한국 미디어 아트의 어떤 태동 - 서울미디어 연구회 출현 및 한국영상학회의 형성과 초기 활동

Abstract

This paper concerns the activity of the Seoul Media Research Group (SMRG), which lasted from November of 1995 to 1998 and the Korean Society of Image Arts & Media (KOSIAM), which was in existence from1998 to 2005. The resources informing this writing are the selective written records on the activities of SMRG and KOSIAM by Cheol-Woong Sim, the president of SMRG and KOSIAM (2000-2004). SMRG consisted of artists, professors, instructors and professionals in various areas of media arts in Korea at that time. They gathered regularly for discussions and exchanged their perspectives on the aspects of media arts, visual culture and the media industry which had emerged as new futuristic phenomena. Several years later the activities of SMRG moved to KOSIAM after members realized the need to form an organization to deal with many drastic changes, the expansions of areas of media arts, and critical perspectives and discourse on visual arts, especially in relation to new media art areas. The early activities of KOSIAM included research that started in SMRG, focusing on discourse, aesthetic value and the phenomenon of new media technologies that appeared to influence heavily the formation of media and visual arts. This writing was facilitated given the vast, varied, and precious rare records of Cheol-Woong Sim kept during those periods, written in his personal calendar notes, paper handouts, in KOSIAM journals and in an exhibition catalogue at that time. The purpose of this writing is to review the accomplishments of SMRG and the early activities of KOSIAM, which presented important perspectives on and provided critics of the new media arts of the time. These critical views and the related discourse are applicable to the phenomenon of media arts in their new and current form. I hope this work becomes meaningful text capable of generating new viewpoints on the current issues of media arts.