DahaKim, Parking in a restricted area, 2022, Digital Print, 43x31x3cm.
2025.09. 공간 노토 Space NOTO 전시 전경 Installation View
Space located in Seonhwa-dong, Jung-gu, Daejeon, South Korea ‘NOTO’ is a cultural space that unravels the coexistence of empty and filled with design. Located at 32-1, Daejong-ro 521beon-gil, Seonhwa-dong, it is a place where various activities that combine art and design are held, such as pop-up bookstores, project exhibitions (for example, we will hang anything for you), and cultural events.
Daha Kim, The face of the Buddha, 2024, Modeling(clay, acrylic), 16x25x9cm.
This work aims to understand how Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) is educated as a topic of learning, inspiration, and enjoyment at a local site of cultural reproduction and how ICH transmission education is shaped by the stakeholder-shareholder relationship, including 1) the local citizens, 2) a holder of the ICH element, certified trainers, successors as teachers, and 3) administrators. The artist as a local citizen, I learned ‘Buddha sculpture making skill’ from a holder of ‘the Buddha sculpture making ICH element.’ This work is the result of it. As previous studies have focused less on the transmission education place of older listings on the list, it is necessary to study the topic at the most ground level. Adopting the qualitative ethnographic method, participant observation and interviews would be utilized, to present a detailed analysis. Findings would be helpful not only to the local element, but for other types of sound heritage that transcend the place that it played. The inventory of ‘Intangible Cultural Heritage’ (hereafter ICH) is an important vehicle in promoting cultural diversity and is significant for livelihood, communal geographical identities, and cultural rights. The elements in the inventory of ICH are inscribed on the standard setting system of the ‘United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization’ (hereafter UNESCO). The government of the Republic of Korea ratified ‘the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage’ (hereafter the Convention) of UNESCO. The benefits ‘cultural diversity’ and ‘variability’ are promoted particularly through a ‘Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity’ (hereafter RL) among the three types of lists provided in the Convention. As the elements in RL are well-safeguarded, its time-tested usefulness is certified. The focus of this study is variability and contextualization by roles through the tertiary transmission of education participation.
Title: How humans and ecosystems are changing in the age of science and technology
I examine how humans and ecosystems are changing in the age of science and technology and explore how an ideal network could be built through art based on the ideas of Donna J. Haraway.
In the contemporary world, humans are nurtured with the help of science from the moment they are conceived within their mother’s womb; and from the moment they are born to the moment they die, human beings live in a world surrounded by various forms of exquisitely created technology beneath the vast knowledge system of science.
With the advent of science and technology, traditional life based on primitive and natural ways of living is fading away and being replaced with a new way of life. Both society and ecology are changing in unprecedented ways.
Through science, people have created a worldwide digital network society and as a result, human mental exploration is no longer limited by time and place. In addition, the development of life science technology has enabled humans to transcend their biological limitations and to exist beyond their physical bodies.
However, science has brought many negative aspects with it, including the isolation of individuals and ecosystem destruction, not to mention controversial issues such as genetic manipulation. Changes in human nature caused by science and technology have become a key topic of discussion in modern society and several perspectives have been put forward.
As the first step, this paper reviews the arguments of Marshall McLuhan, Edwin Hutchins, Paul Virilio, and Bernard Stiegler, who investigated changes in human senses in the era of science and technology.
Additionally, this paper assesses the works of Myron W. Krueger, an early interactive artist, as well as Susanne Anker, a pioneer of bio art, in order to examine how early technology-based arts have changed due to developments in science and technology.
Against the backdrop of the changes brought about in science and technology and the possibility of a new perception of humans, Donna J. Haraway advocates for the dissolution of boundaries by employing creative and complex definitions of human existence altered by technology, and she explores ways to form a new network by building a world of science-art.
In this paper, research was conducted utilizing three concepts introduced by Haraway: “Cyborg”, which refers to changed humans, “Companion Species”, which focuses on relationships, and “Sympoiesis”, which is presented as a new network. Haraway explores the hybrid and denaturalized body that has been recreated in the era of science and technology and introduces the concept of “cyborgs” to redefine humans that are now converging with technology.
Cyborgs accelerate the end of the authority that humans were granted by God, and in this very way, a possibility is created for humans to avoid the end that will be caused by the dichotomous framework we have established for ourselves. A concept of cyborg transcends organisms, matter, and non-materials, breaking down boundaries that were considered impassable in the past, such as those between human-animal, machine-organism, and material-non-material.
After such boundaries are dismantled, the confusion caused by this dismantling is reorganized, using concepts such as “Companion Species” and “Sympoiesis”. With the concept of “Companion Species”, Haraway emphasizes the importance of acknowledging that each side becomes the other’s Companion Species while still stressing the impossibility of creating an unconditional relationship.
Moreover, she focuses on the perception of mortality in this regard. Her discussion extends from new human beings in science and technology to a new ecology, stressing the concept of “Sympoiesis” as a way of coexisting with all creatures on Earth, including humans and non-humans, therefore re-establishing the connections that technology has broken.
The final proposal by Haraway is to create a science-art world as a way of re-connecting broken and destroyed links. This begins with mourning for what has been lost, followed by acts of practice to help the Earth recover and be at peace.
This paper examines the works of Korean installation artist Lee Bul, bio artist Eduardo Kac, and environmental artist Natalie Jeremyjenko in reference to Haraway’s assertions.
Lastly, based on Haraway’s final statement, “I am a compostist”, I examine how death and mourning have changed in the era of science and technology, and accordingly, I suggest compostist art.
Haraway reinterprets today’s world as transformed by science and technology by reading scientific and biological concepts in a new light.
Using an ironic tone, she embraces the heterogeneous entities that were once separated by boundaries, and reads the environment from a different perspective.
Her metaphors are aimed at creatures that have been historically marginalized, and are ultimately about fostering peaceful relationships with such creatures. In a time when ecological problems are gradually emerging, exploring the role of art based on Haraway’s theory may elucidate a solution to the problems mankind faces.
