Jump Cut: Back to the Future

Kim Sung Won, Curator/art critic

Jump Cut I : Passage and Sacrifice
The huge structure consists of three glass steps. The title of the structure, which feels grand and sacred like stairs leading to a church, is Passage-Jump Cut (2008). At the end of the passage await shattered glass fragments. “Jump Cut” builds a passage, but ruptures it at the same time. To the side of the structure, Andrei Tarkovsky’s over 2-hour-long movie Offret-Sacrificatio(1986) is being shown in an 8-minute edited version. This ‘Offret-Sacrificatio’-Jump Cut(2008), which was made by editing Tarkovsky’s original only with jump cuts, destroys the flow of the original film. A certain tension and instability flow in the two works, both rupturing what is built and destroying the original. Tarkovsky’s film, unfolding under the theme of salvation of humankind through sacrifice, is a grand epic that interconnects diverse and complex symbols such as a boy with aphasia, a dying tree, waiting, revival, religion, World War III and deliverance amidst slowly flowing time, and leads viewers to think about the “essence of sacrifice,” from concrete sacrifice to abstract sacrifice. Of course, all these symbolisms communicate the poetics of “salvation and sacrifice” through restrained poetic language and visual filmmaking techniques. But Minouk Lim compresses this grand epic journey of sacrifice with high-speed jump cuts into a running-time of 8 minutes. Jumping over and cutting the flow of the original has no doubt distorted it. But putting aside simple criticism against distorting the original, as well as debate on whether the editing of ‘Offret-Sacrificatio’-Jump Cut was successful, we still must ask the question why the artist intentionally jump-cut the original film. Here, ‘Offret-Sacrificatio’-Jump Cut functions as metonymy of the process of distorting the overall flow. This brings into relief the dramatic connection of the individual parts and superficial things, rather than the overall understanding or the essential. In other words, it is a certain perception device to make us aware that we are not looking at the essence or understanding the whole. The device repeats the jumping over to allow freedom of imagination about the missing parts. The intentional act of distortion against the original film Offret-Sacrificatio ironically makes it possible to think about the essence of sacrifice, and at the same time visualizes the distortion and the deficiency that derives from it. Moreover, the quiet statement of a poet who wants to save humanity through sacrifice and “The Sacrifice” of Tarkovsky, who thinks that statement is the responsibility of artists, symbolically supports Minouk Lim’s critical position of the era, to be unfolded in this exhibition, and the purpose of honest speech.

Jump Cut II : Mom’s Battle
Three carpets hang on the wall. The work titled Aladdin(2008) consists of artificial fur engraved with the logo for the Saemaeul Undong(Reform program of mass training in 1970s, especially as a tool for rural development campaign, inculcating the new national values for rapid development and modernization), sign for the highway interchange, and a U-turn sign used on roads. The Saemaeul logo, interchange and U-turn signs are not interesting issues in themselves. On the other hand, the moment those signs are combined with artificial furs and reborn into useful carpets, they form a passage for communication that can coexist with the present. So the three carpets are transformed into a social memory of the success history of Korea, which began with textile exports and developed into a strong IT nation, and of the “sacrifice” of the women workers who cut the artificial furs while getting covered with their dust. Meanwhile, the “spirit of Saemaeul,” a main player in the development economy and compressed growth, is not something that stopped in the past, but can exist here and converse with us as it sneaks out through an exit in an interchange or U-turns. Mom’s Battle(2008), a pair of monpe trousers designed into a cushion and chair in the middle of the exhibition space, catches our eyes. Monpe pants… It has been a long time since I heard the word. To the “new generation,” it might sound like another new type of fashion. Monpe trousers were made during the Japanese occupation over Korea in order to engage women in labor. There was a time when these trousers were the working clothes as well as the daily outfit for grandmothers and mothers. Monpe were the “noble sacrifice of mothers,” who gave up being women--gave up everything for their families. There was also the “warmth of our grandmothers,” who would take out coins and snacks from their monpe pockets. Now we sit on the monpe that is soaked with mom’s sacrifice and grandma’s warmth as we watch the multicultural festival for migrant workers, “The 4th Migrants’ Arirang”(2008). As the monpe is transformed into a cushion, social memories and personal reminiscence no longer exist as memories. The memory now makes us think about the pending tasks presented by migrant labor and multicultural society here and now.

Jump Cut III : Sound of a Monsoon Goblin Crossing a Shallow Stream
At the time when we entered the world economy, it was through the blood and sweat of Korean workers, who sacrificed their lives for their families and children in the Middle East, Germany and Vietnam. Now, in the global era, “migration” of the international work force has become the unavoidable reality, but even so, we question ourselves about complex issues concerning “exclusion,” “discrimination” and “alienation” that occur on the hyperbolic curve of economy/culture consisting of “migration” and “labor.” Minouk Lim’s Game of 20 Questions-‘Sound of a Monsoon Goblin Crossing a Shallow Stream(2008) is a 15-minute video work taken at the scene of the “The 4th Migrants’ Arirang,” multicultural festival for foreign migrant workers. Of course this multicultural festival could be criticized as a political gesture for the foreign migrant workers, or considered as a system to send the socially excluded classes to the ghetto. But what is important here is how Minouk Lim connects this multicultural festival to our lives. Here, the artist thinks of the individual amidst the group, sees the stranger amidst the foreigners and makes us look at the conflict between heterogeneity and homogeneity. In Game of 20 Questions-‘Sound of a Monsoon Goblin Crossing a Shallow Stream, images of traditional costumes of diverse nationalities, various religions, different skin colors, the pure gaze of a little girl who looks eastern and western at the same time, a lost pet guinea pig slowly overlap or are juxtaposed on the two-channel screen. And the unclear twenty questions appear one by one. From now on, let us solve the riddle of “I”, “the other”, “mixing,” “different” and “difference.” As we pass each stage of “Sound of a Monsoon Goblin Crossing a Shallow Stream,” what kind of answer will we discover…? Jump Cut IV : Miracle of the Han River Meanwhile, just behind, is the memorable “angled Grandeur” sedan, which has become a fountain spraying water. The “angled Grandeur,” which was burdensome due to its pointless angles and long length, is not simply an “outdated” motor vehicle. First, the “angled Grandeur” overlaps with the age of success for the “Pony” car in the 1970s. Also, it not only enables us to recall the abundant economy and consumer era which came with the “Miracle of the Han River,” but is also the memories of our 1980s, during which authoritarianism, empty formalities and demonstrations for democratization intersected. As if to reflect even the 1990s, when we “popped the champagne bottle too early” in excitement over the miracle, the “angled Grandeur fountain” is perhaps spurting out water as it flounders in the miraculous Han River… I imagine this “angled Grandeur fountain” with the somewhat grave title ‘Miracle of Han River’-Fountain(2008), placed in a plaza near the Han River. The title is appropriate for a “monument” in a public location. Cesar Baldaccini’s “Car Compressions” of the 1950s, which was reborn as a cultural icon through implicative criticism of the truths and falsehoods of Europe’s post-industrial society, and representation of the times by means of waste products of the industrial society, flashes in my head. Before erecting the monument called ‘Miracle of Han River’-Fountain, Minouk Lim goes on a certain “pilgrimage” together with the angled Grandeur. On a wet day during the rainy season, the artist sprays various color of pigments on the car, attaches words that should disappear according to personal wishes and changes of the times, and speeds along the Jayu-ro(Jayu means freedom in Korean). The pigments wash away in the rain like “Tears” and the words are swept away in the rain and wind. And the artist ends her pilgrimage with a strange sentence, “To no longer tell the end of the rainy season.” Only traces of this pilgrimage hang in the exhibition space. The social memories of the angled Grandeur, which represent an era, are thus transformed into personal experience through Minouk Lim’s performance, and the privatized public memory is reborn in the name of the “Miracle of the Han River.” Jump Cut V : Carnival-Counter Information Our personal wishes have been blown up to heaven and the words that needed to be gotten rid of have disappeared in the rain and wind. While waiting for different “words” to emerge and wishes to come true, the artist invites us to a Carnival. During the carnival, which began as a means for Catholicism to try to win over pagans, a festival during which people could eat and drink to their hearts’ content before the 40-day fasting started, and people prayed to their own god for abundance, religion, nationality, neither skin color, nor poor and rich, nor hierarchy existed, and everyone became “one.” Minouk Lim attempts to remember the “prototype” of such carnivals. This is a question about mutual exchange and community life. Carnival, named Counter Information(2008) consists of tall bulletin boards standing here and there within the exhibition space. Bulletin boards that had communicated news and information unilaterally are transformed into “devices” in which people can change the contents or form of the information. Along with these “devices,” we become proactive subjects who can create different “words” or “shapes.” The “stories” we make here are always changeable, and give birth to new ones as they are mixed with other stories. It is impossible to predict how they will mix, but as she ruminates on the significance of “color marbling,” in which diverse colors spread and mix naturally, Minouk Lim proposes the “politics” of coexisting diversity, to be born in the process of mixing and sharing among us. To us, who shudder at approaching newness, but are stingy when it comes to “s"aring differences” that are right by our sides, Carnival, named Counter Information opens new possibilities for a “community-based” way of life for the contemporaries who “live together” and “are part of” the present, while accepting the diversity and heterogeneity of others.

Jump Cut IV : Miracle of the Han River
Meanwhile, just behind, is the memorable “angled Grandeur” sedan, which has become a fountain spraying water. The “angled Grandeur,” which was burdensome due to its pointless angles and long length, is not simply an “outdated” motor vehicle. First, the “angled Grandeur” overlaps with the age of success for the “Pony” car in the 1970s. Also, it not only enables us to recall the abundant economy and consumer era which came with the “Miracle of the Han River,” but is also the memories of our 1980s, during which authoritarianism, empty formalities and demonstrations for democratization intersected. As if to reflect even the 1990s, when we “popped the champagne bottle too early” in excitement over the miracle, the “angled Grandeur fountain” is perhaps spurting out water as it flounders in the miraculous Han River… I imagine this “angled Grandeur fountain” with the somewhat grave title ‘Miracle of Han River’-Fountain(2008), placed in a plaza near the Han River. The title is appropriate for a “monument” in a public location. Cesar Baldaccini’s “Car Compressions” of the 1950s, which was reborn as a cultural icon through implicative criticism of the truths and falsehoods of Europe’s post-industrial society, and representation of the times by means of waste products of the industrial society, flashes in my head. Before erecting the monument called ‘Miracle of Han River’-Fountain, Minouk Lim goes on a certain “pilgrimage” together with the angled Grandeur. On a wet day during the rainy season, the artist sprays various color of pigments on the car, attaches words that should disappear according to personal wishes and changes of the times, and speeds along the Jayu-ro(Jayu means freedom in Korean). The pigments wash away in the rain like “Tears” and the words are swept away in the rain and wind. And the artist ends her pilgrimage with a strange sentence, “To no longer tell the end of the rainy season.” Only traces of this pilgrimage hang in the exhibition space. The social memories of the angled Grandeur, which represent an era, are thus transformed into personal experience through Minouk Lim’s performance, and the privatized public memory is reborn in the name of the “Miracle of the Han River.”

Jump Cut V : Carnival-Counter Information
Our personal wishes have been blown up to heaven and the words that needed to be gotten rid of have disappeared in the rain and wind. While waiting for different “words” to emerge and wishes to come true, the artist invites us to a Carnival. During the carnival, which began as a means for Catholicism to try to win over pagans, a festival during which people could eat and drink to their hearts’ content before the 40-day fasting started, and people prayed to their own god for abundance, religion, nationality, neither skin color, nor poor and rich, nor hierarchy existed, and everyone became “one.” Minouk Lim attempts to remember the “prototype” of such carnivals. This is a question about mutual exchange and community life. Carnival, named Counter Information(2008) consists of tall bulletin boards standing here and there within the exhibition space. Bulletin boards that had communicated news and information unilaterally are transformed into “devices” in which people can change the contents or form of the information. Along with these “devices,” we become proactive subjects who can create different “words” or “shapes.” The “stories” we make here are always changeable, and give birth to new ones as they are mixed with other stories. It is impossible to predict how they will mix, but as she ruminates on the significance of “color marbling,” in which diverse colors spread and mix naturally, Minouk Lim proposes the “politics” of coexisting diversity, to be born in the process of mixing and sharing among us. To us, who shudder at approaching newness, but are stingy when it comes to “sharing differences” that are right by our sides, Carnival, named Counter Information opens new possibilities for a “community-based” way of life for the contemporaries who “live together” and “are part of” the present, while accepting the diversity and heterogeneity of others.

Jump Cut VI : Proposal and Possibility
This exhibition represents the time-critical position and honest statements of the artist, who “observes phenomena and issues” concerning society, culture, politics and economy that have derived from the process of modernization and industrialization for the past 60 years or so in Korea. The artist’s head is always filled with the contradictions of Korean modern history, and the grievances and conflicts caused by living with those contradictions, but the exhibition scene expresses love and tolerance, trying to accept the situation. It is not merely a time for “reflection” on the facts we already know, such as “we achieved the miracle of the Han River through the Saemaeul spirit, but there was a period of numerous sacrifices and distortions.” If so, what is the artist trying to propose in this exhibition? What are the possibilities opened to us by the artist’s time-critical position? Perhaps “proposal” and “possibility” are the “core” of what we should look for in Minouk Lim’s exhibition. The title “Jump Cut” can provide a direction for such search. In the exhibition, the jump cut functions in at least three different layers. First, Korean modern history itself jumped and was cut in its course; second, the artist jump-cut the jump-cut history once more through her personal experience to create the work; and third, we can jump-cut these results. But if we accept jump-cut literally as continuous “jumping over” or “action,” the exhibition will not be such an interesting journey for us. The essence of the jump-cut is not in the action itself, but its “wavelength.”

At this point it is necessary to reconsider the characteristics and meaning of the jump-cut as a filmmaking technique. In a film, the jump-cut technique intentionally interferes with the passive attitudes of spectators, who fall into the story forced upon them according to the given storyline and continuous images. This “interference” or “planned discontinuity” gives birth to a different dimension of “chain reaction.” Thus, spectators are given the freedom to imagine the time-space beyond what is seen. The jump-cut induces a change in direction of the linear flow as it pulls time forward or rolls it backwards, connecting different aspects of space. It is in the process of this flow slightly changing its direction that our “consciousness” intervenes. We escape from the flow proposed by the director, imagine a different flow, make free interpretations of the planned conclusion, and finally complete an “image” on our own. Consequently, we become active subjects, and not passive onlookers. And it is here that an imagination towards a different time-space is developed. In other words, we are given the power to transform social memory into personal experience, freely connect the recent past, present and future, and bring public issues into a private domain. This power enables us to search for the “essence” of today’s contradictions and conflicts in a new way.

In this sense, Minouk Lim’s jump-cut strategy has something in common with the “Back to the Future”-type of scenario. According to Liam Gillick, what excites us in films like Back to the Future or TV series with similar concepts is not the main characters of the story, but the imaginative power and ability to stand before events of the past, and decide whether to leave the existing conclusion the way it was, or intervene in the flow of time and change the hero’s destiny, or how to change it. Of course, the imaginative power mentioned here is not an empty daydream. It is the power to activate a different “present” that is parallel with the concrete reality. The process of returning to the future is making a different scenario of the past, present and future. This scenario is based on change of the present and hope for the future, and the “subject” of this change and hope is us. Perhaps the ability and possibility to “return to the future” while constantly “jump-cutting” is the true strategy of art… It is a different method of coexisting with the contradictions of reality and the conflicts caused by them, and at the same time, it is not giving up hope for the future. If the social, culture, political and economic issues derived from Korea’s 60 years of modernization and industrialization do not just remain as issues, but can enable us to imagine certain proposals or hope, and if we try out “returning to the future” through the imaginative power of the “jump-cut,” perhaps our reality will not feel so frustrating.