Day 5(?) in Seoul, without quite a clear takeaway of what to feel. The Ooz seems apt, let’s consider it casted in a neon-fluorescent tone. Colorful puddles of ooz, and the substance of rot still remains.
My prepation for the trip mostly consisted of watching Müdigkeitsgesellschaft, The Burnout Society: Byung-Chul Han in Seoul/Berlin. I think it set the introductory tone quite nicely. The vision for this trip informed by the prevalence of Death Seminars, The Bridge of Death, Cemetaries, Capitalist Burnout, Body Horror, Suicide. The very stark marks of Korea’s hypercapitalist setting, the very dark matters of a country foreboding whats to come.
And love, love and beauty, amidst the aforementioned.
It is a truly jarring place. I’ve always considered Korea to be around 10 years ahead in all the negative pipelines that capitalism is accelerating towards, a vision of the future via the Eastern present. Or perhaps it just seems that way because it is foreign, easier to criticize as I look at that first. But I don’t think that has nullified this vision of the future as the guiding light of diminishing lives under our modern system. There is a level of advertising that borders on waterboarding. Stimuli Overload with Korean characteristics. Now we often loft the question of “but at what cost?” In China’s general direction, that gaze should be more directed at Korea. Because it is the most familiar Asian stranger, the most foreboding warning of where the world is headed under a capitalist modernity. A burnout society, with no sight for sobriety. Even if supplements of energy line shops everywhere.
The environment downtown is almost schizophrenic in design, especially in regard to the variety of colors and aesthetics one has to digest with only two eyes. Good thing a phone is there to add an aiding eye, as it seems that is the preferred optical lens. Not that that is so unique to Korea anyways, but it almost feels essential here to navigate Korean life, if that isn’t monolithic to say. These splashes of color aren’t seen, however, on the clothings of the burned out people here. Whites greys and blacks are supported by the occasional brown. And age seems to be the only thing that allows you to wear something more colorful, the seniors and older generations grow new feathers to adorn. But that seems to be one of the few positives to being a senior in Korea, in Seoul. Anti-homeless architecture is more anti-senior than anything, ageism as a prejudice is most highlighted here. This will probably be adopted en masse worldwide as population numbers continue to loop downwards, as an imminent future of disproportionate population demographics project a looming tilting happening already, and crashing in the near future, if not already.
Starfield library felt like a shot in the head. I was a bit shocked at how dramatic I felt internally, ashamed at how cynical and frustrated I felt. Fake books on display, purpose solely for you to be photographed next to. This is the future of the library, which is one of many institutions that history will leave to the wayside.
Koreans suffer the most from information fatigue syndrome. The information action ratio makes itself felt here quite distinctly. Nonstop barragement of advertising and information, those two terms purposefully conjoined together to create a schizophrenic mess of stimulation.
But then, a moment of beauty catches you. Happiness strikes like bleach through the ooze, cleansing you, even if just for a moment. The cicadas and lily pads in a serene palace garden, with a mountain behind to put a modern mind into a ancient ease. A nature(ic?) ease.
I’ll be oozing back to Vancouver soon, but that sludge experienced will linger, I fear. Perhaps that’s okay. Perhaps that is what you should feel when being faced with a world like this. Two roads ahead: Burned-out numbness, or a never leaving palpable sadness.
-> Slopunk <- 