작업 소개

SeMA 삼색전(三色展)의 한 갈래인 SeMA Green의 〈날개. 파티〉 기획전에서 다큐멘터리, 전시 영상 및 티져를 기획, 제작하였다.

<길 위의 멋짓>, 영상, 30분, 2017

‘백척간두진일보(百尺竿頭進一步)’, ‘홀려라’, 그리고 ‘도리불언 하자성혜(挑李不言 下自成蹊)’, 세 가지의 에피소드로 구성되어 있는 다큐멘터리로, 안상수의 예술 정신과 삶의 철학을 엿볼 수 있는 영상물입니다. 안상수는 예순을 앞둔 어느 날 재직 중이던 홍익대학교를 사퇴하고 돌연 디자인학교를 설립하기로 합니다. 백 척짜리 장대 위에서 한 발짝을 내딛는 기분으로 PaTI라는 새로운 학교를 ‘디자인’해가면서 스스로 묻고 고민하고 대답해온 화두가 이번 영상에 진솔하게 담겨 있습니다. 감독은 작가의 심상을 따라 자연에서 무늬를 찾아 영상의 배경이자 기호가 되는 무빙 이미지를 교차 편집합니다.

특별출연: 이동국, 예술의 전당 서예미술관 부장

프로젝트 내용

SeMA 삼색전(三色展)은 한국 미술계의 여러 모습과 자취를 세대별로 조명하는 격년제 기획전입니다. 그중에서 SeMA Green은 원로 작가의 업적과 자취를 반추하고 한국 미술의 현주소와 미래를 가늠해보는 전시이다. <날개.파티>라는 제목은 디자이너 안상수의 호와 PaTI 교장을 뜻하는 이름씨 ‘날개’와 파주타이포그라피학교의 줄임 이름인 ‘파티’의 협업 프로젝트를 나타낸다.

전시의 첫 번째 부분인 ‘날개’에서는 활동 초기의 ‘안상수체’부터 시작해서 근래의 <도자기 타일>과 <문자도>까지 작품들을 차례로 경험하고, 각종 문자도 파일을 디지털 영상으로 재 작업해, 오감이 복합적으로 작용하는 멀티미디어 문자를 선보인다. 그간 안상수는 글꼴 디자인, 타이포그라피, 편집 디자인, 로고 타입 디자인, 포스터 제작, 벽면 드로잉과 설치 작업, 문자 퍼포먼스, 문자도, 캔버스 문자도, 실크스크린, 도자기 타일 등 다양한 형식 실험으로 ‘한글’을 작업해왔다. 그의 작품 세계는 ‘문자’에 내재한 여러 시각 요소를 결합하고 반응시켜 우리의 문자 지각을 공감각적으로 확장해준다. 여기에서 우리는 그의 작품 속에서 언어의 상징 의미와 조형 체계가 분리되는 기이한 경험을 하게 된다. 안상수의 작품 세계 근간에 ‘한글’이 있다면 PaTI는 ‘문자’와 ‘한글의 창조적 정신’을 중심에 둔, 가장 우리다운 교육을 찾아 실험하고 실천하는 디자인 공동체이자 교육 협동조합이다.

전시의 두 번째 부분인 ‘파티’에는 PaTI가 2012년 2명의 학생과 함께 시작한 예비학교를 거쳐 올해 14명의 첫 졸업생을 배출하기까지 축적해온 종합적인 성과와 기록을 한눈에 조망할 수 있도록 꾸려진다. 이와 함께 미술관 내에 워크숍과 프로그램을 위한 임시 ‘교실’이 마련된다. 전시 공간에서 여러 기록물과 프로그램을 통해 작동하는 ‘현재의 이야기’들은 학교라는 사회, 디자인 작업물의 경제적 순환, 유기적으로 연결된 총체적 교육의 중요성 등 PaTI를 관통하는 주요 주제를 담고 있다. 따라서 이번 전시는 현대사회에서 재고해야 할 교육의 방향성과 공동체적 삶에 복무하는 디자인의 미래상을 논의하는 뜻깊은 계기가 될 것이다.

출처 : 서울시립미술관

I was afraid. For Koreans, being 60 years old is like counting another chapter of one’s life. People look back on their lives when they reach that age. And a life shifts like seasonal changes from autumn to winter, like that. It is the time for harvest. Naturally start looking back of your life… and get a strong intention on how to complete the life. We often hesitate and become anxious When we do something, there is vague anxiety If we do nothing, it just goes like life inertia. This feeling of inertia is about some kind of security. But we cannot live just like that. I mean, every person has something that they really want to do. Everyone tells so.

The older you get, the more risks you take. So I reaffirm myself again and again. I try to brainwash myself, or keep repeating something to move myself. Once I convince myself, it’s easy to convince others including my family… But I must convince myself before convincing others. Baek Cheok Gan Du (百尺竿頭) literally means, making one step forward on a 100 feet long bamboo rod. From the place I used to be… Well, where should I go further or higher? Teaching at the university where I used to be, it was such an honor, and it was too much greed if I wanted something more… Making another step forward from there means that heading ahead for nowhere. Do you understand this feeling? Now I realize it was a good decision to step down from the professor position. If I didn’t, I would’ve been still in regret. If I didn’t… If I didn’t… I was fortunate to make that decision.

King Sejong.

King Sejong is… Once had his youth… just like us. I think he was an extraordinary person full of creativity. He designed letters… Even though we literally say that he created Hangul, but he actually designed it. Technically, letters existed before then. I call it Great Design because it is unusual. It was unprecedented. As time goes by, it becomes more powerful. Not only did he create our culture, but he saved the whole nation. He invented the most ideal and rational letters in the world. It was and still is the most modern typeface… He created totally different shapes from the vast forest of Chinese letters

My work is all about Hangul. When Hangul is attached, some strange chemical reaction occurs. When two disparate shapes encounter the form itself becomes immersed. because of the energy of Hangul. Myself is actually immersed to letters. I see letters all around. In Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times, he tightens all the screws he sees. Like him, I’m… immersed with letters again and again…
Everything I see becomes letters in my eyes.

Lee Dong-guk (Head of Caligraphy Art, Seoul Arts Center)

Until the 15th century, Chinese letters dominated us before Hangul was created. We could obtain two paths (choices) with creation of Hangul. However, Hangul wasn’t simply a substitution for Chinese letters. Hangul made it possible to correspond the sound of our language to writing. It was different from any letter system in the world. It is a revolutionary change. Hangul didn’t fall from the sky. It wasn’t just appeared in the world. All the great letter culture and all the results of the time were combined… And all the principles were applied to Hangul. All the elements of Haven, Earth, and Man and the Three Disasters… consonants and vowels are all hieroglyphics. Based on the shape of round Heaven and a man standing on a flat land… the vowels ‘ㅏ[a], ㅓ[ə], ㅣ[j]’ were born. From the structure and shape of the vocal organs, the consonants ‘ㄱ[g], ㅁ[m], ㅇ[o], ㅅ[s], ㄴ[n]’ were created. Therefore, Hangul is a phonetic language, so, called a language of body, or hieroglyphic letters. Hangul is the letters that is composed of a language of body and pictogram. It makes Hangul is a perfected letter system since its birth

Every language has its own evolutionary process. Except Hangul. We know who created it. All the fruits of mankind, the cultures and civilizations of letters were tailored to Hangul. It is a great output of King Sejong who had assembled all the great principles of letter culture and civilization from other countries of the world in the 15th century. There are fundamental elements of beauty, like music, architecture, painting and sculpture. There are basic forms like long and short, big and small, high and low, thick and thin. And there is the state of most idealistic order. Its prototype was established as Hangul. I believe the power of Hangul is laid in there… It is the most artificial letters amongst all the letters in the world history. It was designed with intention. Therefore, Hangul itself is a work of design. When you integrate any form or any iconic image It perfectly becomes a work of Hangul.

Who would consider King Sejong as a designer? He is known for a sage and great king. We were all educated like this… But all of sudden, it hit my head and I realized that he was the greatest designer whom I should pay respect for… It was the moment. In fact, it was just about the time when I created ahn font. In my life as a designer, creating ahn sang-soo font became a turning point. When you take a look at the history of art… conventions were always broken to take a new concept. As keep breaking a convention, it leads to another convention. The ahn sang-soo font created by the designer Ahn Sang-soo is is a de-squared typeface. It is a breakaway of a convention of square typeface. It happened in our time, in our era, and was it a mere fun to break the convention? No. It was the result of a collective self-awareness that was reflected and projected from our time and society. We have encountered the time that no one can avoid breaking the convention…

Korean calligraphy, East Asian calligraphy of course, is arts of writing and painting, because the root of writing and painting is the same. As we said, caligraphy always had been in the center of all arts in East Asia, and letters have always lead… Calligraphy deals with letters as its object… Not just about formativeness, but calligraphy is about the unity of text and meaning. When it’s only about text, it becomes poetry. When it’s only about formativeness, it becomes visual art. Calligraphy is the unity of poetry, writing, painting and visual art. We must understand it clearly… During the Japanese colonial era of the 20th century, calligraphy was not recognized as a form of art.

So traditional calligraphy was categorized as arts. And caligraphy was removed from the regular course of education. It was rather classified as part of oriental paintings in comparison with the Western painting. And calligraphy was forgotten from the institutional education. Design was imported from abroad, and everything is like… For example, we think that cities like New York, London, Berlin, Paris and Milano are the center of design. But for us, design is imported from Japan and through other countries. Korea is like a periphery… so we study and work there… We often think that we have to go abroad to study design. I had this kind of inferiority complex. Until I met King Sejong, and he saved me. On this land, there existed this great history of design. The land I was born and raised, is not a periphery.

Yi Sang

For the people working in art and culture in Korea, we consider Yi Sang with adoration. There is an elusive admiration on him. His works don’t get old, like transcending time and space. When you look at his poetry, the words are crammed together without spacing… It’s like looking at visual walls. It seems like he was aware of type-ness from the beginning of writing a poem. When you look at his writings on paper, the traces of type chemical are embedded in. He just drew them on it. This man studied architecture, and he was also a calligrapher. There was a magazine called Joseon and Architecture… He applied for the designing title typography and was awarded. He designed the cover of the magazine, too. He drew illustrations for his own novel and designed his friend’s book… He was a designer, for sure.

There are many perspectives exist to understand him. Architects see him as an architect. Poets see him as a poet… Everyone has a different view. I see him as a typographer. He played with types. He actually mentioned about it many times. He talked about mirrors for many times, about the reflected image. Types are always reversed, but it turns back right when it’s printed. Through those reversed images by using types, he writes poems with full awareness of type-ness. From this perspective, the extremely abstruse image of his works are actually typographical Spieltrieb. King Sejong designed Hangul letters, and Yi Sang actually played with letters. He enjoys the letter play with his gifted talent as a poet. When we see his poetry in a perspective of letter play, it is even more fun. Those extreme experiments are all about playing. In the perspective of letter play, Yi Sang’s poetry is very enjoyable.

I thought of him… as the pioneer of modern typhography of Korea. Yi Sang lived before me, and he is my mentor. But if we lived in the same time, we would have been friends. I imagine it. If he lived in this time with me, he would have lived in Hongdae community. I’m sure he would.

Language was a star.

Contemporary Literature magazine asked me for an assay. They requested it with visual materials… And I thought they wanted a poem… ㅇ in Hangul is hieroglyphic image of the sky. I considered ㅇ represents the sky or stars… After invention of letters, human civilization begins. History is written after the invention of letters… After letters are used… civilization is started. The letters for me is like the key to open the secrets of the universe. It decodes all secrets of the universe… It is inherited to next generations, by teaching them. It expands the area of human beings… Letters name things. This is a camera, this is a desk, that’s Venus, that’s Mercury and that’s Cassiopeia…

Once giving names to things… Before naming them, they a bunch of nameless shiny things in the sky. When a name is given to them, they belong to human, as an intellectual possession. From time to time, when a form is combined and turned into Hangul, I am amazed. I simply play with them without specific intention. When I just follow Spieltrieb in me, the result just comes out. This is the power of Hangul! That’s what I think.

A man of virtue is steadily followed by many admirers

Simply speaking, PaTI is a design project.
It’s a business for designing school.

School + Design

It’s a way to design a school. School has to be designed to be born something new… When we establish a school, it is just a way of imitating a system. I think it is the most important point. I think designers have to design schools… The school and its education has to become a design itself. Just like an art education should be an art practice itself. Design education should be a design itself, but we cannot escape from the reality. The reality is surrounded by multiple layers of meaningless things. So, everything is doubted and has to go through many debates. I’m good at two things. I have been teaching at univesity for 20 years, and working in design industry for about 20 years before then. Design and education are two kinds of working I’ve done properly in my adult life. In our history, the school system is also imported. With imported education system, we’ve been continuously using it.

Making a new school is not about implement existing system. Thinking about designing a new school, I have to doubt everything because it’s my first time. It is the doubt about the start. I have to be uncertain when making choices. Although every other places tried it, we have to doubt if we should do it the same way.

School + Design + Business

Business means… It is not about making money, but about the works that has to be done by the heaven. The work is given to men, it is written in I Ching. I think that business is very heavy and precious word.

I think it is important to do business properly… What I’m doing is a design business. It is a work of design… and I believe that a work decides our existence. When we make a decision between two, we go through evaluation. Survival is a realistic issue. We first have to survive, then it’s about to be a history or not. To be a history after surviving, what kinds of choices should we make? These two thing are… about continuing PaTI… With these two ideas, I keep affirming myself. If we can do it with our own hands, it is like planting a tree. Of course, this tree is a variant. I can’t ignore that. When you a plant persimmon tree, you start with a date-plum tree… And you graft the date-plum tree on the persimmon tree because the date-plum tree strongly root down in earth and grow stronger. Later you cut the branches off and grafted. Then it becomes a persimmon tree.

This is a metaphor but I don’t know whether it grows into a date-plum tree. It has to grow bigger. I’m not talking about the size, but the idea has to grow bigger. I hope this will happen someday. And it’s my responsibility to make it happen. As a designer, I am still working on design, but the subject has been changed. It has changed to the most meaningful one for me now. It is designing a school. There is an old saying that
“Peaches and plums do not have to talk about the beauty by themselves. A path underneath them is naturally made by the gatherings of people to see the flowers.” It is my favorite phrase. I hope that PaTI becomes like that. PaTI doesn’t have to talk, but it inspires others just like the scent of flower attract them. I hope good people gather here, and make a new path together. As I said, a road will be paved leading to the history. This is what it really means.