Stripping ‘Foreignness’ from the Foreign World

<Space in the Glass> uses the Mise-en-Scène methodology to recreate the nature, the people, their life and tradition in the Silk Road and North African region. Based on the West-central perspective, that world had always been considered as a frontier or a foreign land, in other words, a stranger's world. This is the legacy of Orientalism and the product of the outlook of the world that generalizes the West's point of view, which eliminates the world outside the West to be a stranger's land, as the universal perspective. The artist twists the world that we viewed through the West-central perspective around in search for a standpoint where we can understand their culture reasonably. When the artist had the chance to cover a story on the Silkroad where the Eastern and the Western civilization had an exchange, he discovered the values that the civilization outside of the West held.

Originally, that world had a fair amount of impact on the Western civilization and glorifies a civilization that developed a step ahead. A science historian, Needham points out that the Chinese science was way ahead of the European science until the 15th century. Also, the bases of the pure science that were required to bring about the Western scientific revolution. were all set up by the scientists of the Arab world. In the same sense, it's not too much to say that the matrix of the late scholastic philosophy, which directly affected the modern philosophy, was from the Arabic philosophers who were well-acquainted with Aristotle. I can list cases like these endlessly. In brief, it wasn't only the West who glorified an advanced civilization, and it is rather that the West exists now because they were affected by the foreign civilization.

Here is the problem. Why is it that we still consider the West as the index of civilization? Why do we look at other people through the western point of view only? This is because we are so used to seeing other civilizations with the Western perspective that we are even accustomed to seeing our own culture through the Western point of view. Today, the fictional standpoint of Europe-centralism is fading away, and yet we still view other cultures with that perspective. Orientalism isn't only in the Western people, but has also invaded us. Of course it is difficult to deny that the world order had been reorganized in the Western style. However, we cannot have the non-Western world to be cut out to fir the Western order.

Their world should be seen through their eyes. This is the method the artist uses to approach that world. Let's look at the photograph in detail to confirm this. First of all, the artist throws out the regular square frame, and instead uses a circular frame to show the world outside of the West. It gives a visual effect of peaking at the foreign world through a hole. We can also say that this effect is similar to a magician looking at a mysterious world through a glass ball. Through this we perceive the world in the circular frame to be an unfamiliar world far away from reality. This is, in fact, the general attitude we take on the world. Thus, the circular frame can be called the metaphor of our perception of that world.

In a photograph of a circular frame that seems to symbolize the Earth, stands a man who has sunk a post in a vast Earth and untangled strings all around him. He is measuring the Earth with great care. What an absurdity. His actions are not only eccentric, but also foolish and childish. Yet he is earnestly attending to his work of measuring the Earth. Sometimes, in worlds civilized in the Western way, there are deeds much more foolish and ignorant than this. There is nothing more dangerous than concluding an action to be stupid just because one doesn't understand it. It appears that the artist is telling us not to hastily judge this man's action based on our values. In another photograph, there are two children running in the middle of the desert.

There's only bleak sand dune and gravels around them that it makes one wonder how anyone can live in such a desolate land. Far away, you can see the Mongolian tent standing side by side with a modernized building. This hints that the shadow of the Western civilization is hanging above this place. The back of the child is also a hint. It's a blond Mongolian child. For the people who live in the highly developed cities, the children who live in this dreary desert may look pitiful. however, to the children the city is more stuffy and dislikable.It's the same that they don't understand each other. The photograph showing a bed and various furniture in the middle of the desert is also very strange.

From this scene which shows exactly what the inside of the tent looks like, we can read out their lifestyle. There is a big difference between their simple-as-can-be residential space and the complex living space of the modern people. Yet they can sufficiently live with these furniture set out here. What more would they need? As that wooden fence on the other side of the desert symbolizes, this world is separated from the world on the other side. Ever since the boundaries of the world had been drawn, they had been imprinted as the aliens living in an unknown land. If the West is the center of the world, this place is the unknown and mysterious foreign land. Hence one needed to travel to encounter this world.

Many Western travellers gathered about to see this 'rare and precious' world, and they became like the 'monkeys in a zoo'. The image of a man waiting for a tourist with a carriage in the middle of the desert clearly symbolizes their world which became a tourist attraction. Even as they live in this world as a spectacle, they keep living their own life. The soil may be barren, but they find composure and happiness in their life. This is shown by the group of people on top of a cliff who are dancing along the music from the musical instruments . Their life is filled with joy and hope. This is only natural because they get on with their own lives following their own values. We can never understand them if we measure their life out based on the Western values.

You can even tell from the towering water tank. In this world where water is absolutely scarce, constructing a large water tank is very important. But even as the pile of soil in front of the water tank suggests, the construction has been postponed for many years and it has not been completed. It is difficult to understand their attitude in not getting this urgent matter solved. They are not hasty. They are not even pent-up about it. Even if this is so, we can't say that their way of life is wrong. This way, Kwang Mo's work searches into the problem of the view point people take on looking at the 'foreign world'. Just before the West-centralism had vastly spread, each world had its own orders to maintain themselves.

As the world was reorganized according to the Western order, the center of the world and the world around it was divided and sorted out based on it, the world outside of the West was soon forgotten. We, who have taken on the Western order, are also accustomed to treating the nonWestern world as just a suburb of the world. Then, we are also a part of the suburb of the world. Therefore, we need to look out for our twofold perception on 'the foreign world'. This is the result of the West-central viewpoint. We also view the world that the Western people 'alienated' as 'aliens' just the way they do. How that perception will be concluded is obvious. That is, we will create a paradox of accepting ourselves as 'aliens'.

In order to get away from this trap, we need to abandon the Western perception of viewing the 'foreign world'. In short, we need to strip the 'foreignness' from that world. It is then, that we can see the whole value of that world, and once we are all set with that attitude, we will be able to respect our own heritage.