A Few More Kim Young-ha Things

Kim Young-ha 김영하

Kim Young-ha (김영하)

Just a couple of things on the heels of meeting Kim Young-ha the other day.

The Wall Street Journal did a piece mentioning Kim. (ALAS, then they deleted or moved it^^)

The Herald covered his new collection of short stories (The stories are not translated into English).

• Finally, and I’m not sure what to make of this, an event in Seoul called “Trust” (already I don’t, and I’m sure that is the ironic point) will occur in September. It’s blurb features some charming academic boilerplate:

Instead of simply stepping up to the speed of technology, the curatorial team of Media City Seoul 2010 proceeds from a desire to pause, reflect, and critique the transitions and transformations of our social contexts. The exhibition is propositional by nature. Trust interprets media broadly—as a tool for engagement within a shifting terrain where political, national or religious identities are being re-charted; where means of distribution creates real and imagined communities; and where private interpersonal space share the same platform as global political issues of the day. As forms of media become more accessible and varied, we enter an era that seemingly allows more room for self-expression and individuality. Yet, what is at stake when media channels are more concentrated and powerful? How do these networks create new spaces of alienation and control? How do we reconcile the desire for changing social models, with a desire for new communities?

That’s a totally dilatory way to say “Holy cow, new realities in technology and distribution interact in odd ways with our human desires for change and connection” (and even that seems theorized!). But in some way it will include some writing from Kim:

Publication
Media City Seoul 2010’s catalogue will also be published under the title Trust, containing texts by Kim Young-ha (fiction writer) and Jalal Toufic (writer, film theorist, and video artist ), and curatorial essays by Clara Kim, Nicolaus Schafhausen, Fumihiko Sumitomo and with a foreword by artistic director Sunjung KIM.

So I’ll check it out. 😉