Nov/7/2024
To be or not to be (a genius)? This is the question
Dear, Song E
How are you?
I read about the Toronto Art Fair exhibition, and it seems very interesting, right?
It's fine here, apart from the weather: the days are short, the light is tiny, and the sun is rarely seen.
It's strange, but I feel a physical need for light that I've never felt before.
My routine continues, full of challenges and deadlines, but always bringing new stimuli.
Regarding our roadmap, I’m afraid Korea in December is unfeasible. I have too many deadlines that month and only have two weeks off. Organizing myself for a research-study trip with you seems impossible, at least in Korea. I am sorry. It would be more feasible for me to visit Florence and Rome in December and Korea in June. I know you want to take the space and time to work quietly in December, so I don't know if this will work for you. Let me know: a solution or compromise can always be found.
Can you send me the book you were telling me about? I can translate it as I did with the graphic! It would be of great help to me, thanks.
If we use the exact text as a reference, I think it will be easier to organize ourselves and find common points!
Regarding the genius question you wrote to me about last week, I believe that the concept of genius is a fortunate and lasting construction. And maybe even a little dangerous at times. Mainstream culture, and unfortunately not only that, talks about genius in terms of the "golden nugget": either you have the "genes" of genius, or you are not a genius. It is as if it were a question of having a particular superpower that puts you in a position different from normality. It is a binary reading of humans and risks flattening their complexity.
Talking about genius is like talking about intelligence: no definition exists. I believe that the word “genius,” as we understand it today, came into force in the modern period, during Romanticism. Before, the word existed, but it did not have the same value.
It is undoubtedly attractive to ask how people of the Renaissance could perceive characters like Leonardo Da Vinci or Michelangelo, considering that being an artist at the time was not a vocation but a regular job. Did people recognize them as exceptional? Or did they become unique in the narrative that was made of them afterward?
Let's continue to nourish thoughts!
Take care,
Rob
11/8/2024
Dear, Rob
I am happy to hear from you.
Yes, Toronto was great!! It was nothing different compared with New York, but it was special because of the people. Pure young artists gave me good energy.
I am also thankful for this moment. It is extraordinary to talk seriously and sincerely about art and society with someone and to write together. Creating a common goal is more complicated than we think. We have to understand each other and align ourselves with each other, and we tend to sacrifice ourselves for this. I believe these processes eventually make a genius, just as you gave an opinion on a genius. Empathy creates a genius when two thoughts combine to create something more significant, and more people sympathize with it.
Your letter inspired me greatly, and your life story in England captivated me. It reminds me of a scene from a movie where a Venetian woman lives studying at a university in a quiet British town where the sun doesn't rise well. Our artistic research moves back and forth between thousands of present and past years in each other's heads. I am surprised and grateful that these tremendous things happen in our daily and everyday lives.
I have a lot of unorganized ideas, but the paperwork isn't ready yet, so I will focus on completing them this winter. I will also try to complete the puzzle while matching the business and research schedules.
I plan to visit Basel, Switzerland, in June 2025. I am still undecided whether to exhibit or visit, but I plan to attend the art fair. After that, it would be nice if we went on a tour of Italy. Suppose you can't visit Korea in December 2025, January 2026, or February 2026. In that case, there is also a way for me to visit Korea alone around October 2025 to make materials and deliver them to you. Our exhibition will align with the Venice Biennale schedule in 2026, and the exhibition will vary depending on the situation. Still, it may start in April 2026, end around June, or continue until November.
I'm studying the relics distributed in the Gyeongju area in Korea and the Silla Dynasty. I'll translate some of what we discussed before and pass it on to you. This is important because of the evidence that the Korean people came from the Scythia, a nomadic and multi-ethnic federation in ancient times. They were divided in many directions, some to the Korean Peninsula and some to the Roman region. And I know the attack by the country they founded completed Venice on the water today. Some history has been officially acknowledged; others have evidence, and some have not been certified for political reasons.
But this dynamic history inspires me greatly and dramatically affects our lives and art. War and pressure, as well as the suffering and suffering of daily life, give us hard times, but humans have always overcome them, and solutions that bloom in them have always produced creative results. There must have been a process of questions and pain that you and I could not solve on our own, as well as the history of our lives. As we gradually get to know each other, I think the process has already been reflected in our work and will be able to cool down by producing beautiful results.
Please review this schedule and let me know your schedule. Also, let me know if you have anything to fix.
All the best,
Song E
11/10/2024
Dear, Rob
I am very interested in Etruria, an ancient Roman civilization. I want to follow this trail if we go on a research tour. I am interested in this because this civilization is related to the Silla Dynasty I discussed last time. Moreover, it seems to be important in the feminine studies you are studying. There was no gender discrimination in this civilization. The founding myth of ancient Korea depicts Dangun as a male, but recent DNA studies show that he is likely to be a white-haired white woman when viewed in an integrated way, such as linguistics. This is convincing because nomads that began in the ancient Pamir Plateau were priests in charge of rituals and were sacred. Those horseback riding people are known to have ridden well, and Eastern men rode horses to conquer. There seems to have been little racial gender discrimination in this multi-racist federation, but there was only a status system. However, as they settled and became more male-centered, it seems that they erased the status of women. Women who relied on astronomy to look at the stars, cast dots, and hold ancestral rites to the sky gradually lost their status and were treated like witches.
Interestingly, this culture is also related to the movement of constellations. It is said that after 2,000 years, the constellation gradually moves. Power moves from a fish seat to an Aquarius and from a male to a female center. I will tell you the story of this constellation and astronomy later.
I will organize and gather these various ideas in detail in the timeline.
I will try to make our research funds, transportation, hotels, and so on from the company. You don’t need to worry about that. Of course, it is not free. After we sell something, we have to pay it back, but I am not sure we can make money because it is too much noncommercial work. Maybe we can sell after 50 years. Hahaha!!
No problem!! I am so excited.
I'll contact to you back when I think of something.
Song E
11/12/2024
Between Etrurian, Roman and Silla Dynasty
Hi Song,
I hope you are well!
I have some questions for you. I understand that you are looking for commonalities—based on our Ages chart—between an Eastern and a Western civilization. Right? I want to know whether there is a particular direction to follow or whether we can build it together, depending on what we glean from the research.
I read what you wrote about the beginnings of Korean civilization and the fact that the division of the population was based on prestige and not on gender. It sounds interesting. Also, there is, in part, a correspondence with the Etruscan culture. However, it is "murky water" to navigate, in the sense that the gender issue is always intersected with many other axes (race, culture, religion, historical moment, economy, etc.), which must be considered when dealing with it.
The Etruscans were the population that occupied central Italy before the expansion of the Romans, and, yes, Etruscan women enjoyed more freedom than Roman women. They were more accessible in their private lives; at least they had their name and were not called by their patronymic (i.e., their father's or husband's name). They had more freedom in public life to the extent that they could participate in banquets and celebrations with men. However, Etruscan society was not matriarchal, and apart from these few differences with the division of Roman roles, women were still relegated to the place that belonged to them as women. All our information on the subject comes only from a small part of the Etruscan society, the richest of which is the tombs with the various grave goods that have come down to us. We do not know anything about women and men who belonged to the poorest strata of the population.
I am also very interested in the Romans and the myth they built about their Empire.
All of Europe was built - and ideologically justified - on the supposed greatness of the Romans (the central European bloc was called "The Holy Roman Empire" for centuries). And there still is the desire to place itself in a continuity perspective with these people, especially in Italy.
It would be interesting to see how later cultures have "mythologized" and used both Eastern and Western peoples.
Let me know what you think about it,
11/12/2024
Dear, Rob
Sounds perfect the Schedule
Research tour
2025 June Italy
Oct~Nov Korea
Right. What I'm trying to do, as you said, is I've discovered what people think of as problems and grievances in this era, especially in the arts. I'm trying to look back in the past to find a reason, and I'm trying to look back from ancient times because we can't find anything, and it seems like we're turning on waste if we don't go back 10,000 years, the beginning of human civilization. Now, we're divided into the East and the West. Still, we're only divided into one branch, many different parts of each other, and now there seems to be an attempt by the global economic, religious, and political leadership classes to regroup. (Maybe this is for the ruling class to control people effectively.) I'm trying to look at this from the perspective of climate change, constellation shifts, and the universe's energy to see what ancient history and the East and the West have in common. The bottom line is that it is a long journey to discover what I must do and what I must show right now. I won't be able to show everything with this exhibition, but I will be able to suggest a direction. I think it is the starting point of the most fundamental creativity in art, which is to get inspiration by looking for the past and finding and solving problems.
Through this project, we will travel together, including physical travel from the past to the present and time travel that transcends time and space as if the soul were moving beyond time and space in a dream. Different living environments and current situations will present various perspectives and produce different results. This is the issue of our collaboration.
I'm so excited that you can go to Korea next year. Our work, which still seems to be in the fog, will become more apparent. You can do anything.
All the best,
Song E
11/17/2024
Narratives
Hi Song, how are you?
I think that our epistolary relationship itself is “across time and space.”
We live on two culturally and historically opposite continents: West and East. And we leave our ideas in time: our communication is asynchronous. We read and write to each other when we can, filling the jet lag gap.
I reread some of our latest emails and noticed that this research journey follows very different lines: the lines of our diversity.
I have an academic imprint closer to that of a historian than to that of an artist.
On the other hand, you don't put up barriers; you are ready to explore any field and look for bold connections.
You wrote to me that in observing current problems and not understanding their origin, you looked back to find out more. I fear that by looking back, we get lost. What we find are not answers but many other questions. Perhaps this is also what makes the researcher's work so fascinating: studying History makes you understand how complex the present is and how it is impossible to read it by placing it in categories.
For example, think about the word “democracy”. It is a very inflated word that refers to freedom and equality. But suppose you go back to "fish" for its origin. In that case, you’ll discover that is a Greek concept, which etymologically means "power of the people," that the people were not the sum of all people but only an elite; that women were not considered civilians, that the institution of enslaved people was normalized, and that enslaved people were not considered civilians either, and probably not even human. Somewhat different from what we consider democracy today, right?
A recurring element between all past eras and the present is the eternal return of mythological narratives that maintain a specific type of government or justify a certain type of power.
Let me know about you,
Take care
Rob
11/17/2024
HI!! Roby
I am very well. How are you doing?
I have good news. As I said before, I was awarded the Edward F. Albee Foundation residency this winter. Montauk, a quiet seaside village on Long Island, New York, is three hours away from my place. I will be staying with two other writers and another visual artist. I can focus on our project without any interference. I'll be able to organize and make much of our journey there.
I could see and understand everything well, including the universe. However, the details tend to be a little bit off. So, every point of view looks at the whole, and if the big picture isn't drawn, I get disoriented. Finding and presenting a solid basis for the data compensates for this shortcoming because it can be regarded as just a feeling or superstition if I do something wrong. Things you've been studying and experiencing so far may be slightly different from mine, but the basic human needs are the same across time and position, and we think differently, so there could be synergy.
Our project this time. It all starts with a fundamental question:
Where are we from?
Where are we?
Where are we going?
Anyone could find the answer to that question. We also couldn’t find a solution until we died, but I am so curious.
I like astronomy. It was based on ancient wise people observing astronomy and constructing the world, and that wisdom is still valid and in use. The historical perspective of age is focused on that. So, there is a desire to find a web-like connection that follows in the mysterious footsteps of the ancient people.
It is said that this is the time for constellations to move from the age of Aquarius to the position of fish. Experts say they do not know precisely how many more centuries are left. The universe is so big, and we are so small that it is said that there is nothing wrong with it to pass our life cycle. It is said that many changes occurred during this period. For example, social status can be determined according to gender, changes in class, etc. Women and men were equal ten thousand years ago or five thousand years ago, but women eventually became just men's possessions, not people. Changes in this class and power can also be considered in connection with climate change caused by constellation shifts and changes in the central axis of the Earth.
Democracy
As you say, democracy was a trick that made it easier for the ruling class to control it. It is still valid today, as was the case in ancient Greece. People now may think they can exercise their rights because they can, but the ideas of those who exercise their rights may be manipulated by capital. Ancient women served as priests to spread the will of heaven to the world, but men who wanted to take away the power erased women from social activities. The struggle for power through human needs is ongoing, and now women are trying to regain their status. I believe this is done naturally by changes in the space environment, regardless of our will. Whether this is sex or money, humans try to dominate someone and win it to enjoy comfort.
Therefore, the part I want to avoid most about all these issues is to judge. My opinions and viewpoints are just one point of view, and right and wrong always change fluidly depending on the times or circumstances. I'm not at a level where I can discern such things. Who am I based on my problems that began with my personal life and my attachment to my parents? What's wrong with me? I want to know the lives and relationships of my ancestors in the distant past to understand where my pain and discomfort were based. And I want to connect it with my life now.
I feel like I'm doing something huge, but I'm also a selfish creature driven by my curiosity and desire to solve problems. The people who can exert power over me are the people I love the most and who have a relationship with me. Ironically, all the happiness and pain in my life come from them. Love is in touch with death, and we all struggle to live.
Love
Death
It is all we.
No matter how many times we look back on the past, it won't be easy to find an answer more than this. But if someone asks me why you're doing this, I can answer; it's fun to know what I didn't know.
Love
Song E
11/27/2024
Dear, Rob
How was your trip?
In the US, it is Thanksgiving, and we are eating a lot.
I drew an image of the rough plan of our project. The opinions you and I share now are all rough ideas. You can throw anything you want if you have any opinions. Of course, it will be revised until the exhibition, but the plan will be released around February next year after collecting and organizing all of them. When the exhibition plan comes out, the big frame will be organized, and we will share the parts we need to do.
I created an image of you and me on a large map of the Eurasian continent as we traversed the space and time of civilization until now, circled like a space of Möbius. The point where we meet in the middle is the Pamir Plateau, where civilization began and spread here and there around what is now Central Asia.
The critical point of this project is to tell the story of an individual's history and the history of civilization overlapping, the lives of one individual and another, and that the points of time and space are segmented rather than progressive. In this, we will tell the stories of our ancestors in our way, based on our experiences, cultures, and our own eyes. For example, racism or women's discrimination could have been used as a means of maintaining a system or maintaining a rank according to the needs of the ruling class, which is a universal idea that anyone can think of. But in my case, I think it's a struggle to win the instinct of a human or animal, which is the desire for survival. To take an example of an individual's life, there is a view that the instinctive human being, who constantly craves love and recognition because they do not receive emotional sympathy in their relationship with their parents for the first time in their lives, resembles a society that seeks to maintain a hierarchical system. So, I think we can find many things in common in the lives of individuals from birth to death, in society, and history.
It still feels too complicated and hasn't been organized, but the more ideas you have, the denser the projects can come out, so I welcome any related ideas. It will all be organized neatly in the end!! Then, let me know your thoughts and take care.
Song E
12/7/2024
Dear Song,
I hope you are well.
I read (and saw) with pleasure the project map and the initial draft that you shared with me. It is an abstract and very ambitious work.
I like the dimension of storytelling within the journey: the possibility of telling, in a personal, emotional, and free way, the stories of people and situations that intersect in our path of growth and research, superimposing the diary dimension (our reading of reality) on the geographical one (the physical reality that intersects along our journey).
If our project is, therefore, a work in progress, a fabric of suggestions, notes, aspirations, and perspectives, then I would avoid touching on issues such as racism, gender, reproduction of the system of power, etc. They are concrete themes, not abstract ones. And they are very delicate; I'd instead not include them in a framework with an interpretative and subjective imprint. At least I wouldn't do it: I work on these issues daily and treat them with extreme care and attention, giving them the right space and context. I feel the ethical imperative to present an idea only when I have thoroughly researched it precisely because part of my job is to deconstruct stereotypes that form from shared opinions.
I recently visited London to see a Hew Locke exhibition, “What have we here?”. This exhibition is a good example of how to "artistically" deal with the tremendous contemporary themes.
The exhibition is based on long, meticulous, and profound historical research. The artist questions and challenges narratives of British imperialism through objects from the British Museum collection, choosing to courageously take a stand on many historical events and figures, often untouchable. Try looking; I'll leave you the link here: https://www.britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/hew-locke-what-have-we-here.
We can collect our glances and compare them. Since we come from diametrically opposed cultures, I think some interesting material could emerge.
I found interesting reflections on this subject in some notes by Pavel Florensky. He talks about Western and Eastern cultures and how the perspectives are "reversed" because some of the key principles of both are opposite. For example, he brings up the concept of emptiness: for many Eastern cultures, emptiness is the fifth element, indispensable for establishing fullness. Instead, for Western culture, which is the daughter of Greek Parmenidean philosophy, the void is not considered because it simply does not exist. Another example is divinity: for Christianity, God becomes man; for Buddhism, man becomes God. Etc. They are interesting oppositions. They are observations collected on a subjective basis because Florensky was a theologian and wrote them within a reflection on Russian icons.
Let me know what you think about it...
a big hug,
Rob