Media as Methods: SEOUL in MEDIA (1998) and the first Seoul Mediacity Biennale (2000)

The First SEOUL in MEDIA: 1988–2002 SEOUL in MEDIA and the Seoul Mediacity Biennale (then, Seoul International Media Art Biennale) were both originated as large-scale cultural and artistic initiatives intended to commemorate the 600th anniversary of Seoul as the capital. SEOUL in MEDIA was initially conceived as two parallel exhibitions—City and Art and City and Image—with the dual objective of positioning Seoul as a city of art through painting and media art and of promoting the development of the Digital Media City (DMC) in Sangam-dong, Seoul. Envisioned as a media-based complex integrating technology, industry, education, culture, and research, the DMC was intended to serve as a main hub for Korea’s media industry. In practice, however, it was realized primarily as a residential district dominated by broadcasting and news agencies. Meanwhile, the inaugural edition of the Seoul Mediacity Biennale, led by the Seoul Metropolitan Government, aspired to go beyond showcasing media art by proposing a new urban model that incorporated research and education. Yet this idealistic blueprint ultimately failed to come to fruition. The SEOUL in MEDIA, organized by the Seoul Museum of Art, served as a pre-biennale for what would become the Seoul Mediacity Biennale. Following the establishment of the Gwangju Biennale in 1995, a proliferation of large and small biennales tailored to local characteristics emerged across the country. However, many of these hastily established events were largely short-lived and discontinued. As discussed in Chapter 1, the Seoul Mediacity Biennale functioned as a symbolic project that sought to present a vision of twenty-first-century Seoul by integrating art and technology. While art had long remained peripheral in Korean society, the biennale format—positioned as an international art event in the age of globalization—offered a strategic platform for staging a new cultural landscape in which aesthetics and politics could intersect. Yet, the Seoul Mediacity Biennale was launched without a solid foundation of critical discourse or research on media and media art, and as a result, it has struggled with an ongoing crisis of identity, having changed its official title no fewer than five times since its inception. This raises a critical question; can an intense embrace of twenty-first-century technology truly enable Korea to surpass the West in its transition to the digital information age? One of the major influences behind the enthusiastic reception of technology in Korea was the Daejeon International Exposition (then, Taejon International Exposition) in 1993. The theme of the event was “The Challenge of a New Road of Development,” and the sub-theme was “Traditional and Modern Science and Technology for the Developing World.” Historian Ha Sae-Bong, in his analysis of the Expo’s thematic pavilion, contends that although the intended purpose of the exhibition was to maintain a critical stance toward science and technology, its actual display ultimately adopted a celebratory, “technopian” tone.1 His critique prompts a reconsideration of how state-led visions of science and technology at the time were framed predominantly in terms of progress and development. In parallel, the Media Art Show, an experiment exploring the public potential of media using outdoor electronic displays, featured 80-second edited video works shown during brief intervals between commercial advertisements—a challenging task at the time. This was because the outdoor displays still operated via analog systems, requiring the manual playback of videotapes to synchronize screenings with specific time slots. Curator Lee Sup recalls, “It wasn’t a broadcasting system back then. Each electronic display was operated separately, and we played the video using prepared tapes at designated times—just like a DJ placing a needle on a record to let the sound play.”2 His account evokes the sense of possibility and dynamism in the Korean art scene of the 1990s. It was less about a will to make the impossible possible, and more about the pioneering spirit of venturing into uncharted territory. This spirit of improvisational adaptation resonates with the ethos of Dada and Fluxus artists toward art itself. Of course, the circumstances at the time—marked by limited experience, technical capacity, and financial resources—necessitated such inventive approaches. Yet within the realm of art, accident and intention frequently converge, enabling both the reinvention of technology and its deliberate degradation. In this regard, one might consider the work of the collective Unmake Lab, which explores the reverse side of technology. A Reassessment of SEOUL in MEDIA The SEOUL in MEDIA series unfolded in three editions between 1998 and 1999: the first, 1988–2002; the second, Food, Clothing, Shelter; and the third, Lumia of Century. These exhibitions shared a thematic focus on media and publicness. From the outset, SEOUL in MEDIA functioned as a preliminary project for what would later become the main exhibition of the Seoul Mediacity Biennale. However, due to budget constraints and technical limitations, the series was not fully realized as originally envisioned and has thus been relatively undervalued. Throughout the 1990s, numerous exhibitions were organized to explore the relationship between the city and culture. What makes this exhibition particularly significant is its attempt to integrate urban space and technology; its experimental yet organic linkage between the exhibition content and spatial context prompted a shift from functional curating to a more complex and nuanced curatorial practice. Most notably, its focus on everyday practices as a means of breaking away from conventional exhibition formats bridges the boundary between art and daily life. The collective Art Project Seoul, organized by Kim Jinha, Lee Sup, Yi Joo Heon, Park Samcheol, was selected through a nomination-based process for the first edition of the SEOUL in MEDIA (October 7–10, 1996). This work sought to visualize the transition into the era of the moving image by engaging with the interstitial temporalities of Seoul, where traces of multiple historical periods coexist and intersect. The Media Art Show, held at the Seoul Museum of Art (then located at the former Seoul 600-year Memorial Hall),3 employed fourteen electronic display boards across five cities, as well as information TVs installed in eight banks. The exhibition title, SEOUL in MEDIA, evokes the waves of neon signs in the heart of Paris—what Walter Benjamin famously described as a “magic lantern show.” In the 1980s, downtown Seoul was often perceived as a space defined by the rigidity of state-led nationalism. Against this backdrop, the SEOUL in MEDIA sought to introduce media art into public spaces, thereby revealing new possibilities for the city. The city—long regarded as the mundane realm of everyday life—was reimagined through artistic imagination not as a space driven by performance and productivity, but as one where surreal dépaysement could unfold through acts of wandering and diversion. Among the featured works, Hong Soon-chyul’s work stood out for its insight that spans different eras, reappropriating Marcel Duchamp’s readymade urinal not as Fountain but as four waterfalls, offering an aesthetic reinterpretation grounded in the permissive boundaries of contemporary art. His City Waterfall (1996), composed of stacked TV monitors arranged like blocks within the exhibition space, presented a spectacular visual scene evocative of waterfalls cascading down columnar joint cliffs. Independent researcher Pae Soo-Hee examines the formation of the Seoul Mediacity Biennale through research spanning history, aesthetics, technology, governmental institutions, and the specificities of time and place. In doing so, she traces both the idealistic ambition and the practical limitations of constructing a triangular relationship among media, the city, and art. At the time, Seoul sought to elevate its national stature by linking tradition and the future through media technology. According to Pae, such efforts to link art, science, and industry in pursuit of a leap toward society of the future could have served as a focal point for establishing institutions akin to advanced nations’ media centers and for shaping urban identity. Yet despite the enormous budget, the inaugural Media City Seoul between 0 and 1 failed to present a clear vision, functioning instead as an exhibition that merely introduced Western masters alongside Korean media artists. Above all, it lacked organic connections among art, science, and industry, and although it sought to promote their convergence, it ultimately remained in an ambiguous state where an art exhibition and an industrial fair coexisted side by side.4 The second edition of SEOUL in MEDIA, Food, Clothing, and Shelter, (1998) featured spatial design by architect Min Sohnjoo, who collaborated with curator Lee Youngchul. Guided by the curatorial theme of “the aesthetics of non-standardization and plurality,” the exhibition introduced a dynamic spatial composition by filling the interior with scaffolding structures. Rather than reproducing the city of Seoul, the installation conveyed an anonymous urban structure infused with a sense of velocity. This spatial indeterminacy and plurality stood in direct contrast with the rigidity of conventional museum culture. Furthermore, the exhibition actively utilized outdoor electronic billboards, evoking comparisons with Germany’s Kunsthalle model and promoting an organic connection between exhibition space and urban surroundings. The experimental nature of the show extended to the inclusion of a ramp that allowed automobiles to enter the exhibition space. The exhibition was also commended for its active engagement with media and technology, such as the use of contemporary formats of media of the time—such as animation, slide photography, graphics, computer art, film, and video installations. The Seoul Mediacity Biennale as a Sign The title of the 1st Seoul Mediacity Biennale was finalized as Media_City Seoul 2000, with the exhibition title of city: between 0 and 1. This choice underscores the significance of the juxtaposition between media and the urban environment. From the outset, the Biennale was incorporated into Seoul Metropolitan Government’s broader vision to construct a digital city, thereby actively seeking input from experts across related fields. During its planning phase in 1999, the project drew inspiration from prominent international media institutions and envisioned the creation of a multidisciplinary center integrating art, technology, and industry. Despite these attempts, the Seoul Mediacity Biennale still continues to occupy an ambiguous position today. According to the final report of the Seoul Mediacity Biennale, “The first edition of the biennale, despite mobilizing the full administrative capacity of the Seoul Metropolitan Government and receiving a substantial budget of 11 billion KRW, failed to generate positive responses either from general public or critics due to its lack of coherent integration among art, science, and industry, as well as the abstract nature of its theme.”5 As this study progressed, it remained difficult to clearly identify the vision and critical orientation of the Seoul Mediacity Biennale as a biennale. However, in the course of the research, I came across archival material from the 2022 pre-biennale of the twelfth edition of the Seoul Mediacity Biennale (held at the Nam-Seoul Museum of Art), which revisited works exhibited in SEOUL in MEDIA and the first media_city seoul. This discovery allowed for a better understanding and clarified the intent and broader significance of this study. Paik Nam June’s Market, originally featured in the first media_city seoul exhibition, was re-presented to the public during the pre-biennale Station of the twelveth Seoul Mediacity Biennale in 2022, following its earlier presentation at the Buk–Seoul Museum of Art in 2013. Market evokes the atmosphere of a traditional Korean marketplace replete with folkloric elements, such as a beverage refrigerator, parasol, palanquin built-in with a monitor, and a traditional satgat (conical hat), all assembled beneath a hanok-style roof constructed from television monitors. While the installation’s structure is important, equally vital is the archiving of the wide variety of objects it comprises. The Station exhibition, held at the Nam-Seoul Museum of Art, also featured City Waterfall (1996, 2022 reproduction), an installation originally exhibited in SEOUL in MEDIA. The work was originally installed in a darkened gallery space, with four toilets mounted along the wall, each fitted with a small monitor and speaker above it, with water filling the bowls, and overhead lights directed downward from the ceiling. Exhibition archives should include photos, manuals, and detailed specifications of media art equipment and components, including correct brand, version, and output. Recent years have seen the emergence of notable and meaningful efforts in the restoration and archiving of media art. While current efforts primarily focus on preserving artworks themselves, the growing prevalence of restoration and remaking suggests a pressing need to develop standardized guidelines addressing both individual and shared aspects of media art conservation. The retrospective exhibition held after the death of land artist Christo Javacheff in 2020 raised some critical questions regarding how to reconstruct his monumental installations that were originally designed to be ephemeral for exhibition purposes, and whether it is necessary to present the complete original work. The exhibition’s components revealed how specific and conceptual Christo’s practice was, and how he engaged with existing materials and media to engage in critical dialogue with the physical world.