Urbanism
Research Group Web Site - www.flyingcity.org
Web Site Flying City is the Web site
of the Urbanism Research Group, which consists of artists who interpret
the city as a mental map and apply their interpretations to urban
reality. They will update the site as they undertake experiments
and record their research.
Today's Object
Cities consist of existing buildings,
buildings to be built, and goods to be sold, all of which creates
work and activity. The Flying City artists examine the city's meanings
and proposes the creation of a new discourse. They view city spaces
with a new eye, examine the dynamic meanings of the contemporary
object, and expand its meaning to include sculpture and its social
context: buildings, spaces, people, and information. The artists
of Flying City will continually observe, collect, and document for
the Website.
Mental Maps
Mental maps were first created by the
Lettrist International and then developed by the Situationist International
in the nineteen-fifties as a tool for understanding the city. Mental
maps are a city's psychogeographical, subjective record. By recombining
texts and images, they record psychological shocks of a specific
place, which leads to a new
understanding of space and time.
Moods of places and patterns of action become more important than
cartographical facts, helping us to appreciate the city's overwhelming
scale and views. Mental maps emphasize the impact of space and the
ways of thinking and experiencing that it inspires in us.
The following information is a mental
landscape of Seoul observed intuitively. Children generally express
their home and their school. Fine art students try to express speed
and movement.
1. Kindergartens in the Kangnam Area
of Seoul / Artists: Jinkyung Lee, Jaewoon Jeon
2. Elementary
School / Artist: Sanghee Song
3. How College Art Students Can
Get in Touch with Their Sensations /
Artist : Yongsuk Jeon
4. Painting Project of Team N
Psychogeography Workshop
The Urbanism Research Group presents "plays"
on typical city spaces. Its psychogeography workshop combines plays
with criticism on characteristics of cities and social attitudes.
Such plays include impromptu performances, installation of temporary
parks, mumbling, the creation of objects, and theater. Some performances
are planned according to the social and historical facts of a specific
place. Others deal with chance and improvisation. The URG's plays
criticize the modern city, much like the One-Day Sculpture of COBRA,
the Surrealists' excursions in Paris, the Derives of Lettrist International
and Situationist International, "Delirio Ambulatorio"
in South America, and anarchists' anti-culture disturbances of the
nineteen-seventies -- all of which are in stark contrast with the
fine art and private leisure of today. The Korean avant-garde of
the eighties resembled the anti-culture movement of the seventies,
yet failed to become autonomous because of the pervasiveness of
Korean collective consciousness.
The Flying City Workshop attempts
to revive the feelings and thinking of the past and to relate them
to political issues of the present.
1. Discovery of the Transobject
2. Politics of Earth - Body : Kim
Ki-su's Border Tower
3. Mangwon-dong Temporary Sculpture:
Images of a Playground in Mangwon-dong, Seoul. The playground is
located next to a new road leading to the new World Cup Stadium.
Old and empty houses, small factories, Kangbyun Highway above the
playground, construction sites of apartment buildings all define
the playground space. We collected discarded objects and tried to
revive their psychological energy by distancing them from their
surroundings. As we worked, children gathered around to observe
us.
4. Play in Empty Spaces 1 and 2 :
Ko Seung-wook's Slapstick
5. Things to Do on a Vacant Land
Wangshimni-2-dong is a former slum area in Seoul that is to be redeveloped.
For now it is the rubble of demolished houses, abandoned home appliances,
derelict furnishings, and broken toys. All of it is now more material
than objects. We tried to intensify and increase the overwhelming
destruction and emptiness of the site.
A Critique of
Urban Semiotics
A Critique
of Urban Semiotics records urban production, consumption, and commercial
activities, and the development and rearrangement of their infrastructures.
Whereas we use mental maps in other areas of this site to reveal
the meaning of urban symbols, here we use text, photos, statistics,
and geography. A critique of symbols looks at people's symbolic
activities through their urban experiences.
1. The Artist Kim Tae-hun's Urban
Record, or Spatial Description
2. Yoon Jeong-mi's Urban Searches
3. Choi Eun-kyung's Search for Outsideness
4. Order and Disorder of Space :
Jang Jong-kwan
The Flying City Web site also contains reference
materials, links and a bulletin board.
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