SPEAKING WITH SONG & MULL

Until very recently, much of the work I have been doing, has been from behind a computer screen - reading, researching, relating ideas through photographs or such. 6 Feet Up centres around emotional responses, and yet my resolutions have been primarily intellectual. 

In an attempt to get back to the heart of where I was coming from when I proposed the project, I should get out, feel the places, feel the city - find the emotional content.

Then when I do manage to feel, I should represent these findings in a way that reveals my own personal responses, rather than leave it to guesswork by the viewer. Namely through sketches, drawings and models, rather than texts or photographs.

As the project continues, hopefully viewers will notice an increase in emotional content - I have started a page dedicated to the contents of my sketchbook, and individual drawings will pop up in relevant posts.

JUST FEEL. MORE
via youtube

No students have been slapped round the head during the course of this project (as yet). The video is merely illustrative.

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SPEAKING WITH MULL & CARL

The Seoul Satellite Unit has been having receiving tutorials from Robert Mull and Peter Carl via Skype in London. For the first, we all sat round a table in one of the few communal spaces in our dormitory at KNUA, and listened as each took turns in discussing their projects with the tutors back home.

At this point, I hadn't ventured that much into Seoul, nor really discovered places through sketch and drawing. Robert told me not to over analyse everything - to let the city and its sights and sounds form itself in my mind (and preferably on paper) by osmosis - not rigorous academic research from behind a computer screen.

I should collect bits and pieces, a patchwork of things to fill a metaphorical attic space. This would allow me to envisage a far richer picture of the people of Seoul and the the places they make.

If possible, I should attempt to go to a funeral, or at least some active representation of the themes in my project. Looking at photos are all well and good, but have little impact compared to the real thing.

At the same time, is is important to remember to the joyful things, and the original ideas and promises that I made at the start of the project. 6 Feet Up is not all doom and gloom, and if that is not apparent already, it should do soon.

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SPEAKING WITH AHN, LEE, SCHWEITZER, SHIN & SONG

A summary of my presentation to tutors at KNUA for the first time:

My narrative centred on the repercussions from the increase in size of urban dwelling. As areas of habitation become larger the placement of cemetery at edge of community, becomes ever further from anywhere people actually live. This pushes a community's connection with its past, with its archive of past states, further from the day to day. In turn this produces a negative cycle, degrading a communities connection to itself. Family groups reduce in size but increase in intensity - reducing the natural support network but increasing the need for them. The bereaved are left adrift. Death is industrialised and commercialised.

6 Feet Up is an attempt to address these issues. By using new technology that is more agreeable to an urban environment, perhaps appropriately sized facilities can be attached to appropriately sized communities - within the city. These would be placed on the boundaries of contemporary life - the mall, the subway station or the office. Importantly these are not areas of active habitation, but places where city dwellers spend most of their daily lives.

In addition, it is essential to draw from Korea for the method of implementation of typology, placement, and programme. Without this the project could only fail, as an ignorant prescriptive solution.

Tutors asked what functions would the project include. In Korea currently these functions are spread out amongst hospital, crematorium and burial/memorial ground. It would be essential to examine all to find exactly what part they play.

Whatever the older generations attitude may be, and it may be unforgiving to the proposal, there may be differences in the young generation. In other cultures there is a generation gap - in Korea, it is a chasm.

I should make an in depth analysis of the proposed typology, by looking at vertical graveyards in Hong Kong, Japan and in South America. It would be a spatial exercise as though the task seems clear, the site would be very important - both in response to Korean culture and to the legal regulations on the subject.

Finally would people really accept being reminded of death all the time, having it so close by?  Perhaps there is a reason that these sites have been pushed to the edge. If I do want to push for an inner urban solution, I would have to be convincing.

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SPEAKING WITH SHIN

Initial Sketch drawing by TD

Having introduced Prof. Shin to some of my hopes for 6 FEET UP - a prototype for bereavement typology drawing from the psychology and technology of the modern Seoulite, yet rooted in their cultural subconscious  - she suggested that it may prove difficult to discover the contemporary Korean emotional response as such matters were so part of the ordinary. I would have to speak to people, and as many as possible.

There is an issue in Korea. There is barely enough space for the living, are inhabitants content with the space available for the dead? The Presbyterian Church is investigating use of new technologies to replace cremation - itself a 'space saving solution' due to financial and sustainability issues. If cremation is not appropriate after 100 years of implementation, what chance is there for use of any new technology? Are Koreans, and the rest of the world, going to maintain what historic rituals they can entirely isolated from the industrial acts of committal?

I hope to align contemporary life in Seoul with contemporary death in Seoul, whatever the proximity of that relationship may be. Ideally this would be realised through use of new technology, in an appropriate manner - to the full extent of that phrase.

By speaking to Koreans and researching the psychology of modern bereavement, but remembering the necessary requirements of cultural history I hope to formulate a model that represents and supports the modern Korean response to the death of other.

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