Für alle Freunde der Kunst, hier eine rezeptionsästhetische Analyse eines Werks von Jane Jin Kaisen aus der aktuellen Ausstellung hier in Århus.


1. Introduction

In this paper about the work of art called “Dissident Translations” by Jane Jin Kaisen I analyse the installation “Island of Stone # 1-3” based on an aesthetic reception theory of interpreting an artwork. In contrary to the fine art’s tradition of approaching a work of art by focussing on the work of art itself and analysing its composition, I focus my analysis on to the recepient’s orientation about perceptions and impressions. For this reason I start describing my own first impressions of Jin Kaisen’s “Island of Stone # 1-3” in order to - as art historic Huber says - grasp the moment, in which interpretations are transported aesthetically (Moment, in dem sich Bedeutungen ästhetisch vermitteln) (see Huber, 1989) for achieving the “Vorgestalt, die durch die erste unmittelbare Wahrnehmungserfahrung entsteht, und der “Endgestalt”, die sich nach einer ausdifferenzierten Wahrnehmungserkundung bildet.” (ebd.). After describing the work of art I will analyse the perception’s impact in context to the work of art and compare my analysis with Wolfgang Iser’s theory of “tekstens appelstruktur”.


2. First impressions and description

I am surrounded by voices. They are encircling me. I am watching huge video projections with different faces, which are trying to say something to me. I feel that I have to listen to them. I need to listen to every single person. It seems to be important what they are trying to point out. But listen to them is impossible to me as they are all talking at the same time in a very insistent manner. Feelings of helplessness, confrontation, shame and a picture of a court judgement are coming to my mind. I am standing in the middle of three video projections around me. One on the left, one on the right and the third one is directly in front of me.

“Island of Stone # 1-3” of the Danish artist Jane Jin Kaisen is shown in the Århus Kunstbygning’s current exhibition “Dissident translations”. In “Island of Stone # 1-3”, produced in 2011, three different films are presented at the same time. The language is Korean and the subtitles are in English. It starts all with waves of the ocean, a specific landscape and different voices competing with each another. In the end, the left and the right hand projections stop and you continue to watch the third film showing the film critic Yang Yun Mo and the activist Choi Sung Hee being arrested violently whilst lying beneath a demolition vehicle in order to occupy it. They are fighting against the “illegal construction of a South-Korean-American military base, the Jeju Naval Base” (Århus Kunstbygning, 2011).


2. Analysis

As I already mentioned, the materials Jin Kaisen uses here are three video film projections with 3 speakers shown on 3 approximately 2x3 metre screens in a hall of about 40 square metres. The playing times of the three channels have duration of 15:45 minutes in total. There are no seats installed however the room counts with two entrances to go in and out. Except of the screen’s light showing the films, there is no other lightning in the hall. When the film projections start we can see 3 light cones and after the two films stopped there is only one focussing light left.
The genre first reminds of a documentary film. It is a naturalistic colour film in a very huge scale. But in contrast to a documentary film, it plays intensively with your emotion and for this reason quite contrary to a factual and emotion-controlled documentary film.
The movements in this work of art distract the beholder extremely. Voices, singing, aggressively claiming and penetrating you combined with three different kind of pictures that are all moving on at the same time. The perspective of the beholder changes permanently whilst trying to grasp the whole situation.

Regarding to my first impressions of the work of art and the perceptions I forgone described, the aesthetic reception theory seems to work fine for analysing Jin Kaisens “Island of Stone # 1-3”. Like in the reception theory, questions about the work of art take a back seat whereas a perceptional approach concerning the process is the focus of the analysis. Although technically and formally the work of art appears more like a documentary, the perception is the very opposite of it. Jin Kaisen plays a lot with your emotions when showing these very huge screens with three different films and voices. The films that are presented can evoke different reactions and interpretations. As Wolfgang Iser describes it in “Tekstens appelstruktur” an interpretation is always only one possible realisation and can be changed on and again and again. (see Iser 1981, page 105). He signifies an ample scope for different possible actualizations of a text. The same refers to the content of Jin Kaisen’s film projections: To different times, historically, politically or with a different cultural background, the work of art’s perception changes. For a South-Korean, the situation that is presented here might be clear from the very first moment and he may have different feelings watching his countryman fighting against military. Whereas we, as European would feel irritated, helpless and would constantly try to grasp the topic and the situation Jin Kaisen wants to show us. As the conflict of the South-Korean Jeju Naval Base does not correspond with Denmark’s daily news an “ubestemthed” (Iser, 1981, page 105f.) is constituted here. As a European beholder we have an open mind towards the shown conflict and for this reason the film is more abstract to us and its meaning more wider. It could be any rebellion over the world that deals with topics like raising your voice against political or military repression. Referring this to Iser’s meaning of “ubestemthed”, it is about “kan føre en tekst tilbage til disse, og gennem denne form for selvbekræftelse vil han muligvis føle sig løftet. En betingelse for dette er, at hans egen selvforståelses normer projiceres ind I teksten (…) (Iser, 1981, page 109).
As I mentioned earlier, Jin Kaisen installed no seat in the huge hall so that no special fixing point from where you behold the work of art is constituted. The beholder is invited to choose his own point of view and perspective to look at the work of art. While doing so, the direction of his view can constantly change and generations on new interpretations apply. You as a beholder can see the more documentary perspective in standing directly in front of each film as well as standing in the middle and get overwhelmed by all of them and reconstruct again and again an individual beholder’s perspective or point of view. Naming ambiguity under inclusion of the recipient as a constitutive element of art, terms Wolfgang Kemp in “The Work of Art and Its Beholder” (see Kemp, 1997, page 187f).
In between the different statements and images of the film there are interstices occurring. Compared to Isers “tommepladser” (Iser 1981, page 110f) you recognise a space when images and voices of the two films stop and you only see one film showing the activist being arrested. In this section, the artwork deals with language and translation. Only one voice is being translated from Korean to English through subtitles, which is the voice of an activist trying to save the life of Yang Yun Mo and Choi Sung Hee. What is screamed and spoken in Korean is for a Non-Korean beholder not linguistically present however the work of art let the pictures speak for themselves. Even though we cannot understand the translation of the words we are able to identify them as a speech and as words that have a meaning for someone. To refer to Saussure’s linguistic term of language as a system of signs you can say that the linguistic sign is not a name or a thing but an imagination and a phonetic pattern that evoke a mental impression of the sound in our sensory perception (see Saussure in Lübe, 2003, page 184ff). Basic is here the connection between sense and phonetic patterns. Although the spoken word is not fully linguistically ascertainable I experience voice, gesture and tones that the work of art is conferring and which I can describe as militant, cruel and unfair.
What is beyond that not readable through text can also be related to the interstices that are used by the beholder to fill them. While doing this, Iser says, the reader “udnytter (…) det spillerum, der er givet for tekstfortolkningen, og etablerer selv de ikke formulerede relationer mellem de enkelte billeder” (Iser, 1981, page 111).
Remarkable is that the ones who can now raise their voice to speak are the ones being “effectively silenced by the authorities” (Jin Kaisen, 2011). The subtitles are reduced to what Jin wants to declare: dissident translations.


3. Literature

ÅRHUS KUNSTBYGNING (2011): Dissident translations, Jane Jin Kaisen.
http://www.aarhuskunstbygning.dk/english/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=252:dissident-translations&catid=1:aktuelle-udstillinger&Itemid=29 (2011-11-06)

HUBER, Hans Dieter (1989): System und Wirkung. Rauschenberg-Twombly-Baruchello. München: Fink.

ISER, Wolfgang (1981): Tekstens appelstruktur, pp. 102-33 in Michel Olsen og Gunver Kelstrup (red.) Værk og læser, Holstebro: Borgens Forlag, 1996.

JIN KAISEN, Jane (2011): Island of Stone Video Installation:
http://janejinkaisen.org/ (2011-11-06)

KEMP, Wolfgang (1997): The work of art and its beholder: the methodology and aesthetic of reception, pp.180-94. In Mark Chetam et. al (red.) The subjects of arthistory, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

SAUSSURE IN LÜBE (2003): et. al Fransk filosofi pp. 176-189, Gyldendals bogklubber, Polikens folag.

© Inga Popinga