New Silk Roads

about NSR

2009-03-01T12:30:00.000-08:00

New Silk Roads (NSR) is a multi-faceted urban research project that explores the nascent urban conditions emerging in rapidly expanding and transforming Asian cities and regions.

Through a nomadic practice, Kyong Park has conducted a series of sequenced expeditions through transitional regions and cities between Istanbul and Tokyo, documenting his encounters of the people and landscape through photography, video, and audio/video interviews of local and international experts

The project is an examination of territorial conditions that constructs the interconnected system of the contemporary Asian landscape. Approaching urban cities as an ecology of built systems, structures and institutions, NSR presents alternate understandings of urban research and theory through artistic practice.

Our work embraces informal and emergent structures of the city to show that the multiplicity of urban processes and actors exceed single-minded domination of city construction by architects or planners. Some of the key investigations are: transnational migration; the rise of supranational economic and legal institutions; evolution of extraterritorial zones and the social and spatial effects of globalization, centered particularly on the digital exchange of economic trade (i.e. information/capital/services) that are weightless and immaterial, yet guides the conditions of exchange and the links and partitions within and outside continental Asia. The research itself is not intended to be comprehensive, but case studies of particular points of connection.

NSR aims to translate such research into a visual language that can represent the complexity of the connections themselves. Through spatial and network mappings, time-based and data-driven visualizations, and dynamic constructions of information in visual, graphic form, NSR will translate information gathered through research into a visual expression of complex systems of contemporary Asia.

NSR Expedition 1
July 20 — October 2, 2007
Shanghai > Singapore > Seoul > Tokyo > Guangzhou >
Foshan > Dongguan > Shenzhen > Hong Kong > Macau > Beijing

NSR Expedition 2
December 17, 2007 — January 7, 2008
Istanbul > Delhi > Dubai

NSR Expedition 3
September 1-25, 2008
Buchara, Samarqant, Toshkent [Uzbekistan] >
Almaty > Astana [Kazakhstan]

URBAN ECOLOGY: Detroit and Beyond

2009-02-28T11:06:00.000-08:00

Kyong Park
Map Office, Hong Kong
Sept 2005
192 p.

Under the confluence of nomadic economics, technologies, and industries--commonly known as "suburban sprawl"--the city of Detroit, segregated and isolated, constitutes one of the great monuments to decay by a modernist city. It is perhaps the clearest and earliest example of the effects of a globalized economy and labor market. Urban Ecology contains a collection of projects generated by the International Center for Urban Ecology (iCUE), a nomadic laboratory for future cities. Since its founding in 1998 by Kyong Park, iCUE has accomplished five significant projects through international workshops like "Architecture of Resistance," installations, videos, and urban designs. The laboratory investigation promotes discourse on the decomposition and possible reconstitution of a "moving city"--a more useful term through which to identify a city like Detroit. iCUE's projects have taken anti-architectural and non-urban perspectives, using multi-disciplinary processes and integrated collaboration with local communities and activists. Urban Ecology brings together essays on Detroit and many other cities in crisis around the world.

patience please. site under construction.

2009-01-22T17:48:00.000-08:00

Astana

OldHouseNewHouse/NewCityOldCity

2009-01-22T16:06:00.000-08:00

A individuals and families have moved out of Detroit, or were unable to move, from one house to another, one hood to another, one city to another. Starting from the most recent house, and tracing each subject back to previous houses, the video follows the work and life of the individuals and families, and also their memories and thoughts about the future. Comparing the decline of Detroit and the growth of its suburbs, OldHouseNewHouse/NewCityOldCity creates a physical and historical record of capital, labor, and cities that are becoming more nomadic than ever in the postmodern cultures of the developed nations.

Full transcript

Words Images Spaces (WIS)

2009-01-22T15:19:00.001-08:00

City Mix

2009-01-22T15:17:00.001-08:00

OldHouseNewHouse/NewCityOldCity full transcript

2009-01-21T17:50:00.000-08:00

01-c
Virginia The hub of this community was the elementary school. We had two large churches here. All kinds of restaurants. And we had five movie houses. People could stay right here because we had everything. And we lived all together and nobody looked at anybody as if to say we are better than the next person.

2-b Charles’ friend We had a Laundromat out there, a Coney Island joint. The restaurant, the shoeshine, the hat cleaning place, the hardware [store] that was up there. All you had to walk off three, four blocks and you could get anything you wanted.

3-c Virginia The population at that time, in this neighborhood, was probably four thousand or more families, and there was a house on every single lot.

4-b Charles It was a boarding house. I paid twenty-five dollars a week. Shit. And everybody shared one bathroom. It was my first house. First of my own, that I lived in. You understand?

5-c Virginia Right now, there are seven families left in the eighty-three acres [here].

6-b Charles This right here was a school [Kennedy Elementary School]. Right here was the entrance, right here. Check that out, "No parking on school days, 8 to 4 PM." And it's still there, incredible huh?

7-c Virginia
In 1997, there was a meeting with city officials. We went to this meeting and the city officials said, “This is going to be a redevelopment area, and by the way, you are not going to be part of this, we're going to buy your property. And if you don't sell us your house, then we will declare eminent domain, and we will take your house.” So that was the beginning of the end of this neighborhood.

8-b Charles
This is where I lived with my mama and daddy before they divorced, right here. That's where the house was.

9-c Virginia
The city council had voted to take this [land] and declare eminent domain, and that was it.

10-b Charles
That ain't what we've got now. That's a lot of [empty] land here too, ain't it?

11-c Virginia I told the city at the meeting that I will not go, [and] that is my home, [and] this is my community. I've been here for forty-six years; I'm going nowhere. And the only time I'm going to move is when I decide to move.

12-b Charles We are the richest country in the world right? We should have health care, automatic, by law, [and] free! [A] motherfucker gets sick, [then] go to the motherfucking doctor! And none of us should pay for that shit. Y'all sending motherfucking billions of dollars over to those motherfuckers who got oil. That's some crazy shit!

13-c Virginia The day they came to tear down the church, I asked them if they could please leave those trees. [But] they cut this big huge tree down. That tree was 137 years old. You destroy the whole community, [and] you destroy people’s homes, but the least you could do is leave the tree that's been here for one hundred plus years.

14-b Charles There was a store on that corner right there. They still got the phone booth up! Ain't that something? The phone [booth] is [still] there but the building is gone. Ain't that something?

15-c Virginia This is my home, and I intend to stay in this home until I get ready to go to my final home. And that's going to be of my choosing and the Lord's choosing, not the city.

16-a
Mario I feel very much at home, I feel very safe here.

John Safety, quality of life here. Scott Having that comfort and having that camaraderie between the families, and [in] this community we watch out for each other.

17-d Charles Growing up around the same people, I know all the people in the neighborhood, they [all] know me.
Randy I always felt safe.
Jane I could count on the neighbors, and they were more willing to help than [my] family was.

18-a
Scott Better suited for our lifestyle and has everything we could possibly want in a home.
Audra It’s an American dream, to have a good life and have money.
Randy Cause its quieter, you know. Peaceful.

19-d
Cassandra It was tree-lined, it was so green and pretty.
Mario Everybody's lawn was manicured, there was pride in their property.
Randy A great neighborhood, I'm telling you, like one in a million.

20-a
John People wanted lower taxes, [and] wanted more space.

Michelle A dream home . . . a house that is perfect, [and] that has everything you want in it.

Scott And they are developing three or four miles beyond [here], and continuously going where the land is cheaper. They are building larger homes on cheaper land.

John Home ownership has always been a cornerstone of America and why America is so great.

21-d
Lorenzo It was a big, big house.

Mario Back in those days when they built a home, they built a home. It was solid.

Cassandra The houses were kept up, and there weren't any empty or vacant spaces like it is now.

22-a
Michelle The "main drag" . . . is M-59. It has every single store or restaurant you could ever possibly need, within a mile from my house. Everything is new, the house is new, schools are new, [and] that’s what I like about it.

23-d
Jane I have real fond memories of going downtown shopping on the bus as a kid. Randy The riots killed downtown.
Gary The cops started the riots.

Randy Was I scared out of my mind. I saw the burning buildings, people going in and out [of burnt stores]. It was unbelievable.

Mario Well my folks left [Detroit] right after the riot.

24-a
Larry Yeah, we live in the outskirts of metropolitan Detroit. We are [way] out here.

Mario I hear they [are] moving more out here than [moving] down there.

25-d
Audra The whole street was selling their houses. [And] everybody moving in was black.

Randy A mile down my street, there was probably fifty to sixty for [house for] sale signs.

Jane Well, our neighborhood changed considerably, and everyone kind of moved to the outer edges of Detroit or into the suburbs.

Cassandra It just seemed like the neighborhoods [in Detroit] just went down.

26-a
Michelle We moved out here [to the suburb] for financial [reasons].

27-d
Cassandra The drugs came in.

Charles They had dope going all up and down the street.

Ronnie Which lead to my addiction for crack [and] cocaine. I felt helpless; felt betrayed, and kind of gave up on life.

28-a
Michelle We moved out here and paid $50,000 less for this house. It's brand new and so much bigger.

29-d
Gary It started up with the cops and it ended up with crack. Cops tore the city up, and brought the crack in. Then you had the guns, the dope and the gun shootings.

Lorenzo It [was] scary to be outside, and it was not a safe place to live.

30-a
Michelle We've made a huge return on our house. We'll make $80,000 dollars when we sell this house.

31-d
Mario You've got to live with bars on your windows? Come on. Give me a break.

Lorenzo She [my wife] didn't want to move, but I said [it's] time to go.

32-a
Scott [It's] a great community, at a great price. We are using the benefit from the original purchase of this home, and . . . purchasing a second home that's larger [and] more valuable.

33-d Michelle I try to avoid going there, even during the day.

Scott You're afraid of getting a flat tire. You're afraid of running out of gas, because she thinks we are gonna get carjacked.

34-a
Michelle So we are upgrading to double the size [of our current] house, and we are not going to be paying any more money [for it]. That's why we are staying here.

35-d
Mario All the burnt houses, and all the properties and buildings that are just abandoned. Thousands of them. John We had to remove lots of the structures that were not cost effective to restore. They are no longer useful, so they need to be removed.

36-a
Michelle But because this area is the way it is, [and] they build [houses] so cheap [here], we're able to [have] our first house, and our second house, [that] most people don’t get until they are forty or fifty.

37-d
Audra We drove through and literally there [were] no houses. They have ripped almost every house out.

Cassandra Houses being burnt, [and only] the shells [of them] would just stay there.

38-a
Scott+Michelle We had an opportunity to capitalize on [financially]. And that opportunity will arise again because we're basically replaying the same scenario.

39-d
Jeff What we have [here] is a lot of open space.

Charles+Gary So every time we have the Devil’s Night, the east side [of Detroit] will burn. So my theory is 'cause it's closest to the water [front]. So [they] want to burn down all them houses over there, so [they can] build up new condominiums, alright? Alright? Buy up all that land, and put up condos 'cause it closest to the water.

40-a Rudy You have a job, you make money and you spend that money. It's a consumer system. It’s about supply and demand. That's America.

41-d Mario Why would you want to go down there [to Detroit]? What kind of incentive do I have to go back to live in that town. There is nothing for me [in Detroit].

42-a Toni There's not that many places to go [here], like there's no museums. There's not many activities within walking distance of your house.

Michelle So if we wanted to do something we would have to go downtown. If I had to drive to do that once a year, that’s fine.

43-d
Lorenzo Lot of things to do in downtown. They have the car shows, and we go to football games, and we go to baseball games.

44-a
Larry+Cassandra Entertainment for us is [our] family or the church.

45-d
Gary They don't worry about us on the other side of town, [on the] other side of the freeway. Two different worlds. You [are] looking at the Hollywood when you in downtown, and at the other side, you are looking at the ghetto.

46-a
Cassandra Ah, recreation we just drive around. Larry I love to drive with my family.

47-d Scott Walking, on the sidewalks, [or] down the side of the streets. Not everybody has a car down there [in Detroit]. Out here, everybody has a car. You drive everywhere. In the city you walk.

48-a
Jane Here I [feel] kind of secluded and isolated.

Toni I don't know if it is boredom, but it's a lack of stimulation.

Cassandra My kids don't have any friends on our block.

49-d
Mickey Quality of life [and] bigger piece of property. Wanted a larger home or a newer home.

Toni There's no central area, just intersections, with strip malls and gas stations.

Mickey Once you had all the highway system, making it easier to get out of the city . . . people just kept moving out to newer areas. 50-a

Larry You know the media portrays Detroit worldwide as [a] really bad place. No, Detroit is not a bad place.

Gary Washington, DC is worse than Detroit. I've been there. Right around the corner from the president's Oval Office.

51-d
Rudy In the suburbs everybody go behind their walls and that's it.

Jane People would drive into their garages, close the door and you wouldn't see them get out.

52-a
Charles You got to stay real close to the peeps [people], cause we got to keep together.

Audra Families living together, [and] helping each other out.

Charles: You got to get unity. Everything [gotta be] tight.

53-d
Jane So isolated. I just felt like "Gosh, we are not part of the world anymore."

Audra Because there isn't that sense of community, I think. 54-a

Randy Urban pioneers. I want to be one of those guys that move back into the city, to an old house, and fix it. You know those old beautiful houses.

Audra Why don't we try to get a real house, a house that has substance to it, a brick house, something that has been around for a long time [and] has a character, to spend our time there, put our love and energy to make it better.

Charles We go out. The Europeans come in. That's the way it is.

55-c
Ronnie You see, over the years and months people kept setting [it] on fire. They were selling dope out of here, and then the police kept setting it on fire. I guess [the police] were trying to get it torn down. But people still got to have somewhere to go. It's sad. But you got to do what you got to do, [and] come in here to sleep.

56-b
Michelle Welcome! This is a three-bedroom, two-full bath Ranch. This is called the "great room" out here. We expanded it quite a bit from the original floor plan, so we bumped the kitchen out, [and] made it nice and big. I like antiques, so these [table and the buffet] are really, really old.

57-c Ronnie I stayed a winter and a summer here, but I had heaters. Yeah, I had propane heaters, had everything boarded up. I had plastic all over the windows to make sure everything was comfortable, so I wouldn't be too cold.

58-b Michelle He is so proud of his grass. It was all completely dirt when we bought this house. We had a sodding party one day and all of our friends and family came over, and we all threw the grass down.

59-c Ronnie When this apartment was [occupied], a guy died right in that bedroom. Right there. He caught on fire, [and] got burned up right in that room; an older guy. Here is another part where someone sleeps. Someone is sleeping here because they got [the windows] boarded up, [so] they [can] keep the wind off of them or the rain.

60-b Michelle This is my safari bathroom. You know, just cause all the animals, and the African theme. This is my daughter's bedroom. We love lavender. And purple is her favorite color, so everything is purple.

61-c Ronnie A girl got raped in this room and [they] killed her, a "hooker." The guys brought her up here. They molested her; they tied her arms together and strangled her to death right in this room. Right here!

62-b
Michelle+Scott None of this used to be here. Lot has changed. Lot of these subdivisions used to be golf courses. Basically, in here, they have Ranches, which are one-level, [and] Colonials, which are two-levels, and the split levels, which is ours, a kind of a combination between a Ranch and a Colonial.

63-c
Ronnie Like I said, over the years of the fire damages [it] had, they just discarded the building. The drywalls, all the plaster, and the structure of the building just started to come apart. And the way you keep taking [the] bricks away from it, you [are] taking support away from it. I think what's holding it up is the pilasters outside [and] around the building.

64-b
Scott They have different faces of the home called elevations you can choose. And each elevation costs, as you upgrade the elevation obviously the price [goes up]. Some of the things [on the elevations] we didn't find important cause this really doesn't add a lot of value to the home as much as square footage would.

65-c
Ronnie They have no respect over there. (A homeless man) No respect! Not at all, not at all. Ronnie Just because a person is down and out on their luck. God said he created everything equal, and . . . that’s why he say "What good a man to gain [in] the world if he loose his soul?" So [the] people [who] got it all, but still be miserable inside. (A homeless man) Hey, no pictures of me!

66-b
Scott The master bath; this could be someone's apartment. There is one, two, three, four, five bathroom sinks [in the house]. This will be the kid's room where all of their toys and stuff are, [and] study room as they get older.

67-c
Ronnie You see people change their boots and stuff [here]. Hey, these are nice boots, man. So apparently someone is staying up here cause they are covering stuff. So in reality, you have four, five sets of peoples that come in and out and sleep [here].

68
Scott Oh, I forgot. There's a bathroom downstairs, another half bath.

Detroit: Making It Better for You

2009-01-20T12:57:00.000-08:00

A gritty tapestry of images on the destruction of Detroit, a city struggling to sustain its communities in the face of global economic greed. The video’s "drive-by-shooting" style is emblematic of the mythology of Detroit as both the "Motor City” and the “Murder City.” It offers street-level views of the urban clashes between inner-city realities and suburban myths.

Full transcript

Detroit: Making It Better for You (2001)

2009-01-20T12:39:00.000-08:00

We, the corporations, are ready to build a new city here in Detroit. Our plan, which began fifty years ago, is now almost complete. The entire city will soon be under our control. The government, desperate for jobs and money, is willing to give us big tax breaks and build roads and parks for us. We have successfully raised taxes, increased living costs, and used eminent domain and other legal and illegal means to force the residents to sell out and get out. The new city will be built according to our design and concept. We took land away from the natives, and now we are taking it from the disenfranchised and uneducated black underclass that currently lives in the slum that is Detroit. We have a clean slate with which to start fresh.

Here is how our plan has worked:

After World War II, our victorious soldiers came home from Asia and Europe. We needed to build new houses so they could start families. The city was packed with old houses, which cost too much to fix. We simply let them go to ruin.

We designed and built generic houses so that everyone could fill them with the exact same things. We generated tremendous economic gain because people bought new things for their new houses: refrigerators, ovens, heaters, air conditioners, furniture, bathrooms, washers, dryers, lawn mowers, swimming pools, and more. As long as we made new things, people bought them.

We then built bigger, more expensive houses, farther and farther away from the city. People bought the newer houses and filled them again, with our newer products. We successfully made consumerism a mass addiction.

But we needed to do more; we needed to keep the newly created, massive white middle class in constant motion to increase our profits exponentially. So we realized that our plan would require nothing less than the total destruction of the city of Detroit.

We realized that the best method to reclaim land other than by force was to exploit urban fears and racial hatred. Through media control and manipulation, we’ve created an unquestioned impression that all domestic violence and other urban ills are caused by black people.

Also, we designed exit ramps of the highways in Detroit so they could be closed easily and quickly; this way, inner city crime, chaos, ruin, and riots could be contained, ensuring that people would burn their own neighborhoods.

Then we moved all our big factories out of Detroit, and then all other businesses, stores, and even gas stations followed us. But we let the liquor stores stay, to successfully pollute the mind and soul of city people. We’ve made damn sure that it’s easier to get guns, drugs, and sex in Detroit than voter registration. We let the people there just keep on killing each other. We made Detroit so violent that people continue to flee from it, just like from a war zone. With their lives in danger, city residents sell their properties fast and low.

This set the stage for the disinvestment and total abandonment of the inner city. It became impossible to build new houses and buildings there because nobody would loan the money. All new houses and buildings were built exclusively in the suburbs.

We’ve also undermined Detroit’s education system by pulling out funds and corrupting school officials. We’ve crowded the classes, paid less to teachers, and supplied no new books nor built new libraries. Our goal has been to make the entire population of Detroit illiterate and unqualified for any professional work.

As education failed and jobs moved out, the inner city became bankrupt. Public buildings and houses have been abandoned by the hundreds of thousands. We let them all rot or we burned them. Thus we have created an extremely inhospitable and dangerous environment, which has infected the whole population with an inescapable hopelessness. This has driven the land price down further and further. So low, that land in Detroit is now practically free.

To better control the population, we had to educate some of the city residents. They now help us oversee the rest of the people. That’s how things were done with the slaves, and we continue that practice today. They work hard and long hours, always hoping that the American dream someday will take them to the suburbs. But we will keep them locked up in the city, just like we do with the natives on the reservations.

Occasionally, we’ve given the city some money, but never quite enough. All the city departments fight among themselves for it, and this has bred wide-scale corruption and graft in Detroit. No public money ever gets to the people that need it. But it has made us look generous and compassionate, while our goal of the complete destruction of the inner city continues, uninterrupted and unsuspected.

We have moved out, but we are coming back. Our plan has taken about fifty years to completely destroy Detroit and its population, at no cost to us or our shareholders. Most of the buildings and houses have been burnt or demolished, and it won’t take much more to "clear cut" the rest of them. With so many vacant lots and open spaces, the city now looks more like the countryside. A tabula rasa has been created, so that we can take back the city dirt cheap.

Using this plan, we have successfully tested new techniques of profitable land seizure, without resorting to the costly use of armed force. Hidden by countless layers of economic agreements and legal manipulations, we have written a new chapter of colonialism, with techniques deeply embedded in the automated global matrix of advanced capitalism.

The purpose of this plan has been to establish the next form of government. Detroit is the place where the secret revolution of corporations is being realized.

The Slide (2003)

2009-01-20T12:14:00.000-08:00

THE SLIDE is a continuous transparent tube that descends eighteen floors from the top to the bottom of an empty hi-rise building in Halle Neustadt. Visitors can ride inside THE SLIDE on a specially-designed sled, flying through the walls, floors, and ceilings, and even outside of the building. THE SLIDE is a new kind of entertainment that combines the reality and fiction of architecture, and is ideal for so many empty buildings in East Germany.

Hey Mom and Dad. I went through a building today!

Singapore

2009-01-15T18:16:00.001-08:00

Seoul

2009-01-15T18:14:00.001-08:00

Guangzhou

2009-01-15T18:11:00.000-08:00

Hong Kong

2009-01-15T18:10:00.000-08:00

Macau

2009-01-15T17:13:00.001-08:00

Istanbul

2009-01-15T17:05:00.001-08:00

Delhi

2009-01-15T17:01:00.000-08:00

Tashkent

2009-01-15T17:00:00.000-08:00

Bukara

2009-01-15T16:59:00.000-08:00

Samarqand

2009-01-15T16:52:00.001-08:00

Almaty

2009-01-15T16:20:00.000-08:00

Astana

2009-01-15T16:19:00.001-08:00

About KP

2009-01-13T20:18:00.001-08:00

Kyong Park is involved in a wide range of productions on Public Culture, including research, documentation, and representations focused on the urban landscapes that delineate the economic, political and cultural borders and territories of the contemporary social geography. Working in visual arts, architecture, theory and criticism, Park incorporates text, photography, video, installation and new media into his work, a practice that is rooted in research, participation and activism in social, cultural and environmental spaces. For Park, art is a process for cultural inquiry, examination and articulation. It is a visual language to supplement text and other traditional forms of communication, a community rather than a commodity. His first project was the founding of StoreFront for Art and Architecture in New York, an internationally respected exhibition space that he directed from 1982-1998. He then founded International Center for Urban Ecology in Detroit, producing workshops, urban initiatives and videos, in collaboration with activists, community organizations and universities [1998-2001]. They include: "Detroit Making It Better For You," a narrative video on a fictional conspiracy to destroy the city [2000]; and "24260: The Fugitive House," a vacant house that 'escaped' Detroit to travel ten cities in Europe [2001-2008]. Since then, he has traveled and worked in various cities in Europe, developing a nomadic practice on urban investigation. The results were: “The Slide," a proposal to build a transparent tube that people can slide through in an empty high-rise building in Halle Neustadt, and "BAR/GDR/FRG," a 3-channel video on the three different ideological cities within Dresden, both projects in Germany [2003]. He was also a co-curator and artist for Shrinking Cities in Berlin [2002-2004], and the founding director of Centrala Foundation for Future Cities in Rotterdam in The Netherlands [2005]. There, he co-produced "Lost Highway Expedition," an expedition through nine major cities of ex-Yugoslavia and Albania in 25 days, in which several hundred people participated [2006]. His current project is "New Silk Roads," a series of expeditions between Istanbul and Tokyo, focusing on the relational conditions of Asian cities within the geography of globalization, which will be presented in a solo exhibition at Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Castilla y León in 2009, along with the publication of a book on this project with Actar in Barcelona [curated and edited by Octavio Zaya]. Kyong Park was a Loeb Fellow at Harvard University (1996/97), a curator of Kwangju Biennale in Korea (1997), a Visiting Chair of Urbanism at the University of Detroit Mercy, School of Architecture (2000-2001), and the editor of “Urban Ecology: Detroit and Beyond,” a book on his projects, with contributions from 32 architects, artists and critics [2005].

NSR at MUSAC

2009-01-03T11:05:00.000-08:00

KYONG PARK: NEW SILK ROADS
Museum of Contemporary Art of Castille and Leon [MUSAC], Spain
Curator: Octavio Zaya

The New Silk Roads is a research project involving a series of journeys whereby the artist, urban theorist, curator and activist Kyong Park explores the new rapidly expanding and transforming urban landscapes that are emerging in Asian cities and regions. The title of the project and the regions travelled through allude to the Old Silk Road as one of the earliest landmarks of globalisation.

Making use of the method of urban research he calls “nomadic practice” Park has endeavoured a number of successive expeditions through regions and cities along the intricate route between Istanbul and Tokyo, first documenting the physical evidence of the urban mutations⎯through photographs, videos and interviews—and later combining them with data, information and analysis.

The project encompasses several objectives, such as the investigation of the new cultural, economic, political and social relations that are developing between East and West and the spatial and physical effects of globalisation, placing special emphasis on the relations between material movement (products, work and resources) and immaterial movement (information, capital and services).

For MUSAC Park has created an investigation and documentation space for the display of each and every one of the textual, documentary, visual, graphic, statistical and geographic elements that shape the complex framework sustaining the whole work-in-progress. This multidisciplinary space is complemented by the inclusion of photographs, maps, projections and a detailed itinerary and timing of the expeditions made in recent years through Eurasia, Central Asia, the Indian subcontinent, Northern Asia, Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

The result can be conceived as an attempt to trace the relations between all these elements by seeking an understanding of the dynamics of urban transformation accompanying the social, economic and political evolution of the Asian continent.

Kyong Park (Tong Yeong, South Korea, 1955) graduated from the University of Michigan in 1978 with a degree in architecture and he is currently an associate professor of Public Culture at the Visual Arts Department of UCSD, San Diego, U.S.A. His most outstanding achievements include founding and directing diverse centres specialised in the study of urban space: StoreFront for Art and Architecture, New York; the International Center of Urban Ecology in Detroit and the Centrala Stichting voor Toekomstige Steden of Rotterdam.

This project has been supported by UCSD-University of California, San Diego (U.S.A.), The Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in Fine Arts, Smac Scribemedia Art and Culture, assisted by his team of research and visualization (Kael Greco, Jia Gu, Alexandra Lerman, Laura Hanna, Giacomo Castagnola, Andrea Dietz and Sean Franklin).

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The Profiles of Moving Exploitations

2009-01-02T02:02:00.000-08:00

The Profiles of Moving Exploitations (LINEasia)
2009
Designer: Andrea Dietz

Close Up

Using primarily line graphic, and constructed on three layers, Line Asia is a research into geographical and topographical condition of the continent, presenting various data that are related to the land use.

(1) Geographical Base
The geographical base layer is composed of manipulated maps of Asia from the Geographical Information System. At the bottom three-quarters of the drawing, the conventional map of the world is flattened and stretched to accomodate the dimension and proportion of this drawing. Over the map is a series red lines between different cities, connecting 18 cities that Kyong Park has visited in his three separate expeditions, linked according to the actual path of his travels, thus as three independent looping red lines. A series of grey lines between these cities conceptually connect these cities horizontally, simulating what would have been if his travel was a single expedition, like the Old Silk Roads have functioned. He did not travel along the grey lines. Here, Kyong Park's travel is represented according to the condition of actual geography.

On the top one-quarter of the drawing, Kyong Park's travels has been laid out according to his exact travel patterns over the continious and standard narration of time in one continuous blue line .Continuous blue lines indicates his travels by air, and dashed lines indicate his travel by land. The time of travel is indicated above the blue lines. Dotted blue lines are also used to connect cities between his expeditions, for example Beijing, the last city of his first expedition, and Istanbul, the first city of his second expedition. However, the time of travel is absent on the blue lines between his expedition. Here the conventional world map is sliced and reassembled together, according to his, or contemporary, fragmented pattern of travel, creating New Silk Roads.

On the three-quarters of the drawing, geography determines the representation of his travel, like in the continuous linear system of the Old Silk Roads, while on the top one-quarter of the drawing, the contemporary fragmented and round about travel pattern fragments and re-orders the geography according to human behavior. The drawing, therefore, visualizes the space and time contradiction between the Old Silk Roads and the New Silk Roads, and the disjointed relationship between our movements and landscapes.

Along the dividing line between the top one-quarter of the drawing [world map drawn in red] and the bottom three-quarters of the drawing [the world map drawn in blue] is a graphic contour of two related data. Rising vertically in a seismic grey line is the topographical elevations of Asia, along the straight line between the 18 cities that Kyong Park has travelled. Gathered from the Geographical Information System, this seismic grey line is an actual cross section of the land mass of Asia, from Istanbul to Tokyo, vertically exaggerated so that the rise and fall of the land could be visible in the proportion and scale of this drawing.

Falling vertically, along the same line as the topographic elevations of Asia, is a continuous red dotted line. This line indicates the population of all major cities that lies on the straight lines between the 18 cities that Kyong Park. Cities of his visit, and major cities between them are identified by name and the number of population. The population magnitude of the 18 cities of New Silk Roads are visualized by different diameters of red circles with blue infills, while the territorial size of the 18 cities are indicated by different diameters of red circles with no infill color. The purpose of having the topography of landscape and the level of population along the same shared line, is to visualize the relationship between land and people, at least in numerical terms.

(2) Statistical Data
Various data of 10 locations of New Silk Roads [8 cities and 2 nations] are grouped together, into a collection of line graphics. These accumulation of facts and figures for each city are grouped into four categories; Land, People, Culture, and Economics. Each group is identified by different graphic type of graphic line or color. And within each group, there are several different line graphics that visualizes specific data, identified by a line of text that begins from the beginning or the end of each line graphic.

The Y-axis of these line graphics of Statistical Date represent the values of data subject. However, each subject has different unit of measure, as there are either no international measurement standard for these subjects, or they were exaggerated to make them visually relative to other subjects. For example, the value in one graph may be 0-10,000, while in another 0-1 million. Each subject also has their own zero measurement line, located at different height of the drawing. Thus, the subjects' value in measurement does not reflect consistent values, only proportional values.

The X-axis or the horizontal grid, at the very bottom of the drawing are a measure of time, with each block representing one year. The time span of our Statistical Data covers only one century at most. At Each line, data is articulated by short explanortory text ▪ The critique network layer, a gathering of phrases from a variety texts scattered dynamically over the visual field, encourages conceptual connections through the surfaces of the representation. They themselves are connected by lines, to indicate network of relations between them.

The purpose of the Statistical Data is to provide a general information about each city, and to visualize the possible relations between data.

(3) Critique Network
Various short phrases were collected different books and articles, and were position at different geographical and statistical locations. They are to critique the inherent short falls of data or geographic mappings, that they in fact are not factual, only an approximation. Phrases contextualize them with economic, cultural and political, even philosophical understandings and definitions of data and geography, to give them further accuracy. These phrases are networked together by thin blue lines, to offer relational thoughts between themselves.