Un-condensed rural 2.0

'nightwall'

With day turned to night- all that remains is wall, casting shadows and projecting light in the cool autumn air of rural Korea. The earthen walls, 'tom', are labors of division (and inclusion); containing spaces of outside to be included inside. These are outside rooms to be certain.  The rise of autumn brings silence in night and in day. Contained within earthen walls- nightwalls.

Jon Jost

Image courtesy, Jon Jost

I sat down recently in Seoul with American filmaker and artist, Jon Jost. We met on the campus where I teach, at a small cafe for an exchanging introduction. He was both engaging and accessible in conversation that lasted seamlessly for two hours. His stories of life seemed opposite his films in some ways, and then again, his work as a direct projection of his own divergent 'lives' rendered the man and places behind the camera even more real- in details captured deliberately in time. Jost has made more than 60 independent films dating back to the late 1960's. 


Perhaps, known best for,  All The Vermeers in New York, his films are as much a reflection of places he has lived and experienced, as they are in deeply personal views and an obsessive craft in making. His films have been both widely celebrated around the world for their cinematic attention and perhaps equally criticized for a cadence, some find hard to follow. They are cerebral and deliberately constructed; or film as "architecture," as Jost describes. 


Jon Jost will lecture on November 25th at 1:30 pm in the department of Architecture at Konkuk University.  His lecture is titled_  Cinematic architectural space: an exploration

condenCITY_81 Seoul from above 1.3

The horizon is lost and then found in Seoul. It's serrated edge pitched against a hazy, late summer sky. For many city dwellers it is an elusive experience to be found in moments of brief visits above the 10th floor. At street level we tend to forget that vision can be free of limit. 

condenCITY_80 Seoul from above 1.2

From above Seoul is mixed. 

Architecture is at once road, programmed space, bridge, public node, parking lot, to name just a few; collective as a multi-functional device in the city. Bound indistinguishably on its sides, concealed and then revealed. Architecture, by determined will (and absolute limits), as it was constructed in double-time, producing road, market and modern apartment block in one economic effort. Simultaneously they rose, as we see it today from above; the confluence of Nagwon.

condenCITY_79 Seoul from above 1.1

The Seoul Metropolitan area is 605 square kilometers (or 233 sq. miles). It's population of 10,464,051 estimated in 2010, is concentrated in an area of 17,288 people per square kilometer (44,770 per square mile); in comparison New York City's density of approximately (27,500 people per square mile) is clear indication of just how dense Seoul is in terms of population per area. From above at night, in this NASA satellite image, we too are reminded of Seoul's defining topographic boundaries and limits, viewed here in its thinly delicate and fragile form (quite opposite the constructed reality at ground level). The cities overflowing edges have been pushed outward and forced through narrowing geographies, north and south, east and west, visible high in the night sky.

condenCITY_78 1912 Se-ul From Above 1.0

Image courtesy nationmaster.com

Seoul has a history of being fictitious when it comes to mapping and representations of the city on paper. Through centuries either locally or by the hand of visiting foreigners (as viewed in the map above) it has been laid out and mapped according to personal perceptions, a kind of visual feeling, rather than by any exactness of measure or precision. It is a representation that permeates even the city today; in its constructed imprecise form.

condenCITY_77 60's seoul Nakwon Sanga

Fall 2011; preservation or preservative? 

condenCITY_76 mullae shadow

Tinged air washed away along rust stained streets. 

open windows accepting what the city has to offer; tempered for a moment by rains torrent.

a lights line connects odd bedfellows in programmatic disharmony. 

casting a final evening glance, I cut through another eves pale twilight of wet grey 

Lost in shadow.

condenCITY_75

Seoul Adaptations

condenCITY_74 From roads to rivers

Image courtesy open source for public use: daum.net

As the rain continues to fall this day, July 28, 2011 the deluge of the last two days has left my home district of Seocho-gu underwater literally. What has officially been classified as a 100 year flooding event on the south side of the city is still unfolding in terms of an urban disaster. Homes washed out as mountainsides have eroded and motorists stranded on the roofs of their vehicles in 1.5m+ deep water, the rains caught many by surprise in the early morning hours on the 27th. With downpours falling in amounts as much as 2.3 inches (6 cm)/ hour it is no surprise that Seoul's drainage systems have been helpless against the torrential summer monsoon.