+ "Media City Seoul" http://www.mediacity.seoul.kr/ is a "new media"
festival that will take place beginning in September. Korea likes big
events, Korean artists like big art, and the Korean government doesn't
mind spending big money on big events with "big" artists that might grab
the attention of the world, be it just for a moment. I clicked on the
Web site, and there is no mention of Web art nor of any online events.
The Web site itself seems cursory, more like a half-hearted attempt to
give the festival a cutting-edge facade. From the looks of it, Media
City Seoul sees video as the last frontier.

+ Last spring, "The Kwangju Biennale 2000" http://kwangjubiennale.org/
in the city of Kwangju, which is in the south of South Korea, devoted a
vast exhibition hall to what it called "new media art," which didn't
include Web art. What it did include was mostly computer animation.

+ Other examples are the "museums" and art institutions in Seoul. I put
the word museum in quotation marks, because museums in Korea are really
alternative spaces. They never have an important or even a minimal
permanent collection. Exhibitions are many, curatorial seriousness is
most often lacking. I'm in a good position to judge Korean art criticism
and theory, because I make my living as a translator, my business is
called Translations for Artists, and I work with most of the major art
institutions and important curators and critics in Korea.

+ http://www.hoammuseum.org/ is the Web site for the Ho-am Museum, which
is part of the Samsung Foundation, which is owned by the multinational
of the same name. I think it was a major sponsor of the recent Nam June
Paik show at the Guggenheim, which has just come to the Ho-am Museum in
Seoul. The Samsung Foundation is probably the most powerful player in
the Korean art world in terms of the money at its disposal. Its interest
in contemporary art stops at Nam June Paik. Again, video seems to be
synonymous with new media. The Ho-am Web site has a musty, rustic,
amateurish, indefinable look that is characteristic of Korean esthetics
and true to the Ho-am esthetic. This is all the more intriguing given
that its curators pride themselves on having prestigious diplomas from
Western universities and cosmopolitan chic.

+ "The International Digital Art Festival," or http://www.idaf.org/, is
part of the other very powerful player in the Korean art world, the Gana
Art Center, http://www.ganaart.com/. You can click on the sites, but you
won't be able to navigate, because they're only in Korean. This in
itself is an indication that the digital revolution for much of the
Korean art world is still misunderstood if not looked down on. Digital
means global, and global means English, as any Korean can tell you, and
tell in English. That one of the most powerful institutions in the
Korean art world chooses to have a Korean-only Web site is a powerful
statement for isolationism and contradiction. The IDAF was and maybe
still is the first Korean attempt at what its name doesn't indicate,
which is that it was an online festival. But it was a festival that
didn't include online art. Instead, its organizers confused Web graphic
design with Web art, a common, even willful confusion in Korea.

+ http://www.artsonje.org/ is the "museum" of another Korean
multinational, Daewoo, which you might have read about in the
newspapers, because it is in serious financial trouble. Its chief
curator contacted me a couple of weeks ago and invited me to present a
Korean version of my piece THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES on the Web site it is
building. To my knowledge, this will be the first serious attempt in
Korea to create an online event around Web art. I say attempt, because
I'm not sure its curatorial team will appreciate the experience enough
to collaborate with me to completion. We'll see.

+ The Total Museum in Seoul http://www.totalmuseum.org, is one of the
only "museums" in Seoul that isn't powered by a multinational. I heard
that its annual "Project 8," an exhibition that usually includes 4
Korean and 4 artists from another country, will this year be a Web art
show. I heard about it, because the museum's curator asked me to
recommend some Web artists, both Korean and international. I suggested
some URLs for international Web artists, which was easy, but couldn't
find even one Korean Web artist other than myself. I'm sure there are
some. For him and for you, I will keep searching.

+ + +

The Internet has exploded in Korea. Most Koreans have more powerful
computers than mine. Modem connections aren't fast enough. I'm
particularly at a disadvantage, because I live in one of the few
remaining Japanese houses in Seoul, a tiny house in a relatively old
neighborhood in the middle of the city. Fast connections are for the
high-rise apartment complexes, where the majority of Seoulites live
today.

The relative lack of interest in Web art and the Internet as a new,
alternative, exciting and unique medium for expressing oneself
creatively probably stems from Web art's inherently modest demeanor.
Koreans are very sociable creatures. Interactivity is, ironically, a
solitary activity, much like reading a book. And as you know, people
everywhere read fewer and fewer books these days, even online.

Korean artists in particular like to make big, physical statements. Such
a small country, such big egos. Korean artists love the gallery or
museum opening, the hoopla, the celebration, the gallery or museum
catalog, the invitations, the buffet, the Event. Post-event depression
is common.

There is one particularity that has always struck me about the Korean
art world. Even though there is a ministry of culture and powerful
cultural institutions, it is the artist who sets everything in motion.
It is the Korean artist's desire for fame and fortune that makes the
Korean art world bang into action. The successful Korean artist thinks
and acts like a business person: how to get one's money's worth. Things
happen and disappear quickly in Korea. Patience is a fault; long-term
projects are synonymous with death; explanation, discussion, thinking
are for losers. Korean culture is that of the businessman. Money is the
key, and results must be tangible if not monumental. In such a context,
Web art is at the bottom of the agenda, just so many tiny pixels in the
face of neon signs.

The detail. If there is one art medium that loves the detail, it is Web
art. For lack of a dot, an angle bracket, a quotation mark, nothing
appears on the computer screen. Koreans in general, and Korean artists
in particular, dislike details, the messy odds and ends that, to others,
are often a joy to discover, deal with, transform, polish, and then see
in all their beauty. I'm convinced that this is one of the most profound
traits of the Korean soul. It is what has allowed Korea to become an
economic power in such a short period of time. The Korean dislike for
the detail might also stem from obsessive comparisons with the Japanese
love for the detail. Rough Korean art is then a response to refined
Japanese art. This roughness is for the moment difficult to translate
into worthy digital, artistic form.

+ + +

I hope my commentary, although critical, is not a condemnation of the
Korean art world's response to new media. As I said, things happen very
fast here, mostly because ours is a conformist society, and Web art
could very well become fashionable tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Westerners often tell me they have no image of Korea. This is a banal,
fascinating insight, indicative of Korean culture. I find it easy to
live with this invisibility. The Korean government finds it difficult to
swallow. I lived for over 10 years in Paris. Everyone has an image of
Paris. I found that contemporary art in Paris wasn't as exciting as
elsewhere, including in Korea. I speculated that the omnipresent weight
of French culture and beauty must paralyze today's French artist. Things
are ugly and forgettable in Korea. Yet there is beauty here, secret
rewarding beauty to the one who seeks it out.

[Young-hae Chang is an artist living in Seoul. She recently received an
Honorable Mention in the SFMoMA Webby Prize.]