James'
doesn't like to wash his body.. 나한테도 한 그릇 준다.they also gave that bean soup to me 누런
빵과 함께.with a white wheat flour cake 하얀 쌀밥이 눈에 아른거리지만..although, a white
rice, which is cooked by my mom, is glimmering in my eyes, 언제 죽을지도 모르니 일단
먹어두자. I have to have it because I don't know when I 'm going to die. 여기 갇힌 지 2 틀째. I
was abducted two days ago while I was attempting to take their ship. 치사한 놈들 남에 땅에
와서 깽 판치고 나가지도 않고 bastards, they ruined and insulted our motherland and they
refused our regent's order to leave our land. 우리 이현익 동무가 날 구해 줄거라 믿는다. I
believe my comrade Yi will save me. 아침을 먹고 나서 앉아있는데 머리가 유난히 곱슬 인
놈이 하나 올라오더니 제임스 란 놈과 수다를 떤다. I was seated on the floor after having a
breakfast. a curly haired guy showed up and chatted with James 뭔 소리를 하는지 모르지만
이름은 알 것 같다. 밥이란 한다. 우 낀 이름이다. 그리고 말했다 너네 조만간 다 죽을
거라고, 당연히 조선말을 못 알아 듣는다. I totally didn't understand what they were saying
but I finally got that his name is 'BOB'. it’s a silly name. I told them 'you will die' but they didn't
get it because I said it in Korean. 저 멀리서 누군가 외친다" 김 순국 동지 우리가 고조 곧
43
구해 주갑슴다, 좀 참으시라 우” 희미하지만 알아 먹었다. from far out there, somebody
shouted out 'Comrade Kim! we will get you out soon! please endure it'. it was really vague to
hear but I got that. 밥이란 놈이 내려와 자기 총을 만지며 나한테 뭐라 한다. Bob came down
and handling his rifle said 아마도 어제 있었던 일을 말하나 보다.probably, it was about
yesterday's happening 총소리가 네 다섯 번 정도 나더니 환호하고 박수치고 난리가 났었다.
yesterday, I heard the sound of five gunshots and then clapping and cheering 누군가를 총으로
쏜 모양이었다. I thought that somebody got shot and that some of my allies were shot 제발
우리 이 철수 동무만 아니었으면. oh Please I prayed for Cheol Su not get shot 철수가
선봉대를 자청해서 강가에서 불 병을 던졌는데 제발 아니었으면 한다. Cheol Su
volunteered to fight on the frontline and he was throwing a mortar flame cocktail at big nose's
ship near the riverbank. 아무튼 밥이란 놈은 머리를 기른 게 눈매는 날카로우서니 총 잘
쏘게 생겼다. anyway, Bob looked so sharp and he could be a sharpshooter. and he has long
hair. 점심때 가 지나니 갑자기 이놈들이 분주히 떠들면서 물통을 들고 바쁘게 뛰어다닌다.
after lunch time, big noses looked busy and ran around in the ship carrying water buckets with
both hands 뭔가 타는 냄새가 난다. I smelled something burning.iIt was this ship that was
starting to burn. 아마도 작전을 시작 했나 보다 예정대로라면 콩기름 부을 시간이다. I
assumed that our operation was started as we planned before. it's time to pour soy oil on the
river to make them burn 연기가 여기 선내에 자욱하게 퍼져있다. smoke densely filled in this
ship 물통을 옳기 던 밥과 눈이 마주쳤다. my eyes met Bob's eyes who was carrying a water
bucket. 밥의 눈빛이 두려움에 떨고 있었다.his eyes were full of fear. 내가 있는 선미
공간까지 열기 가 느껴졌다. I felt a strong heat where I was. 이대로 있다간 잿더미로
44
되겠다는 심정에 문가에 붙어 때를 기다리던 찰나에 이현익 동지가 내 눈앞에 나타났다.
Comrade Yi showed up while I was thinking I would die standing so near the door. 그땐 이미 양
놈 들은 이미 물속으로 도망쳤거나 불타 죽었을 때다. at that time, big noses were already
abandoning their ship and jumped into the river or they were already burnt 배가 거진 불탔다.
the ship was almost burnt down. 난 이현익 동지와 물속으로 들어가서 수영치기 시작했다.
Yi and I jumped to water and started to swim. 기름진 물이 내 목구멍으로 들어오는 걸
느꼈다. I felt that oily water seeping down my throat. 옆으로 반쯤 불에 탄 밥의 얼굴이 스쳐
떠내려가고 있었다.beside me, Bob's half burnt face was passing before my eyes.
5. Call of Duty: Operations
MIG 19 and White Horse
Fig. 26. Left: The interview scene of Lee. 1983.
Right: The Mig 19 of Lee Woong-Pyoung.1983, Courtesy of ohmynews
Chun Doo-hwan, a former South Korean army general who took over the South Korean
government thorough a coup d'état in 1979 after President Park was assasinated, was the
president of South Korea on February 25, 1983. I was then a child playing with a friend outside
45
my home. I heard a loud siren go off and my mom call me to get inside our house. She turned on
the TV, and we watched the emergency news broadcast that a North Korean air fighter Lee
Woong-Pyoung, who was a North Korean air force corporal, crossed the border between North
and South Korea. He defected to South Korea with his MIG-19 (see fig. 26). The story of Lee,
who was later called “a defected warrior from North”, was massively used as propaganda
material for President Chun’s presidency. Stressing the North Korean threat was a ruse to justify
his anti-democratization policies.
Fig. 27. A photo of White horse, South Korea 9rd Infantry Division. Ilsan. Korea, unknown source
The town where I lived in for ten years of my childhood was a huge military town known as the
‘White Horse’ 9rd Infantry division (see fig. 27). Most of my friends’ fathers were army officers
in the division. My father was a command sergeant major who had served for thirty-three years.
Like many towns near the DMZ (De-Militarized Zone), my town was home to a military base.
46
My playground was my father’s military base. Every weekend I visited my father's office on the
base and I played with soldiers. They made sweet wheat breads for me and I watched Doctor
Zhivago film with thousands of soldiers in the base’s huge theater.
Memories of my childhood in the 20th Century are mostly full of camouflage colors and
bragging to my friend that I rode my father's military jeep to go to my school. Five years later, on
a cold day I was walking along the road through anti-tank barriers to high school. I faintly heard
the announcement of North Korean dialect that their wrestler got a gold medal in the
international wrestling competition. Every winter, I was able to hear the propaganda news from
across the border because my high school was close to DMZ. From my classroom, it was no
surprise to see a combat helicopter passing by at eye level while I was studying.
About twenty years later, I was watching the savviest military TV commercial that I had ever
seen while watching a football game. It was the first time I watched the U.S. Army Strong TV
commercial (see fig. 28); I wondered whether this footage was from a video game or footage
from actual events. Every time I saw the video, I was curious about who these soldiers were and
what they were doing in the video. Their impersonal images in an idealized battle scene created
another story of soldiers in wartime. With sophisticated aesthetics, the commercial was
successful propaganda justifying the use of military power. Its mystification of the soldiers’
identity and aestheticization of military images inspired me to draw portraits of an unidentified
soldier, tapping into my memory of military service and fictional imagination.
47
Fig. 28. U.S. Army Strong TV commercial 2010, courtesy of U.S. Army
Call of Duty: Operations 2010 consists of three animations: Operation Camel (see fig.29), Deer
Down (see fig.30) and Operation Seaweed (see fig. 31). Inspired by military propaganda
commercial images and the popular video game “Call of Duty,” the animations create mysterious,
absurd and bored portraits of fictional soldiers derived from anonymous images of soldiers in a
satirical look at military culture. Unidentified faces and landscapes recreate another story, a new
warrior fable.
Fig. 29. Sung Rok Choi, Operation Camel, HD animation 2010
48
Fig.30, Sung Rok Choi, Deer Down. 2010
Fig.31. Sung Rok Choi, Operation Seaweed. 2010
Through this project, I ask myself what my duty is as a man and as an artist in relation to politics
and power. With this question in mind, I explore and interweave fact and fiction and propaganda
film and comics together with the subject of military experience. I use traditional animation
49
techniques that use water colored drawings and sound effects to create animated landscapes.
Single scenes are activated by elements animated to repeat simple movements, as in a shadow
play (see fig. 32). The shadow play is an ancient theater form of storytelling that uses cut-out
techniques to make flat articulated puppets capable of many movements. Many animators who
work in stop-motion adopted techniques from shadow play. Call of Duty: Operations, however,
uses digital animation tools instead of the manual stop-motion.
Fig. 32 Chinese shadow play figure of Buddhist Hell - the Punishment of Belly Smashing
Set of the Mandschu Prince; Qing Dynasty, Deutsches Ledermuseum, Offenbach (Germany)
In Operation Camel (see fig.29), the subtle movement of the driver’s tank and the repetitive
sound of its caterpillar treads helps create a psychological landscape that illustrates the
unidentified and concealed tension of warfare. It hints that there is some invisible threat and that
something ominous is about to happen to the character or to the viewer. In Deer Down, the
50
landscape is psychologically charged in a different way, showing an unseen threat in a military
scene. This animation is based on an actual photo (see fig. 33) that I found on the internet that
shows a camouflaged sniper team peering through their special goggles and scopes, aiming at
their target.
Fig. 33. A sniper team photo. Unknown source.2011
When I found this photo of a sniper team, I wanted to insert in them into something like a
National Geographic video of two deer mating in the peaceful forest to point out the absurdity of
warfare surrounded by the state of nature. In Operation Seaweed (see fig. 31), the absurdity of
warfare is conveyed through a scene where the viewer sees a dangerous shark fin approaching
while the navy seal peering above the water’s surface through his goggles doesn't. He can't heed
the warning and doesn’t realize that he may be both attacker and victim. These three animations
51
tell soldiers’ stories that we are not used to seeing on TV or in newspapers as they usually only
appear in the media for purposes of propaganda. Glorified images of soldiers depersonalizes
them. In propagandistic commercials and recruitment ads, soldiers become objects to be used
without question. We are not encouraged to ask: what are they doing and why are they here or
there?
In the review of my solo show at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, art critic Savannah Schroll
Guz notes:
And individual experience is the focus of three keynote videos. "Call of Duty:
Operation Camel/Deer Down/Seaweed" (2011) makes titular reference to the
video game, which casts users as soldiers. But Choi's animated watercolors
make viewers into observers. Viewer attention is focused on each man's
impassive resignation rather than on potential threats or perpetrated horrors.
The soldier in "Operation Camel" drives a tank away from some unseen (but
smoldering) desert rout. A "Deer Down" soldier camouflaged by woodland
brush, creeps forward on his elbows to blast some undefined target. Two deer
mate nearby, undaunted by the shot. The last soldier emerges from ocean water
wearing scuba gear.
The Brechtian quality of these naïve depictions points up our conditioned
expectations: Where is the impersonal, unfailingly heroic aura assigned to
soldiers in recruitment and propaganda videos? There, physical prowess and
valor eclipse any sense of individual experience. Here, Choi offers a view of
the disillusioned individual. Considering South Korea's compulsory two-year
conscriptions, this is likely closer to many men's understanding of "duty." 15
My animations, with saturated watercolor depictions of boyish characters and military themes,
are influenced by Japanese manga artists such as the prominent film director and animator Hayao
Miyazaki. Like many postwar generation Japanese animators, he was interested in depicting war,
environment issues, and spirituality. His animation Future Boy Conan 1984 (see fig. 34) tells the
story of a postwar heroic boy who brings a new ray of hope to the world.
52
Fig 34. Hayao Miyazaki, A still from Future Boy Conan. 1984. Nippon animation. Tokyo
Miyazaki’s animations made me curious about the world of animation. When I was child, most
South Korean children grew up with the Japanese robot animation genre, from "Super Robot" to
“Real Robot” such as Tetsujin 28-go16 (see fig. 35), Mazinger Z, Gundam and Neo Genesis
Evangelion. Most of their narratives dealt with war, good and
evil, robots and heroes. My memory of these animations
inspired my next animation Operation Mole 2012.
6. Operation Mole
"Nothing disturbs me, no one has tracked me down, above the
moss seems to be quiet thus far at least, but even if all were
Fig.35. Yokoyama, Mitsuteru. Tetsujin not quiet I question whether I could stop to keep watch now: I
28-go. 1956 Japan
53
have changed my place, I have left the upper world and am in my burrow and I feel its effect at
once. It is a new world, endowing me with new powers." Franz Kafka The Burrow17
The Operation Mole project is a seven- channel animation installation. Each channel creates a
storyline that intersects with those of the other channels. The narratives are based on my
memories combined with historical events and are relayed through multiple projections, monitors,
theatrical props, a mural and a bunker set which is papered with simulated concrete block hand
painted in water color. This installation is constructed intentionally as a kitschy historical
museum display (see fig. 37).
Fig.36. An illustration of a South Korean
soldier inspecting the 1st North Korean
Invasive Tunnel.1974
54
Fig. 37. Sung Rok Choi, Operation Mole. 2012. An installation view. Miller Gallery. Pittsburgh
The Operation Mole project is based on the invasive North Korean tunnels incident of the 1970s
that loom large in my childhood memories. Three tunnels excavated by North Korea for surprise
attacks on South Korea were found in 1974, 1975
and 1978 (see fig. 36 and 38) and more
unidentified tunnels between north and south are
still assumed to exist. The incident accelerated the
DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency) program to improve tunnel detection
technology in the 1980s. According to the DARPA
Fig. 38. A U.S. Army illustration of North Korean
Tunnel locations, Courtesy of New World
Encyclopedia
tunnel detection report:
55
The discovery in late 1974 and early 1975 of North Korean tunnels
beneath the Korean Demilitarized Zone focused attention on
tunneling as a means of clandestinely placing intelligence agents
and possibly larger forces a kilometer or more inside South Korean
territory. In October, 1978, a third tunnel was discovered which, if
completed, could have infiltrated about one division of fully armed
troops per hour into South Korea. The United Nations Command
responded by deploying various existing tunnel detection
techniques as quickly as possible. On a longer time scale the
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) originated
a program to explore new tunnel detection techniques applicable
not only to the Korean problem, but also to tunnel detection in
general. This report describes investigations in support of this
DARPA research program.18
In 1970s and 1980s, there was serious tension between North and South and mutual provocation.
The North Korean ruler Kim Il-Sung was alive and the South Korean president, a former army
general, took over the country, claiming he would stabilize the country amidst political,
ideological and economical struggles.
The origin of "Operation Mole"
In the1980s, the South Korean government used stories and documents about the three tunnels
discovered in the 70s as educational materials in its campaign against the North Korean regime.
This education was not only directed to school children but to the entire South Korean people.
Tour programs to visit the tunnel sites facilitated propagandistic education. I was the one of the
children who was taught about what the enemy did. I saw cartoons in my history books, drawn in
comic book style, of soldiers looking like 'moles' digging a huge hole under the ground. To
dehumanize, enemies are often equated with animals and North Korean soldiers were depicted as
moles that dig tunnels really quickly.
56
There was another historical South Korean
propaganda animation series “ 똘이장군(General
Ddol-e)” (see fig. 39), the first propaganda animation
developed to educate children in anti-communist
doctrine and instill and impose the importance of
patriotism. I found it interesting that in both North
and South Korean animation, villains are depicted as
wolves like the one in the Walt Disney version of
Peter and the Wolf. In North Korean animation, the
U.S. army is portrayed as wolves, and the South
Fig .39. Kim Chung-Ki. General Ddolee.1978.
Dongwha co.
Korean army is portrayed as rats. On the other hand,
South Korean animation depicts the North Korean
army as wolves and Kim Il-Sung as a coward pig. Memories of these treatments prompted
titling my project Operation Mole.
In Operation Mole, I imagined a driver who drives a mole tank that drills and travels
underground in a different world to complete the glorious task of detonating a bomb; however
my fictional character has another agenda. His own task is to save his love. While on his journey,
he witnesses multiple political events both above and underground.
57
Fig. 40. Sung Rok Choi, Operation Mole: Farewell Comrade. HD animation. 2012
The first scene and chapter of his story presents a grand military parade and propagandistic
ceremony to bid him farewell on his journey and heroic operation (see fig. 40). This scene plays
with and blends multiple influences and cultural references from American internet culture and
the North Korean military aesthetic. For instance, in this North Korean marching army scene, I
quote internet slang expressions (laughing out loud, be right back), mutate the McDonald's logo,
and alter a quote from Karl Marx: “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce”. 19
The second part of Marx’s quote is altered; “farce” becomes “fart”, “fuck” and “fap” in an
endless satirical chain of our absurd history. In keeping with totalitarian propaganda traditions, I
painted a landscape mural (see fig. 41) on the gallery walls around and where the monitors were
hung.
58
Fig.41. Sung Rok Choi, Operation Mole, Installation view, 2012
The figure in the mural is based on a North Korean
propaganda poster (see fig.42) that emulates the Soviet style.
Departing from the agitprop poster image, my mole tank
driver holds a “Rock on you" sign instead of a rifle or
missile. The mole tank is soaring up to idolize his journey
and function as much as possible as propaganda. The scene
in the mural is also shown in the animation Operation Mole:
Farewell Comrade in the last moments of the military
parade scene.
Fig. 42. A North Korean Propaganda
poster, unknown source
59
Repetition is one of the main conceptual ideas and structuring devices of this project. For
instance, one installation element occupies four monitors with each showing one of the four
views of the same mole tank and its driver. The front view of the mole tank (see fig. 43) shows a
hypnotic repetition of the drill that constantly spins. The scene creates an abstract illusion that
alludes to the endless underground journey of the mole tank and driver.
Fig.43. Sung Rok. Choi, Operation Mole:The front view of the mole tank. HD animation 2012
Marcel Duchamp created a similar hypnotic vision with a spinning image, attempting to make a
three dimensional film with a kinetic machine that was made from the turntable of a record
player. The machine spun drawings and was filmed. Duchamp called these works “ Rotoreliefs”
and the resultant film is now called “Anemic cinema”(see fig. 44).
In Anemic cinema, Duchamp played with an idea that blends images and puns that he wrote in
the spinning circles. 22 His experiment with showing and not showing creates its own way of
telling a story. The idea of concealing relates to my idea constructing nonlinear structures
consisting of multiple images without any certain order.
60
Fig. 44, Marcel Duchamp, Anemic cinema. 1926
The second view within the installation’s four monitors is a scene of the mole tank driver that
shows not only his face in the machine but also other events from outer space (see fig.45). In this
scene, I referred to a scene from sci-fi movies and animations that I watched as a kid. For
instance, a scene at the end of Star Wars 3: Episode IV-New Hope (1977) in which Luke attacks
the Death Star with his X-fighter (see fig. 46) shows a close up of his face. We learn of his
situation thorough his facial expression and the changing colors of his environment and through
the voiceover of Obiwan Kenobi, the master of the Jedi who helps Luke.
61
Fig.45, Sung Rok Choi, Operation Mole. the driver of the Mole tank, 2012
Fig.46, a still from Star Wars IV: New Hope. Lucas film.1977
For the third scene, I designed a control room where we view the driver from behind as he
watches many monitors during his journey (see fig. 47). The monitors show many different
62
images including those from North Korean news and the propaganda animation ‘Yacht Trip’, a
South Korean girl group music video, American football, CNN news on the killing of Osama Bin
Laden operation and a scene of pigs being dumped and buried alive in South Korea. Through this
succession of scenes, I present the driver in an absurd situation. He watches every kind of infoentertainment video that he desires despite his serious and solitary task.
Fig. 47 Sung Rok Choi, Operation Mole, The control room of the mole tank. 2012
His setting was inspired by the designs of many military control rooms like the U.S. drone
control room in Nevada where operators watch multiple monitors and information to control a
drone remotely. For example, an operator based in the USA flies a drone in Afghanistan and
launches missiles at militants half a world away (see fig. 48). I was interested in depicting the
absurdities of military aesthetics and technologies in my animated operator’s room.
63
By showing many different videos with
multiple cultural, political and ideological
references, I want to reveal that I have been
influenced by certain aspects of American
culture. Americans feel that they are
connected with the outside world by
watching television. Whether the programs
Fig.48 . A drone operator in Nevada. Courtesy of the U.S
Air Force
present truths or fabrications, they become
tools that brainwashes people’s consciousness to make them believe that what they are watching
is factual. I want to integrate this phenomenon in my story by illustrating that the driver is being
“educated” by a flood of images and that this overstimulation is designed to make him lose his
own power of judgment. He is completely consumed by following the operating instructions that
of his machine and completing his glorious task, just like a drone operator in Nevada.
In the last scene of the four views of the mole tank installation, I create a scene that shows the
rear view of the mole tank to complete the viewer’s transition through the four monitors from the
front point of the drill to its trail (see fig. 49). Viewers become a part of the self-referential
system depicted on screen and also in real space; they are aware that they are lost in the process
of piecing together a coherent image from multiple layers on multiple monitors. The rear view
creates a layer that shows both external and internal views of the tank. We can see inside through
the rear windows of the machine. A gallery viewer can get the idea that these four monitors of
the installation create a physical space for the mole tank.
64
Fig. 49 , Sung Rok Choi, Operation Mole. The rear view of the mole tank. 2012
The monitors are installed as layers of a theatrical set constructed to present cross sections of this
tank. Together, they transport the gallery viewer along with the driver on his endless journey
underground.
Installing the monitors on wooden structures in order to show different views of the implied
mole tank was my main challenge in this section. The scenes they supported were intended to
ridicule and be humorous. The wooden structures that I built to support the installation’s
monitors (see fig. 37) candidly expose their utilitarian function. Their total functionality refers to
the displays of American megastores such as Costco and Best Buy with their rows of multiple
TV’s. Every time I went to such megastores, I felt lost in the proliferating images on monitors all
playing the same footage (see fig. 50). Such consumerist excess is subject to ridicule and humor
as it enters the territory of the absurd.
65
Fig. 50. Sung Rok Choi. Televisons on display at Costco in Pittsburgh PA. 2012
Along with the four animations on TVs that comprise the mole tank and the first chapter of this
story ‘Farewell Comrade,’ two other episodes ‘WTF’ (see fig. 51) and ‘Final Love’ (see fig. 58)
were shown on monitors on another side wall. These two stories illustrate other chapters in the
mole tank’s epic story.
‘WTF’ is a thirty-second short animation based on an actual story of how the South Korean army
found out about the North Korean infiltrative tunnels. A farmer working in his rice field felt the
ground shaking and heard weird machine sounds from underground. Eventually, he called the
police and army. ‘WTF’ depicts and begins with this account. I made its landscape like a Korean
folk landscape painting that depicts a calm peaceful rice field with a farmer and his dog. I
imagined that the mole tank destroys the farmer’s ordinary peaceful moment, ruins his rice field
and attacks him and his dog. The collision of the fantastical machine and the farmer’s mundane
life is another absurd example of how our lives clash with our technologies that become weapons
that ironically destroy us.
66
Fig. 51. Sung Rok Choi, A still from Operation Mole: WTF, 2012
The relationship between weapons and humans is suggested in another panoramic animation
work (see fig. 52) that shows a vista of destruction. It refers to multiple political events: the
critical situation in the Middle East; the 2010 foot and mouth disease epidemic in South Korea;
border conflicts between South and North Korea and Israel and Palestine among others. I tried to
create a landscape that contains every kind of human absurdity and cruelty. The infantile
depiction of these timeless episodes in the landscape is all that makes them bearable.
Fig. 52. Sung Rok Choi. A still from Operation Mole, Panoramic animation. 2012
67
The landscape is composed mainly in three parts. At the left side (see fig. 53), I drew a concrete
building that refers to a U.S. military base that I saw in South Korea that displayed an American
flag of ridiculously large proportions. At the same time, the building also refers to a compound in
the Middle East. It controls U.S. drones that destroy many buildings. Underneath the building in
my animation, there is a water torture chamber that also refers to actual secret torture spaces. A
yellow liquid surrounds the torture chamber, slowly contaminating the area, echoing the areas
contaminated by the dumped leftover Agent Orange from U.S. military bases in South Korea.
Fig. 53. Detail of Operation Mole, panoramic animation (left side), 2012
68
Fig.54. Detail of The The Operation Mole, panoramic animation (center), 2012
Fig. 55. Detail of The Operation Mole, panoramic animation (right side), 2012
69
Ironically, the flag at the top of the concrete building changes after a hovering helicopter
destroys the building. This action represents the history of the U.S. military intervention in
central and South America and the Middle East where allies are bombed. While the building is
changing its flag, the helicopter flies to the middle of the landscape to the border of the two sides
in conflict (see fig. 54). In the buffer zone between two watchtowers, anything that moves is
exploded by land mines. Their bodies and the land they were on are strewn all over the area.
This is a typical scene in the DMZ because it is
planted with a massive number of landmines.
At the right side (see fig. 55), a green truck is
constantly dumping live pigs into a deep hole.
This is a critique of the South Korean
government policy on the foot and mouth
Fig. 56. A picture of pigs dumped alive in South Korea.
2010. Courtesy of South Korea animal protection
society
disease of 2010. The event was handled in a
cruel capitalist manner. Pigs were dumped and
buried alive instead of euthanizing them before burial. This is how the sick pigs and cattle are
treated in the name of cost-effectiveness (see fig. 56). The cruelty of capitalism and the
supremacy of the profit motive is further revealed in my animation when the bodies of the pigs
shift to those of humans dumped in the hole. The actual sound of desperately crying pigs
remains even after their image fades. The persistent sound of fear and pain comments on any
ethnic or political conflict that causes humans to be killed as animals, whether in Korea or
anywhere else in the world. After the building on the left is destroyed and all are dead, a flying
drone above destroys everything on the ground.
70
While these scenes are happening above ground, the mole tank underground works its way
through the whole area from the right side of the projected landscape to left. It is as if the mole
tank driver is oblivious to or doesn’t care about the tragedies of the upper world. The mole tank’s
journey reveals the cruelty and absurdity of our civilization that we can’t even recognize, let
alone forget or retain in our consciousness. The viewers of this panorama stand and watch the
landscape remotely, distanced from the tragedies. Spectators hear muted sounds made as if
heard from afar. Viewers can fill this distance with their own political backgrounds and
experiences and project them into a landscape where numerous unidentifiable parables and
parallel events are happening (see fig. 57).
Fig. 57. Sung Rok Choi, Operation Mole-, panoramic animation, installation view, 2012
The final scene of this story The Final Love (see fig. 58), presents a drawn landscape in which
the driver and his girl are having a sweet moment while a bunny hops around and a crow sits on
71
a tree. Later in the scene, the crow flies away while a rainbow cloud spreads all across the sky.
This scene adopts a fairy tale style aesthetic with its vivid colors and cute animals, just like a
typical Disney animation. The rainbow cloud recalls the one that I used in my first animation
‘Rainbow Bomb, Vomiting Yellow and M16’ and reiterates the installations’ theme of the
repetition of history or Friedrich Nietzsche’s concept of “eternal recurrence.” I wanted a
celebrative aspect in this last scene of my project to balance the tragic with the hopeful in its
ending.
Fig. 58. Sung Rok Choi, Operation Mole-The Final Love, 2012
The last happy moment of the animation reminds me of the television painting guru Bob Ross
who truly inspired me when I was young. Bob Ross once said: “We want happy paintings.
Happy paintings. If you want sad things, watch the news.”
While creating this project, I considered the relationship between propaganda, fantasy and
animation through a study of the history of animation. Arthur Melbourne Cooper was a pioneer
of propagandistic use of animation through his work Matches: An Appeal (1899): which was a
72
petition to the public to donate matches to
soldiers fighting in the Boer War”.20
Among other historical film makers who
inspired me are the famous sci-fi
filmmaker Georges who made The
Impossible Voyage and A Trip to the
Moon, as well as Peter Foldes who made A
Short Vision which represented the horrors
Fig. 59. Winsor McCay, A still from The Sinking of the
Lusitania. 1918
of nuclear war.
“Working with actual historical documents, Winsor McCay’s animated documentary The Sinking
of the Lusitania (see fig. 59) made in 1918, was a cartoon that imitated the rhythm of newsreels;
25,000 drawings depicting the final hours of an ocean steamer sunk by a German submarine
shimmered their elegant lines on the screen.”21 It is interesting to see how the animated
documentary was used to ferment anti German sentiment during World War I. Later we see
many propaganda animations that depicted events to justify and glorify each war. During World
War II, Japanese animated film director Mitsuyo Seo was ordered to make a propaganda
animation, Momotaro’s God Blessed Sea
Warriors (see fig. 60), by the Japanese Navy
Ministry in 1943. The character “Momotaro”
used in the animation was the most famous hero in
Japanese folklore. It was common to use such
Fig. 60. Mitsuyo Seo, Momotaro's God blessed Sea
Warriors, 1943
73
famous characters in
propaganda animations during
the war period. Similarly, Walt
Disney produced a propaganda
animation in 1942 during World
War II; Der Fuehrer’s Face (see
fig. 61) features Donald Duck as
a hard working employee in a
Fig. 61. Jack Kinney, Screenshot of Donald Duck from the film Der
Fuehrer's Face, 1942, Walt Disney
Nazi war factory. Instilling fear
of becoming like Donald Duck, a clog in the fascist machine, the film was propaganda made to
encourage Americans to buy war bonds and get involved in the war against Germany.
I found interesting connections between each propaganda animation I investigated and the
relationship between humor and technology in Operation Mole. In Hollywood Flatlands:
Animation, Critical Theory, and The Avant-Garde, Ester Leslie analyzes the relationship
between American funnies and militarized technology, citing Walter Benjamin’s claims about
Sergei Eisenstein’s film Battleship Potemkin:
The strange thing about the American funnies is that ‘the laughter
that these films provoke hovers over an abyss of horror. The
funnies are the flipside of the deadly technical power on show in
Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin, where modern technology, in
shape of military technologies, the battleship and weaponry of
army, is fought over and with. Benjamin claims that the best films,
superior films, themselves technological products, take as their
theme the workings of technology, a technology that is more lively
than humans, a technology that has the power to control, hurt or
amplify the living. And these films show collectives in their
74
struggle to master and reclaim machinery, and set it to productive,
not destructive, uses.22
In Operation Mole, the mole tank, which is a fantastic machine creature, is the main element that
reveals the story of destructive history. The machine itself is depicted in many ways and has
many roles: witness, observer, animal, and friend. The machine’s driver, however, only passively
watches the TVs during his journey. The history flying by him is absurd and funny, if also
bearable and cruel. This project allowed me to think about many ways of making an animated
political fiction and the possibilities of narrative construction. I created a story of a machine and
a human character that blurs the boundaries between fantasy and documentary. Moreover, I have
challenged myself to contextualize and portray shifting political events with flat imagery of a
flatland where everything destroys and repeats itself.
Conclusion
During the past three years of art practice at Carnegie Mellon University, I have explored
numerous mediums and thought about fundamental questions such as what art means and what
can or should an artist do relative to the investigation and understanding of cultural and political
phenomena. What are the social and philosophical contexts of art? Existential questions arose.
‘Who I am’ and ‘where am I from’ are critical questions with which to contextualize historical
and political events. The anthropological inquiry into my family lineage in my first project
Landscape of Choi (2009) experimented with animated paintings and photography. The idea of
historical investigation through a study of individuals and their relationship to universal history
prompted expanding my scope. I looked at the history of cruelty and absurdity in our time and
75
space by reconstructing controversial historical events in my animated drawing work Daedong
River Slayer 1866 (2010) and thorough the animated portrait series Call of Duty: Operations
(2010).
I have investigated phantom images in portraiture from military culture, and discussed
the relationship between media and propaganda by referring to actual U.S. Army TV
commercials and other governmental propaganda campaigns.
Based on these experiments and ideas, I have created: narrative structures with multiple media
(animation, drawing and installation) in Operation Mole. These works interweave fantasy with
documentary fact, and contemplative reverie with political histories. I am interested in the
blurring of these polarized forms and states in order to make new landscapes of history, politics,
culture and ideology. I also examine how the epic form can be applied to historical, political and
personal stories, as well as pointing out the propagandistic heroism of contemporary fairy-tales,
which we can see in many images from everyday mass media (politics, sports and entertainment).
In making an animation, I investigate the historical relationship between divisive propaganda and
innocent fantasy: from Felix the Cat to North Korean animations, the difference can be difficult
to discern. Humor mixed with cruelty can give even the most informed or sophisticated viewer
reason to pause.
76
Endnotes
1
Hegel, G.W.F. Philosophy of Nature, Oxford University Press, USA, 2004, Print.
2
Heidegger, Martin. The Question Concerning Technology, in Heidegger, Martin, Basic
Writings: Second Edition, Revised and Expanded, ed. David Farrell Krell. New York: Harper
Collins, 1993. Print.
3
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. The Use and Abuse of History. New York: Liberal Arts, 1957.
Print.
4
Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time, trans. by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson.
London: SCM Press,1962. Print.
5
Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology, p. 4
6
Baudrillard, Jean. The Orbital and The Nuclear in Simulacra and Simulation. University of
Michigan Press, 1995. Print.
7
Virilio, Paul Art and Fear, translated by Julie Rose. New York:Continuum,2003. Print. P.16
8
Ibid., p.36
9
"J. M. W. Turner." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 05 June 2012. Web. 08 May 2012.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._W._Turner>.
10
Furay, Conal, and Michael J. Salevouris. The Methods and Skills of History: A Practical
Guide. Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson, 2010. Print.
11
"Afterall: Spring 2011,Counter-Time: Group Material's Chronicle of US Intervention in
Central and South America. Web. 08 May 2012.
77
<http://www.afterall.org/journal/issue.26/counter-me-group-material-s-chronicle-of-usintervention-in-central-and-south-america>.
12
Gordon H. Chang. Whose "Barbarism"? Whose "Treachery"? Race and Civilization in the
Unknown United States–Korea War of 1871, The Journal of American History, March 2003.
13
"Sakoku." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 05 Aug. 2012. Web. 08 May 2012.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakoku>.
14
"General Sherman Incident." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 05 Apr. 2012. Web. 08 May
2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Sherman_incident>.
15
Guz, Savannah Schroll. "Art Reviews + Features: A Korean artist's riff on Call of Duty asks us
to reflect on warfare." Pittsburgh City Paper. 12 May 2011. Web. 08 May 2012.
<http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/pittsburgh/a-korean-artists-riff-on-call-of-duty-asks-us-toreflect-on-warfare/Content?oid=1387408>.
16
Schodt, Fredrick L. Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics. New York: Kodansha
International, 1983. Print. p.156
17
Kafka, Franz. The Basic Kafka. New York: Washington Square, 1979. Print.
18
J. F. Vesecky, W. A. Nierenberg, A. M. Despain. Tunnel Detection, SRI international, April
1980
19
Marx, Karl. Karl Marx Selected Works Vol 2. [S.l.]: [s.n.], 1942. Print.
20
Leslie, Esther. Hollywood Flatlands: Animation, Critical Theory and the Avant-Garde. New
York: Verso, 2002. Print. p. 6
78
21
Ibid., p. 14
22
Ibid., p. 112
79
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