Today at Medialab-Prado Madrid, on the occasion of <Interactivos? Garage Science> seminar, I want to talk about a period of time in South Korea between two great fires within roughly in a year. In January 2008, Namdaemun, the southern gate to the old city and the landmark of Seoul for more than 600 years, was destroyed by a malicious fire by an unhappy man. In January 2009, five protesters and one riot policeman died in a fire caused from a violent evacuation at a squatted commercial building in Yongsan. Between two tragic events, the 'Candlelight protest (also known as the candlelight rally)' continued for more than 100 days, and brought more than 20 million citizens to the public spaces in Seoul at the peak moment, while the police estimates about 5 million. My interest in the protest began from personal anger about state terror and police brutality. I began to research on the topic, and found a broader interest on the cultural phenomenon of the protest, and creative use of technology, eventually examining the potential of new public spaces.

The core of my argument, reflecting the theme of 'Garage Science' symposium, is the potential of grassroots activism using D.I.Y new media technologies and open source art-culture practice, to create alternative space between existing public spaces. In Urban Protest 2.0, the boundary between physical and cyberspace is blurred, by citizens creatively appropriating mobile technologies. Low cost new media, specifically WIFI network and mobile device, can be used to protect citizen's rights, against the violence and fear imposed upon them from the state. The first part of the talk is background information on the political situation and culture of protest in South Korea. This chapter illustrates new kind of activism happening in the Internet and the physical space at the same time with comparable cultural phenomenon. The second chapter is documentations from a workshop on Urban Protest 2.0, which I conducted December of 2008 in Seoul.

Original Document with images http://camerautomata.org/web/urbanprotest20_TaeyoonChoi.pdf

Video Documentation of the talk http://medialab-prado.es/article/protesta_urbana_20

I am working on new drawing and text. contact me, if you want to visit the studio in Dumbo, Brooklyn.

Taeyoon  taeyoon@eyebeam.org

DRAWING+-
Co-taught Zach Lieberman and Taeyoon Choi
This class will investigate the curious space where drawing and computation meet.  From the earliest moments of the computer -- Douglas Englebart's mouse,  Ivan Sutherland's sketchpad -- developers have been striving for intuitive and meaningful ways to capture and explore gesture digitally. Likewise artists - From Durer's drawing machine, to Sol Lewitt's infinite cubes and Moholy Nagy's imaginary structures --have used computational method to transfer reality on to the paper and generatively reproduce elements of their drawing. In this class we will examine the fundamentals and challenges of mixing computation and drawing, in order to create a new realm of possibilities.  Students in this class will be required to complete both drawing and coding exercises and should not be afraid of getting their hands dirty.
at Parsons The New School of Design: M.F.A Communication Design and Technology Department

http://visiblevisible.org/teaching/drawing/blog/ 

Grey Belt from Taeyoon Choi on Vimeo.

Dear world.

Taeyoon and Cheon pyo are making a new collaborative project. We are showing kinetic sculptures and drawing with a story, combined as a work in progress performance piece ‘Grey belt’. Please come see us at EYEBEAM, mixer in March 3~6th, in New York City. Here are some excerpts of the text and working images. Our performance will be around 11 pm. The party goes til 2AM. Please RSVP http://www.eyebeam.org/engage/mixer/mixer_0309.html

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If you were to ask ‘What is this story about?’, I will say it is ‘not about the plaza, or the chamber, nor the alley way, but the waste land.’ Someone next to me say, ‘No no no it’s the stories of the humid and secret jungle.’ Another person will say without hesitance ‘Hey, you all got it wrong. This is about the funny green house, perfectly climate controlled and fertilized, but full of plastic tree.’

Another group of folks started whispering. ‘I will tell you why gravity disappeared from the grey belt’. Ah ha! So, this is about the zero gravity place where people fly around? Another person said with sarcasm, ‘No, They are actually projectile war heads that do not know its destination and purpose of the travel.’ Another person, looking at the other two rather pathetically, said ‘The falling things do not have wings to fly back up.’

Looking at the mirror and fixing her makeup, said ‘I got my skin peeled off, It’s still burned red.’ She is slowly stuffing herself into taxidermy. Are you mummifying yourself to stay beautiful forever? <The one who wishes eternal life and beauty dives into the pool of formalin> Is your skin, flesh, body desiring the same dream? The question continues to the issues of scar. Wrapping on the scar so many times and putting medicine, until you forget about it. Is it fixed now?

The turtle was taking a walk, and said, waiting is a painful torture. ‘He forgot about the appointment. Or, did he know, but purposefully erased the memory?’ Another person is waiting at the promised location. The landmine that was never activated, is it still waiting for him? It’s time is still ticking.

Finishing off for now. In the grey belt, the place where gravity disappeared, can one see more clearly into the distance? Or is the view perplexed? Is it because of the grey sunshine, or the monochrome air?

This work is inspired by the situation between South and North Korea, and rest of the world. Although the work is not meant as an explicit comment on a specific issue, we hope to express our understanding of origin and the complexity of the conflict.

www.tyshow.org

www.junkforms.com

Its coming to the end of the exhibition.

This saturday at 3pm. charlie and myself will be present at eyebeam's gallery.

we will teach you how to take picture like tourists.

you will have picture taken by charlie.

also the last day to see the paintings, photos, and exhibition

please come to eyebeam

540 w.21st st NYC

Mike (WIFI), Wendy (Electronic Hack), Charlie (CHDK hack)

The team

so the project has been enjoying media publicity recently. thank you!
Some people asked what are the pictures of digestion look like. Here I present few samples. More at the flickr set. Also check the Maldigested images here or whole set here

To remind you how this works. The duck takes picture when it detects flash light/ and also everytime it exits 'mode' of operation. There are few modes including 'driving', 'waiting', and 'printing'. Therefore some pictures are obviously of people taking picture at the duck and others are accidental.

People taking picture of the duck

Say Hello to Devon, who helped greatly in coding and electronics!

The duck is a great capturer of night life scene in the city.

Also, it takes alot of pictures of people's butt, because of how low it is and it's face looking up.

This is a beautiful picture of accidental moment.

=

"What is this? Does it Quack?"

Sunghun Kim, who helped greatly with fabrication of the duck.

Katie Bode also was a great help.

Duck working from Taeyoon Choi on Vimeo

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Duck out to a Park from Taeyoon Choi on Vimeo

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