The purpose of this study is to examine the applicability to sound art based on the space theory of the 'Zen'(禪) and to study works that embody Eastern thought and formative elements in state-of-the-art media. Recognizing that the space theory and s...
The purpose of this study is to examine the applicability to sound art based on the space theory of the 'Zen'(禪) and to study works that embody Eastern thought and formative elements in state-of-the-art media. Recognizing that the space theory and sound art of the ‘Zen' have something in common in terms of the process of objectively showing invisible space and sound, they were applied to the work to materialize it. This paper defines sound art as "art, including visual art and action based on sound," and reveals that if music is time art, sound art is space art.
‘Zen' started as a kind of practice in India, but it met Buddhism and Chinese Taoism and developed into 'Seonjong'(禪宗), influencing the spiritual cultures of China, Korea, and Japan. ‘Seonjong’ aims to enlighten the 'essence of the object' called 'tao'. It is said that humans develop an obsession with objects due to 'dependent origination' (緣起), and they cannot enlighten the essence by recognizing them with greed and obsession. Therefore, it has to start in the beginning space where the essence of the object exists. ‘Zen’ argues that confusion and order are due to human linguistic concepts, and that the ‘Primordial space’is a creative space where the dichotomy of confusion and order does not exist.
The space of 'Zen' does not exist as an objective object, but is a space for subjective experience. Since the subject is grasped in the relationship with the object in the space, the essence is recognized through experience. It emphasizes the experiential space and phenomenological space that grasp the essence of the object through 'unity of the ego and the outside world’(物我一體).
The idea of 'Zen' presents a fluid space in which space changes according to the relationship the subject has with the object based on 'nature as it is'(無爲自然). The fluid space constantly changes the relationship between nature and objects and appears overlapping into a new space. Therefore, the space of 'Zen' thought is not fixed, but changes and moves according to the meeting.
Along with this, it was analyzed that space in Western art consists of unification and exclusion as a principle through one 'vanishing point', but Eastern art embraces various perspectives based on the 'Three Distances’. Based on this, it is suggested that in order to make use of the characteristic of interactive in sound art, the space formative method of the East is valid rather than the space formative method of the West.
Based on this space of 'Zen', this study conducted an analysis of the author's works <SURF>, <Respond>, and <BodySound> that applied the spatial formatting method proposed in Eastern art. First, <SURF> expresses the 'Primordial space' of the 'Zen' idea as a sea image, and expresses the fact that it is a creative space by extracting sound and voice in real time and visualizing it.
<Respond> visually expresses the fluid space of 'nature as it is'by expressing the metaphor for a tree in a large space in the episode of ‘Free and Easy Wandering’(逍遙遊) of “Zhuangzi”, which is the main basis for the idea of 'Zen'. In order to show that different spaces are superimposed according to the subject's relationship with the object, the appearance of a tree that varies according to sound was reproduced.
<BodySound> is a work that reproduces the subjective experience of the researcher in an objective space and allows the audience to experience it subjectively through the work. The space theory of 'Zen' idea is said to be able to grasp the essence of objects when grasping objects through experiences in space, so it is composed of interactive works. "Body Sound" is not fixed through the appearance of changing according to the movement of one's hand while the audience directly experiences the space composed of oriental landscape paintings.
The significance of this study is as follows. First, while re-establishing the existing concept of sound art, the theoretical review and establishment of the space theory of the 'Zen' idea, which has not been mainly studied, were attempted. Second, based on the space theory of the 'Zen' idea, the formative method of oriental art is applied to sound art to specifically present artistic possibilities. Third, we present the concept of art that creates together away from the hierarchical relationship between the art creator and the audience while embodying the concept of 'dependent origin' emphasized in the idea of 'Zen' as interactive art.
As such, this study is of great significance in that it examines and presents the artistic applicability of the space theory of Zen, which has rarely been done in Korea. In the process of later works, various Eastern ideas and Western philosophical theories are expressed together to provide an opportunity for sound art to establish itself as future art.