2019 서대문독립민주축제 작품공모선정작
<위치감각> 2019. 8.14-15 서대문형무소 12옥사/격벽장



<위치감각>은 공간에 위치하고 있는 관람자의 물리적 감각을 재배치하여, 감시자와 피감시자의 시선에 대해 재고해 볼 수 있는 기회를 만든다. 장소가 가진 맥락과 무게를 재현하는 것이 아닌 현 시대에 맞게 시각화, 청각화하여 담론화하고자 한다. 역사적으로 가치가 있는 공간을 직접 방문하여 과거를 돌아보고 교훈을 얻는 것은 책자나 영상과 같은 기록물을 통해서 얻는 교훈보다 훨씬 더 값진 경험을 얻을 수 있는 기회로, 삶에서 몇 번 오지 않을 기회이다. 대다수는 관광하듯 공간을 시끌벅적 지나칠 될 수도 있다. 아마도 공간에 서린 역사가 옛이야기로만 체험되기 때문일 것이다. 공간에 깃든 시간을 현재를 살아가는 나의 시간과 만나 내면화하는 기회가 필요하다. 민족의 역사가 나 개인의 역사와 만날 수 있는 공간감상방법을 만드는 것이 이 프로젝트의 목적이다.

<위치감각>은 관람객이 공간에 들어서자마자 취하게 되는 공간을 대하는 시선의 방향을 바꿔보는 작업이다. 공간이 의도적으로 만들어 놓은 시선이 전달되는 방식을 공적인 방식이라고 가정한다면, <위치감각>에서 취하는 시선의 방향은 좀 더 내밀한 사적인 방향이라고 할 수 있다.
우리는 현재 무언가를 감시하고 훔쳐보는 것이 익숙한 사회 구조 속에서 살고 있다. 일상에서 흔히 찾아볼 수 있는 감시 카메라만 떠올려봐도 충분하다. <위치감각>은 타인을 향한 시선을 자신에게로 돌리는 작업이다. 감시의 시선을 자신을 세밀하게 들여다보는 시선으로 바꾸어, 시대적, 역사적 사건 속에 자신의 위치를 맥락화하는 방법을 훈련해보는 기회를 제공하고자 기획되었다.





Sense of Position creates an opportunity to reconsider the gaze of an observer and the observed by rearranging a viewer’s physical sense. This is achieved through the visualization and audiation of contemporary time, not by reenacting a space’s physical properties. Learning from physically visiting a historic space is a more valuable and is a rarer opportunity than learning from pamphlets or videos. Most walk past an historic space without deeply considering or experiencing the history related to the space. This is perhaps because the history of the space is thought of as a story that resides only in the past. There needs to be an opportunity in which the space encounters not only its historic past but also one’s own personal time that lives in the space’s contemporary moments. Creating a way to appreciate a space in which people’s history meets one’s personal history is the aim of this project.

Sense of Position is an artwork that changes the direction of viewers’ gaze of a space they enter. When one’s gaze in a specific space is determined by external forces such as the layout of the space, and is shared by many in that space, it is understood to be public. In Sense of Position, one’s gaze becomes more personal and internally driven; that one’s experience is specific to oneself. We are living in a society where monitoring and peeping are a familiar experience in our everyday lives, for instance the ubiquity of surveillance cameras. Sense of Position alters a viewer’s gaze to be directed towards the self, away from others. By turning the gaze of external surveillance into a self-reflecting gaze, the project offers an opportunity to train a way to contextualize the self’s position in relation to an historic incident.