[스크랩] "What Is Micropop?" by Midori Matsui (2007)

The term "Micropop" is used to describe the attitude or approach to life that creates an unique and original path of living or aesthetics by combining fragments gathered from various places, without relying on institutional morals or major ideologies.

It refers to the stance taken by people who have been relegated to a "minor" position vis-a-vis the major culture that surrounds them, in the same manner as immigrants and children do. Those people - forced to function within the major culture without having sufficient tools to do so - make do with what they have, trying to fill in the gaps through leaps of imagination, thereby coming up with a peculiar amalgam or composite. The process of developing such a strange culture bears close resemblance to the way that children or immigrants, ignorant of the grammar of the major tongue and deficient in terms of vocabulary, come up with their own new language characterized by neologisms and deviant grammatical constructs.

Micropop also focuses its attention upon those places inside the city that people have forgotten, as well as upon obsolete, time-worn things. By adding something to those things and places - that is, often the minor act of inserting them within a new chain of relationships, or the setting up of a new site for gathering - Micropop evokes their hidden meaning, creating the impetus for the fostering of a new consciousness of community.

The idea of Micropop was inspired by the concept of "minor literature" as proposed by the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze. It referred originally to the modernist novels written by such authors as Kafka, Joyce, Becket. Those authors, writing in languages that were not their mother tongues, created new compounds/composites within the gaps left by those major languages, linking lofty ideas and themes with vulgar actions and expressions, thereby developing new structures of discourse. Deleuze's analysis went beyond the categories of literary criticism, treating the methods adopted by those novels and the stance supporting them as a model for cultural creation in general. He saw it as a process of creation that takes place under fluid circumstances in an age when many people live away from their home countries, in which the consciousness of smaller regional cultures is forced to transform itself under the broad influence of the world's major cultures.

To sum up, the concepts of "Micropop" and "pop" emerge from the confusion of the cultural set of values known as "post-modern." The term "pop" is another expression that Deleuze used to demonstrate the stance or position of "minor" creation (it is "pop" with a small "p," and not directly related to American Pop Art). Instead of referring to major styles of popular culture, it demonstrates the basic posture that encourages the emergence of a consciousness or awareness of new forms of culture peculiar to a certain place. It expresses the stance of those people who live in a big city while not belonging to any particular institution or system; instead, such people glean their information from various sources, enjoying both high culture and popular culture, and treating them as equals. The sensibility of "minor pop" takes the manufactured objects of popular culture and reads into them allegorical symbolism of human dreams and desires, finding philosophical meaning in the "insignificant" events of everyday life as well as hints for action leading toward freedom.

In that sense, Micropop is also micro-political, as it involves the efforts individuals make to remove themselves from the framework of institutional thinking and the influence of modern capitalism and standardization, and to develop a posture of discovering the creation of an original sensation/perception and acquiring the venue of creation, while responding to the substantive conditions of "the here and now." That effort is the demonstration by the individual of the statement, carried to extremes, of his/her voluntary ability to determine or decide. While responding to the mutability of things and thoughts in the post-modern era, that posture does not accept or approve of the concept that everything can be reduced to a simulation of a play of symbols/representations, or that reality can be surpassed by copies.

Accordingly, the stance adopted by Micropop can be seen as one of resistance toward the thrust toward totality that is being made by global capitalism and information networks. It sprouts amidst cultural crisis, for example, in those societies caught up in the vortex of vast structural change, or beset by disaster, or haunted by a sense of stagnation/frustration.

Japan, from the mid-1990s to the end of the decade, experienced precisely such an age of cultural crisis. The massive Kobe earthquake and the sarin-gas subway attacks of 1995 only amplified and intensified people's anxiety toward the future. In addition to that, the prolonged economic recession lured young people away from a pursuit of material success and toward a search for spiritual meaning in their daily lives. The standardization of lifestyles and reification of cultural expressions encouraged them to create a narrow space where they could experience their own original sensations and perceptions. The means by which they accomplished that included recombining the relations between familiar things, gathering together "useless" fragments to create new compounds and amalgams, and reviving the meaning of forgotten places and things.

Those efforts, in turn, gave birth to new art forms and activities. The childlike creativity and curiosity of these "minor people" transformed their so-called "drawbacks" -- i.e., their lack of funds, technology, and social status, and most importantly, their deviation from the norms of "adult" society - into their forte. The expressions of this new art thinks up new ways to use abandoned things, such as old legends and empty spaces, creating venues for communication. They include drawings that relay the action of intervention and the process of association, or which support the formation of individual affinity, as well as video artworks that use collections of fragments that float to the surface and create a complete picture of a living being or personal character, in order to depict the continued and complicated nature of the everyday.

Micropop represents an attitude that expresses the efforts of individuals, in the final stage of post-modern culture, to find a way to survive. It is a mode of resistance to a process of growing inhumanity that began in the 1960s, and which now seems to have reached its extreme limits. By treating the disadvantageous conditions of those in a "minor" position as the unique foundation for a creative method, the people of Micropop have broadened the possibilities of renewing our sensation, and giving rebirth to the values of the world in which humans live.(강조는 인용자) 

(source: http://www.arttowermito.or.jp/natsutobira/natsutobira.html)

얼마만큼 비판할 수 있을까

서구 비판적 미술은 이렇게 흘러간다. 자 예술로 혁명을 해보자!(아방가르드) 아..그런데 해보니 예술을 포함해, 제도 자체가 이데올로기적 문제를 가지고 있었네? 제도-이데올로기를 비판하고 해체하자!(네오아방가르드) 그런데 지금은 제도 없으면 예술 자체가 성립이 안되네? 그렇다면 제도 안에서 제도를 바꿔보자!(뉴인스티튜셔널리즘 등) 그런데 바뀔 생각을 안하네? 멘붕...아니면 새로운 제도를 자유롭게 상상이라도 해보자!(관계미학)--상상만... 그와중에 예술은 감각적인 것을 재분배하는 힘이 있으니 우리의 희망입니다.(랑시에르)--그거 우리 맨날 해오던 건데 이 꼴이자나...

한국에서 아방가르드와 네오아방가르드가 있었다고 하기엔 좀 무리가 있지만, 확실히 현시점에서 제도가 없으면 창작행위를 지속하기가 힘들다. 그래서 국립현대미술관이나 서울문화재단 지원사업 개편, 서울시립의 일련의 전시 같은 것이 초미의 관심사로 떠오르는 것 같다.

하지만 이건 굉장히 의심스럽다. 그들은 제도가 변화하길 원하지만 근본적으로 바뀌길 원하지 않는다. 어떤 차원에서는 굉장히 제도 다운 제도를 요청한다. 예컨대 개념 정의에는 다소 차이가 있을 수 있지만 이런 식이다: 미술관은 미술관 다워야 하고 미술은 미술다워야 한다. 혹은 어떤 사람들은 제도가 무한대로 확장되길 원한다: 미술관이 이것저것 다 포용해야 한다는 식...

이 말이 꼭 틀렸다곤 볼 수 없다. 하지만 이런 주장은 마치 고양이에게 생선을 맡기는 꼴이다. 제도는 비제도를 위해서 기꺼이 자신을 내줄 준비가 되어있는가? 만약 제도가 어떤 변화를 시도한다면 어떤 이유에서? 당연히 제도 그 자신을 위해서다. 그런한 지배 이데올로기는 안전한만큼만 그 비판을 수용해 다음 버전으로 갱신된다. 

이런 견지에서 미술관의 정상화 같은 가능할 법한 일에 대한 요청/비판은 사회운동 차원에서 분명히 시도될 수 있고 그래야 하겠지만, 사실 가장 근본적인 비판은 아니다. 근본적인 비판은 가장 불가능한 것, 제도가 가장 수용하지 못하는 것에 대한 말하기다. 여기엔 대안이 없다. 하지만 반드시 말해져야만 하는 것이다. 그리고 그것은 당연히 예술 작품 그 자체로부터 나와야 한다.

David Joselit, Against Representation, In conversation with David Andrew Tasmam

During February and March of 2015, David Andrew Tasman met with David Joselit to discuss his recent essays, “Material Witness” and “The Art Effect,” as well as the tragic death of Eric Garner, the limits of institutional critique, and art’s capacities beyond representation. 

The Art Effect (2014): http://www.aucegypt.edu/GAPP/CairoReview/Pages/articleDetails.aspx?aid=614

Material Witness (2015): http://theorytuesdays.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Material-Witness-Visual-Evidence-Joselit.pdf

David Andrew Tasman: In your recent essay in Artforum, “Material Witness,” you articulate the outrage many of us have felt in light of ongoing U.S discrimination and police brutality, contextualizing recent events to reflect on visual politics. Is your recommendation to be “skeptical of the ideological promises of representation,” in regards to the video of Eric Garner’s murder, an indictment of image or format?

David Joselit: To assess the efficacy of an image requires a definition of what we mean by success. I’ve been dismayed by the claims for image effects that seem exorbitant while also missing what an image can actually do. In the case of the video showing Garner being assaulted, the fact that his choking was recorded but didn’t lead to the outcome expected — namely, an indictment of the police officer involved — is an instance of the difference between what an image seems to show and what it can actually do. Art can occupy that space. What I define as a “format” in After Art is a strategy for activating the space between what an image shows and what an image does. Thinking about the real-world effects of images, including art images, results in two questions. Are images doing what you want them to do in a particular context? And, if they aren’t, does their format become increasingly relevant? The artwork almost always contains vestiges of what might be called the roots — or infrastructural extensions — of its entanglements in the world. These might include the means of production of the image, the human effort that brought it into being, its mode of circulation, the historical events that condition it, etc. The artwork’s format solidifies and makes visible that connective tissue, reinforcing the idea that the work of art encompasses both an image and its extensions. The term format does not merely distinguish between digital vs. analog, as medium might do, but points to how an image is situated within a set of relations that condition how efficacious it may be. Formats attract attention and exercise power. The difference between format and medium lies largely in the heterogeneity of the components — aesthetics, data, history, the scene of an action — which is anathema to traditional concepts of medium. When Bruno Latour talks about assemblages, he is talking about linkages — not the abstract infinity of a network. It’s difficult to quantify the limits of extension, for instance, one must think about what is folded into images as well as what extends out from them.

DAT: In your essay “Material Witness,” as one strategy to increase the legibility of these extensions, you cite Eyal Weizmann and Anselm Franke’s interest in Quintilian’s concept of “the mediated speech of inanimate objects.” Is this concept a critique of Bruno Latour’s “Parliament of Things,” or New Materialism and Post-humanism, in support of Vibrant Matter, Biopolitics, and Speculative Realism?

DJ: Well, these theories are complex, quite diverse and often contradictory in their positions. What I think they do share, however, is an effort to understand the agency of objects (politically, socially, materially), and a commitment to de-centering the importance of human perception in conceiving of the world. One of the important things I take away from this is that we need to change our habit of thinking that art objects stand for something else; that their primary function is to represent. Instead, these objects act in various ways, including provoking future events or effects. Representing is always retrospective: something has to pre-exist the art object in order to be re-presented. I think art’s special capacity is, on the contrary, its futurity.

DAT: How might this paradigm shift inflect modes of cultural production or the politics of art? Is there a wish for these kinds of actions to spill over outside of the art context?

DJ: I’ve changed my opinion on that quite a bit over time. When art moves outside of its own context it loses some of the power that is sustained through its connection to art institutions. The desire to go outside that context is also an implicit statement that the art world isn’t a place where power relations exist in a material way. In After Art, I argued that, while the art world in fact shouldn’t be elided with the world of enterprise or politics, it is in fact a realm of enormous cultural and economic power. Paradoxically, it seems to me that standard Institutional Critique has all but drifted away from engaging with the terms of the actual institutions that support art right now — in part because such critique has found such a welcome place in museums and galleries. The most potent examples I can recall in recent years have interrogated the conditions of labor for art handlers, or for the builders of museums and universities in the Persian Gulf. I wonder if a more productive mode than Institutional Critique is what the DIS collective is doing — which is to mobilize a potentially new model instead of critiquing existing ones. That seems to me ultimately where the future lies.

DAT: The line between transparency and opacity may in fact be a gradient: on the one hand transparency seems to operate within a sort of journalistic critical method, while opacity potentially operates within a mobilized form of communication or action. You conclude “Material Witness” with some doubts that the forensic image will be able to speak, coupled with a sanguine reference to Stefano Harney and Fred Moten’s concept of “the undercommons,” described in their 2013 eponymous book on one occasion as a space where, “the aim is not to support the general antagonism but to experiment its informal capacity.” What role can art have in, or learn from, the “undercommons”?

DJ: Since the rise of identity politics and its important achievements of the 1990s, and later through the writing of Jacques Rancière, there has been a strong association between visibility — or becoming visible — and political claims. Harney and Moten argue for the use-value of remaining outside of representation (and incidentally, so has Hito Steyerl in some of her recent works and writings). There are a lot of opaque spaces that art has the capacity to indicate and activate. Since right now almost anything can be monetized or rendered as information, we are all harvested and profiled as information-capital. Occlusions and opacities might be a means of protecting oneself from such economic forms of alienability or alienation. I think your term gradient is very helpful in this regard. The gradient of consumability is a powerful differential at a moment where the primary goal of a neoliberal system is to make things easy to consume; I think that art can forestall or at least slow down such easy consumption.

DAT: In your recent piece, “Art Effects” for The Cairo Review you present flickers of optimism in your assurance that art may also “participate in the formation of civil society […] putting into form new spaces of public interaction.” Do you see a similarity between the space described in Ariella Azoulay’s “citizenry of photography” and Harney and Moten’s “undercommons?”

DJ: Yes. I think that art has always been able to constitute spaces and publics that were not necessarily anticipated by its makers or commissioners — this is part of what I mean by art’s futurity. I think that seeing images of Apartheid, for instance, made a huge difference in mobilizing opposition to that system outside of South Africa. South African photographers addressed not just their own communities through their work, but the world, and this allowed pressure to be exerted from outside. If we live more and more in images, images attain more and more new powers. The question is how to experiment with such power, how to learn to use it for something other than accumulating capital.

ㅐㅐ

제임스 데이비슨 헌터 <기독교는 어떻게 세상을 변화시키는가: 포스트모더니즘 시대 정치신학의 한계와 가능성> http://book.naver.com/bookdb/book_detail.nhn?bid=7904370

벤야민, 수집가, 아케이드프로젝트 중에서

다음의 인용은 로잘린드 크라우스가 쓴 <북해에서의 항해>에서 오래된 매체 개념을 재활용하기 위한 이론적 근거로 긴밀히 사용되는 부분:

"수집에 있어 결정적인 것은 사물이 본래의 모든 기능에서 벗어나 그것과 동일한 사물들과 생각할 수 있는 한 가장 긴밀하게 관련을 갖도록 하는 것이다. 그러한 관계는 유용성과는 정반대되는 것이며, 완전성이라는 주목할 만한 범주에 속하게 된다. 이러한 '완전성'은 어떠한 것이어야 하는가<?> 그것은 단순한 현존이라는 사물의 완전히 비합리적인 성격을 새로운, 독자적으로 만들어낸 역사적 체계 속에 배치시킴으로써, 즉 수집을 통해 극복하려는 장대한 시도이다. 그리고 진정한 수집가에게 있어 이 체계 속에 들어 있는 하나하나의 사물은 어떤 시대, 지역, 산업이나 원래의 소유자에 관한 만학의 백과사전이 된다. 마지막 전율(취득되는 데 대한 전율)이 한 사물을 빠져나가는 가운데 사물이 응고되는 순간 특정한 물건을 하나의 마법의 원(magic circle: 마법진을 말하는듯) 안에 봉해버리는 것이야말로 수집가가 가장 깊숙이 마술에 홀리는 순간이다. ... 그는 자아를 잊어버렸다. 이는 분명하다. 그러나 그는 지푸라기라도 하나 붙잡고 다시 일어날 수 있는 힘이 있으며, 그의 감성을 둘러싸고 있는 안개의 바다에서 그가 지금 바로 손에 넣은 수집품이 하나의 섬처럼 더오르는 것이다--수집은 실천적인 상기의 한 형식이며 '가까이 있는 것'의 온갖 세속적인 현현 중에서 가장 구속력이 강한 현현이다. 그렇다면 어떤 의미에서 정치적인 고찰은 아무리 사소한 종류의 것이라도 골동품 거래에서 신기원을 여는 것이 된다."(533쪽)

'실내, 흔적'에 관해 쓴 <아케이드 프로젝트>의 다른 장에서 벤야민은 실내와 장식이 서구 초기 부르주아의 어떤 소외와 관련이 있다고 쓴다. 그래서 상기 인용에서도 수집가는 "자아를 잊어버렸다"고 한다. 하지만 '진정한' 수집가는 다시 일어날 수 있는 힘이 있다고 쓴다. 이 진정한 수집은 사물에 다른 방식으로 완전성--즉 아우라를 주입하는 수집가의 어떤 능력과 관련이 있는 것 같다. (그런 의미에서 부르주아의 실내 장식은 진정한 수집이 아니다.) 수집으로 아우라는 (세속적인) 가까이 있는 것(proximity)으로 떠오른다. 벤야민은 이것이 "어떤 의미에서 정치적인 고찰"이라고 썼다. 벤야민이 수집에 관해 이렇게 통찰할 수 있는 이유는 그 자신이 텍스트에 관한 훌륭한 수집가이기 때문이다. 그러니까 아케이드 프로젝트는 하나의 수집 프로젝트며, 그런 한 벤야민은 이것을 정치적 프로젝트라고 생각했다.

"수집가의 가장 비밀스러운 동기는 아마 이렇게 표현해볼 수 있을 것이다. 즉 그는 분산에 맞서 투쟁을 벌이는 것이다. ... [반면에] 알레고리가는 말하자면 수집가의 대극을 이루고 있다. 알레고리가는 각각의 사물들이 어떤 유사성을 갖고 있으며 어떤 관계를 맺고 있는지를 탐구하는 것을 통해 사물을 해명하는 것을 포기해버렸다. ... 이와 반대로 수집가는 서로 공존할 수 있는 것들을 하나로 결합시킨다. ... 그럼에도 불구하고 모든 수집가 속에는 알레고리가가 숨어 있게 마련이며, 모든 알레고리가 속에는 수집가가 숨어 있게 마련이다. 수집가에 관하여 말하자면 그의 수집은 결코 완전하지 않다. 단 한 조각이라도 결여되어 있으면 그가 수집해온 모든 것은 이러한 패치워크에 머문다. 다른 한편 알레고리가에게 사물들이란 사정에 정통한 사람만 알 수 있는 비밀스런 사전의 표제어에 불과하므로 그는 어떤 사물을 수집해도 결코 만족할 수 없을 것이다. 왜냐하면 침잠해서 사유하는 것을 통해 사물들 하나하나에게마다 어떤 의미를 반환하도록 요구할 수 있을지는 어떤 반성으로도 예견될 수 없는 것인 만큼 어떤 사물이 다른 사물의 자리를 대신할 가능성은 그만큼 적기 때문이다."(546-547쪽)

상기 인용은  수집가 Vs. 알레고리가에 관한 설명. 하지만 수집가가 어떤 완전한 마술적 백과사전을 이룬다고 할 지라도 그것이 완벽할 수 없기 때문에 비밀스럽게 수집가는 알레고리가라고 주장. 한편 알레고리가는 어떤 사물로 다른 사물을 대체하는 것이 장기이지만 알레고리가가 사물의 의미를 제대라 모르는 이상 그 사물 자체로 만족할 수 없기 때문에, 알레고리가는 사물을 계속 수집해야 한다.

말하자면 이런 것이다 어떤 덕후가 금발벽안 피규어를 완벽하게 수집했다고 했을 때, 정말 그런지는 확인 할 길도 없으며 새로운 피규어가 지금도 나오고 있는 이상 그럴 가능성도 없다. 언젠가 수집하지 못한 무언가는 나오기 마련이다. 그런 의미에서 완벽 수집이라는 말은 거짓말이다. 한편 금발벽안이 트랜드일 때 구입했던 얼리아답터는 금발벽안의 묘미를 파악할 능력이 없기 때문에 이것에 만족을 느끼지 못하며, 계속해서 적안흑발, 흑안적발 같은 새로운 피규어를 사야만 한다. 그런 의미에서 얼리아답터 또한 어떤 데이터베이스를 계속해서 끌어모으는 수집가가 된다.

이런 의미에서 골동품 수집가는 계속해서 체계를 완벽하게 만들기 위해서 얼리아답터가 되어야 하며, 얼리아답터는 어떤 것도 제대로 만족하며 사용해보지 못하기 때문에 그 만족을 위해 계속해서 새로운 것을 수집해야 한다.

*

벤야민의 수집가의 아이디어는 곧 바로 동시대 미술에서 주류의 형태로 떠오른 아카이브적 미술로 연결된다. 할 포스터는 <아카이브적 충동>에서 포스트모던 알레고리 충동과 구분해서 동시대 미술에서 나타나는 아카이브적 충동을 주목한 바 있다. 그는 데이터베이스 미술--인터넷이란 메가 아카이브를 기반으로 하는 가상적 레디메이드로서의 예술--과 아카이브적 예술 사이에 선을 긋는다. 그는 데이터베이스 미술이 철저히 가상적이라면 아카이브적 예술은 촉각적이고 면 대 면의 방식이라고 한다. 데이터베이스 예술이 다루기 쉬운 재료를 쉽게 가공해서 재조합하는 예술이라면, 아카이브적 미술의 재료들은 다루기 힘든, 대체물을 생각할 수 없는 파편들이다.

한편 포스터는 크렉 오웬스식의 알레고리적 충동과 아카이브적 충동 사이에도 선을 긋는다. 길게 설명하지 않지만, 오웬스의 알레고리적 충동은 모든 것을 무질서하게 파편화시킴으로써 "저자적 상징의 총체"에 저항했다. 하지만 아카이브적 충동은 (이것이 상식적이진 않을지라도) 새로운 질서를 제안하는 "접속으로의 의지"이며 그것을 위해 무질서한 파편을 취한다.

포스터는 이런 예술가상을 편집증자에 비유한다. 프로이트에 의하면 편집증자는 불길하게 같아 보이는 세상에 의미를 투사하려고 노력하는데, 이때 포스터가 보기에 편집자로서의 아카이브 미술가가 질서를 투사하는 배경에는 어떤 문화적 실패가 근본적으로 자리잡고 있다. 그 실패는 다름아닌 "유토피아적 차원"이다. 포스터는 묻는다. "만약 사물이 원초적 장소와 지독하게 분리된 것으로 나타나지 않았다면, 접속이 그렇게 열병적인 이유가 있을까?"(Foster, p. 22.)

따라서 포스터는 아카이브적 미술이 "구축적 장소", 즉 땅 위에서 무엇을 짓는 유토피아적인 것이라고 쓴다. 이것은 그가 얼마 전에 지지했던 "발굴적 장소", 그러니까 역사 안에 침잠하는 어떤 트라우마적인 것과 상당히 대비됨은 말할 필요도 없다.

포스터는 이 글에서 벤야민을 언급하지 않는다. 아마 알레고리적 충동을 지지하면서 벤야민을 그토록 써먹었기 때문일지도 모르겠다. -_- 그럼에도 불구하고 포스터의 아키비스트로서의 예술가상은 벤야민의 수집가와 많이 겹친다. 알레고리가와 대비되는, 자신만의 백과사전을 구축하려고 하는 '진정한' 수집가 말이다. (물론 이건 완수될 수 없기 때문에 자기 안의 '충동'일 뿐이다.)

*

한국 미술계에서도 아카이브란 말이 떠돈지 이제 몇년 된 것 같다. 대부분 특정한 전시 형식을 가리키는 말로 쓰인다. 예컨대 안젤름 프랑케의 <애니미즘>이나 박해천의 <다음문장을 읽으시오>. 백남준 아트센터에서 연 몇몇 전시가 그렇다. 물론 이것이 흘러간 역사를 모아서 각주를 다는 일인 이상 <아케이드프로젝트>에서 벤야민이 한 작업과 같은 수준에서 이야기될 수 있을지도 모른다.

하지만 내 불만은 이런 것이다. 이런 방식은 역사를 쓰는 작업에서 아주 흔한 것이며 미술관 급과 큐레이터들은 항상 해왔고, 해야만 하는 일이다. 별 특별할 것이 없다. 여기에 아카이브란 생소한 말을 사실 붙일 필요도 크게 없다. (포스터도 아키비스트로서의 예술가는 큐레이터로서의 예술가와 같은 의미라고 말한다. 즉 큐레이터는 아카이빙을 늘상 하고 있단 이야기. 단, 제도적이고 관습적인 차원에서 그렇단 것인데 내 생각엔 굳이 그럴 필요가 있을까 싶다. 너무 미술관 싫어하는 듯...)

아카이브란 말을 유행시킨 포스터가 이 말을 쓴 이유는 작품 비평을 위해서였다. 데이터베이스의 세례를 받는 세계가 도래하면서 알레고리적 충동으로 설명되지 않는, 레디메이드 데이터베이스를 매체 삼아 어떤 가상적 결과물을 직조해내는 예술가(포스트프로덕션에 익숙한 프로듀서로서의 예술가)가 출현했고, 할 포스터는 그것이 마음에 들지 않아 새로운 모델(더욱더 촉각적인, 아키비스트로서의 예술가)을 만들어낸 것 같다. 하지만 한국 미술계에서 아카이브란 말은 단지 자료전을 뜻하기 위해 더욱 많이 쓰인다.

틀렸다곤 볼 수 없겠지만 조금 이상하다. 마땅히 예술가와 작업에 먼저 쓰여야할 미술 용어가 제도적 차원에 더욱 적용되고 있다니 말이다. 물론 아카이브적 충동이 "제도적"이고 "입법적"인 이상 제도 기관과 친밀함을 보여도 이상할 것은 없다. 그리고 아키비스트로서의 예술가의 원형은 어쩌면 큐레이터인 것도 맞다. 하지만 제도 기관으로서 미술관과 그에 부속된 큐레이터의 창조 행위란 의심스럽게 그지 없다. 주어진 제도는 그 제도의 경계를 넘지 못하기 때문에 제도다.

두 가지 가정이 있을 수 있다. 첫째, 한국에는 '아카이브적 충동'으로 해석될 만한 작업이 별로 없다. 둘째, 한국에서 창조적 행위와 권력은 예술가에서 제도적 수준으로 넘어가버렸다. 첫째 가정은 일단 선후관계가 틀렸다. 작업이 먼저 있고 해석이 있는 것이다. 아카이브적 충동이 먼저 나올 이유가 없다. 하지만 또한 아카이브적 작업이 없다는 것도 상상은 안된다.

둘째 가정은 과장되었지만 의미심장하다. 개인전보다 기획전--과장하자면 비엔날레--이 제대로된 대접을 받는다. 어떤 큐레이터가 기획한 전시인지가 어떤 전시의 인장 역할을 한다. 작업보다 공간의 이름이 넘친다. 지원 제도 없이는 전시를 하지 못하는 작가와 공간이 수두루빽빽하다. 등등... 알아주지 않아도 자생자족하면서 그 나름의 라이프스타일을 즐기는 그런 방식의 문화가 없는 상황에서 이런 제도들이 미술의 조건을 지탱하고 있다. 반대로 말해 이런 조건이 없는 현재의 미술계란 상상이 거의 불가하다.

[테드 강연] 코트니 마틴: 페미니즘에 대한 재조명

직접적으로 언급하고 있진 않지만 포스트페미니즘에 관한 강연이다.

quotes from “Girls are dancin’”: shōjo culture and feminism in contemporary Japanese art

미소녀 작화의 역사 따위를 검색하려다가 이딴 걸 발견했다. Emily Wakeling이라는 분...현재 도쿄아트비트? 란 플랫폼에 리뷰도 올리고 그러시는 듯. 뭐 논문이라기보단 비평 쪽에 가까운 것 같은데 그냥 읽은 김에 기록. 석사논문인 것 같다. Jennifer Baumgardner 같은 사람의 언급이 키인데...한 번 읽어보고 싶긴 하다.

source: http://pdf.jpf-sydney.org/newvoices/5/chapter6.pdf

"Found throughout the practices of many young Japanese artists, the shōjo motif is key to understanding some of Japan’s best recent contributions to contemporary feminist art. . . . The Japanese term “shōjo” is particularly useful to gender discussions of the Japanese girl. It is a way of referring to someone as feminine, but with a distinct suggestion of youth. Kotani Mari defines shōjo as the ‘juvenile existence....prior to the adoption of adult femininity’.7 The shōjo is ‘free and arrogant, unlike meek and dutiful musume [daughter] or pure and innocent otome [maiden]’.8 “Daughter” and “maiden” both suggest the presence of a male authority in determining the girl’s identity, while the concept of shōjo has neither of these connections."(p. 130-131.)

"Writers such as the widely quoted Japanese sociologist Ôtsuka Eiji have shaped stereotypes by discussing the shōjo as representing ‘an exotic and longed-for world of individual fulfillment, decadence, consumption and play’.10 It is only in the closed world of shōjo culture that girls negate these wide-held stereotypes.

The exclusivity of shōjo culture is one reason why a shōjo’s gender transgressions are typically not a politically didactic public statement. The intriguing, even paradoxical politics evident in young Japanese women’s lives are a potent source of artistic critique. They are a generation who are described by feminist curator Kasahara Michiko as having little awareness or contact with women’s rights campaigns in comparison to their awareness of its very public backlash in the media.11 While “feminist” per se is not a widespread political allegiance for Japanese youth, some characteristics of shōjo culture share in common tactics found in contemporary - or what is called “third-wave” - feminism.

[...]

The shōjo motif is a distinct, recurring graphic figure found in many contemporary Japanese artists’ works within the last two decades. The artists chosen for mention in this article are far from the only current Japanese artists interested in the shōjo motif, but what differentiates them from others is their use of the shōjo motif in reference to the gender-transgressive expressions found in shōjo culture. A celebration of femininity and girlishness is one theme that overlaps in third-wave feminist thought and shōjo culture. By assembling arguments about the gender-transgressive nature of shōjo culture along with the prevalence of the shōjo motif in contemporary Japanese art, it is possible to contextualise the shōjo motif in the world stage of contemporary feminist art"(132)

...

shōjo 이미지를 폭력적으로 성적 대상화하는 두 인물: Aida Makoto, Araki

...

그리곤 지지할 만한 6인의 아티스트 소개. 이 아티스트는 그가 보기에 이 작가들은 아라키나 아이다 마코토완 다르게 접근함: "‘approaches to female gender and identity that have little in common with such objectifying and otherwise predominant tropes.'" 그리고 소녀(순정?) 이미지를 "the fantastic, girlish aesthetics or gender-transgressive concepts found in shōjo culture"--이런 방식으로 창조적으로 사용.

"Sandra Buckley declares “aaa, kawaiiiiii!” as the ‘rallying cry of the shôjo’. Although not exclusive to shōjo culture, kawaii (cute) finds a special place with youth and especially girls. When defining the phenomenon of kawaii and its role in contemporary Japanese art, Vartanian focuses on how it is not necessarily shallow because ‘cuteness, though ostensibly devoid of irony, does not negate darkness, and can in fact be a means to accessing darkness, as characters become loci of emotion and identification’."(134; 강조 인용자)


1. Aoshima Chiho

"Aoshima Chiho, in a sense, illustrates Vartanian’s speculations. Through a cute aesthetic (which can double as a shōjo aesthetic), including girls with big doe-eyes and small faces, she makes the shōjo’s body cute as well as ugly, abject, scary, funny or epic. . . . The physical transgressions and abject presentations challenge what is cute and beautiful about the objectified shōjo, and Aoshima makes this point via a flowery, cute shōjo aesthetic."(134-135)

2. Kunikata Mahomi

"[쿠니카타는] ... …expresses the fantasies of the adolescent feminine unconscious but gives them violent forms….Kunikata adopts their sadomasochism but intensifies the nightmarish atmosphere by placing her adolescent characters in violent situations that involve murder, beheadings, cannibalism, and disintegration. Her works evoke both the horror of losing one’s identity and the erotic pleasure of such submission."

"Aida Makoto, introduced before, is an artist troubled by questions about sex and exploitation,26 but instead of seeking a visual language outside of dominant patriarchal culture, his art exaggerates and sensationalises his own powerful position as a man. Similarly, Kunikata’s shōjo are often bleeding, in pain, or dying, but this is where their commonalities stop. In contrast, Kunikata foregrounds the shōjo’s psychological state, and her personal anxieties. Kunikata makes critique by expressing her own seemingly powerless position as shōjo."


3. Takano Aya

"Takano Aya’s paintings and drawings refer to the girl-only spaces imagined in shōjo culture combined with her inspiration from science fiction. As a Micropop artist, and a self-confessed science-fiction fan, Takano’s art is described by Matsui as works made by an ‘“adolescent” mind’.28 Placed in science-fiction backgrounds, Takano’s kawaii shōjo become like aliens. The artist often has her shōjo as ‘interstellar immigrants’,29 transiting through environments such as space, the sky, or underwater. . . . Contrasting the soft, thin bodies of the shōjo against the hyper-urban background shows the vulnerability and shock of these figures. There is a shape in the sky, perhaps a spaceship, which further suggests that they are fantastical aliens in this environment. . . . Takano visually refers to a fantasy (specifically, science-fiction) convention often found in shōjo manga and fictions. In Matsui’s words, Takano is a creator of ‘subversively feminine visions of Utopia’."

4. Sawada Tomoko

"Sawada Tomoko works with female identity in all its variable forms, including exploring the various signifiers for shōjo. She pushes definitions of what it is to be a selfportraitist through multiple acts of costume or role-play. At first glance, works such as School Days / A may look like an entire class of school-age shōjo and their teacher, but on closer inspection the faces, despite their different hair-cuts and expressions, have a certain sameness that suggests the masquerade that is actually happening: all figures are played by the artist. The School Days series brings up the essential role of schools to the formation of early shōjo culture and the hidden world of girls discussed by Kotani and Honda. . . . Sawada’s transformations are domestic in their scope—her focus is exclusively on the human, and more specifically, on her many, many variations of the feminine. In her Costume series, this transformation is achieved by changing her attire in each photograph to suit different jobs."

5. Yanagi Miwa

등등...

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다음은 포스트/뉴페미니즘에 관한 설명. 여기서 전-여성적 단계로서의 소녀스러움이 굉장히 중요한 듯...

"While its definition is often contested, third-wave feminism has come to shape contemporary feminism and feminist art through its emphasis on concepts such as intersection, contradiction and self-conscious politics. Third-wave feminism is historicised by Carisa Showden as a discourse informed by various notions of “new feminisms”, or so-called postfeminism, neo-feminism, etc., that began emerging in the 1980s and found momentum at the start of the 1990s.43 The 1990s was a time when feminism’s interest in sexual and gender difference between men and women made way for ‘an emphasis on the differences among women’,44 shown by the popularity of referring to feminism as a plural, and best articulated with the terms second-wave versus thirdwave feminism. By the beginning of the 1990s many theorists and artists were revising how feminist discourses relate to and align with other social and cultural revolutions such as queer studies, anti-racism and the post-colonial movement. Showden describes third-wave politics as:

…a committed focus on intersectional identities and multilayered discrimination. While intersectionality is not itself a “politics”, it is an attempt to shift the epistemological standpoint of feminism, providing a new subject position from which feminist critique is articulated.45

In Showden’s analysis of the politics behind the new feminisms, she focuses on postfeminism’s popularist role as the forerunner for so-called “girlie” or girl power feminism (the catch-cry for iconic 1990s pop group The Spice Girls). It is a movement described as ‘the best known and largest group of third wavers’.46 Girls, as opposed to women, have been embraced as a youth category as well as a state of mind in thirdwave feminism. The following is third-wave feminists Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards’ definition of girlhood: ‘those grown women on Sex in [sic] the City who in their independence, their bonds with female friends, and their love of feminine fashion invoke a sense of eternal girlhood’.47 In a key third-wave text, Manifesta, girlie feminism is defined as consisting of feminist principles ‘based on a reclaiming of girl culture (or feminine accoutrements that were tossed out with sexism during the Second Wave), be it Barbie, housekeeping, or girl talk’.48 Jennifer Eisenhauer notes how, for a long time, the figure of the girl has been a ‘repeatedly othered subject within feminisms’,49 but in third-wave feminism girls are often positioned as the “daughters” of second-wave feminism. While reference to daughters (in English or Japanese) can imply the seniority of a father over his child, in the third-wave context she comes from a matriarchal lineage. Therefore, as well as being a critique of racial hegemony and Western bias, third-wave ‘came to be specifically associated with a “young” feminist generation’50 of self-described girls. Third-wave feminism is ideally positioned as the discourse for shōjo."(강조는 인용자)

결론: 포스트페미니즘은 '순정' 담론에 잘 맞다.