On the Essence of “Cinema”: Cinema Experience VS Interactive Cinema

KIM Loyou Professor of Image Design at Korea Polytechnics

Since its inception, cinema has raised the question of what it means to add a new dimension to images. In film, images gained the effect of illusion, which competed with factual truth. Film also expanded its territory into documentaries, experimental movies, and new media art. Unlike the Lumière Brothers’ dismal prediction of movies as a medium without future, cinema has firmly stood the test of time, keeping up with the advances in art and technology. Tracing back the complex history of cinema even stokes discourses on painting and photography. While cinema distinguishes itself from the fixed images of other visual art forms, it is ultimately still a “motion picture.” Yet it is such “motion” of images in cinema that many found appealing enough to create new spacetime and dimensions through cinema, and successfully deliver something even beyond mere visual images to the viewers.

In fact, visual expression is merely a part of this “art of motion.” Motion pictures also require sounds to provide an auditory experience, along with the cast’s acting to make the narrative provided by the screenplay, which is yet another essential component alongside images. Throughout the course of cinematic evolution, audiences constantly demanded “something new,” thereby triggering efforts to differentiate cinema as a “tool.” Such efforts led to the likes of “future cinema” and “3D film.” As can be seen, there is no denying that film has gone beyond being a two–dimensional medium to provide new levels, or “dimensions,” of experience in 3D, 4D, and virtual reality cinema, allowing viewers to experience entirely different spaces.

Pioneering directors like Abel Gance or Jean Luc Godard would use film as the tools of “therapy” or “experiment.” For the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, film was a tool for propaganda and ideological training. Still for others, film serves as a mirror that provides a glimpse of their reflection.

What sort of tool, then, is film for PARK Seong Jun? To PARK, “film” was always his motif as well as the topic of his questions. In other words, the questions on what film is and what kind of tool it can be have long driven PARK’s works, while also remaining his ever–remaining subject of research. PARK’s involvement in film began with his short films in high school. After a long hiatus during his studies in Switzerland, PARK has now resumed his work in film with the latest exhibition.

If I may venture a guess, perhaps PARK focused more on providing an experience–based narrative or exhibition because to him, film as a medium cannot go beyond “seeing” and “showing.” Maybe that is why he considered film as a type of “old media,” and turned his attention to the “new media” that can transcend the limits of conventional film. Even so, PARK remains tied up around this very concept of “cinema.” As such, those that witness his works say they had a “cinematic experience” as opposed to saying that they “saw an exhibition.”

Whereas PARK’s previous Montage series was used as an interactive, experimental tool for the narrative, this time PARK seems more cordial towards film.

PARK’s Cinema Experience with Space without Screen (SRCruins, Space 9, Baekjijang, Seoul, Korea, 2019–2021) strives to fill the abovementioned “incompleteness” of film by inducing the audience to perform a sort of “acting” where they become the “actors.” In other words, the viewers “experience” rather than “watch” this movie, under the “direction” of the artist as the director. Interestingly, the director (i.e., the artist) does not appear in person at this production site. Instead, he leaves a few missions. When the viewer (actor) calls the number left by the director, they can interact (converse) with another actor at the other end of the line. This unfolds new, spontaneous narrative and story. The viewers are thus taken to three spots to actively engage in PARK’s exhibition.

This is where PARK’s interest seems to truly lie. Since the visual product created under the director’s control is tied down behind screens of television shows or movies, PARK wants his audience to “experience” this new domain rather than to simply “watch” it unfold. As is widely known, films follow the trajectory laid down by the director and the screenplay. What is worth noting in this exhibition is that it is the viewer who determines the narrative.

The cinematic attempt of PARK as director borrows from the conventional scheme of film, wherein the screenplay predetermines everything from the opening to ending credits. However, PARK also transmutes the story into something to be “experienced” rather than “watched.” While this is not an entirely new concept as seen in existing interactive cinema projects, what makes PARK’s attempt unique lies in the fact that he encourages the viewers to engage in dialogue with the actors. This in turn leads to unexpected reaction, which was as intended by PARK’s directing. While the generic atmosphere of the exhibition is akin to that of horror, thriller, or black comedy flicks, it remains difficult to define. PARK’s “movie” is somewhere between fiction and documentary, and even in the genre of documentary, straddles somewhere between “direct cinema” and “cinéma vérité.” This leads me to guess that the film style PARK strives for is somewhat related to self–reflexivity.

As mentioned above, many writer–directors such as Jean–Luc Goddard and Alfred Hitchcock attempted to incorporate self–reflexivity in their works. Some examples that resonate with self–reflexivity include the estrangement effect (Verfremdungseffekt), breaking the fourth wall by staring at or talking to audience, and representation. The aesthetics of estrangement induces metaphorical meaning and connects us to new symbols. The sense of distance created through this not only dissolves meaning but also allows for the generation of new meaning, thereby further reinforcing the power of the text to liberate the audience as free subjects. While V–Effekt can be a rather abstruse concept, in plain language it is the effect of distorting the fundamental while expanding free interpretation and paving the way to experience new horizons.

While artists can adapt any number of such diverse strategies, most artists opt to reveal themselves in the midst of engaging in their creative process. Others dismantle genres and forms to transport the viewers to other dimensions. In this vein, PARK must have already been keen on representing such self–reflexivity in his works, in the manifestation of

that undefinable interactivity that tears down the boundaries between exhibition and film. While PARK’s method of representation drops many clues, I wish to particularly emphasize his previous exhibition, Never Trust the Mainlanders and Don’t Tell Your Inner Thoughts to People in Jeju (Art Space Grove, Seoul, Korea, 2019). In this exhibition, PARK used the “stone” as his means of self–reflection. In this year’s exhibition, PARK uses a “mirror.”

In this exhibition, mirror serves as more than a simple prop or decorative objet, but rather a dispositif that reveals self–reflexivity. Of note, the mirror overturns all narratives in his exhibition. Mirrors force the viewers to face themselves while also viewing the exhibition, swapping the role of the actor and the observed. In other words, the “director” becomes the “audience,” and vice versa. I feel that such method of exhibition, where elements simply cannot be defined, is increasingly becoming a signature style of PARK. As such, I have come to interchangeably refer to PARK as both an artist and a director as in this text. This exhibition also overlaps with the “camèra–stylo” that Alexandre Astruc coined to characterize the auteurism and attitude of past cinema. Perhaps any attempt to interpret or critique PARK’s exhibition may be offensive to his audience, for what more potent explanation could there be than the “cinema experience” itself?