Exhibition poster © Arko Art Center

In 2009, the media archive of Insa Art Space was integrated into the Arko Archive, which has since declared its identity as a media archive. Over the past decade, the Arko Archive has planned and published various academic events and research series related to media, such as the "Media Criticism Series" and "Media Chapter." Rather than functioning solely as a repository of materials, the Arko Archive has served as a space and open stage where artists and researchers build discourses on contemporary visual art based on museum resources and share their outcomes with the public.

In particular, the "Media-Archive Project," carried out from 2009 to 2015, showcased and screened experimental video works while supporting creative environments and artists through the Arko Media Collection. Through these programs, the project posed the question of how to view video works and images to the audience.

The exhibition "Media Punk: Belief · Hope · Love" revisits this question to reflect on the video images that surround us today in 2019. In the present moment, video content is primarily accessed through smartphones via SNS platforms and YouTube, where various video clips are introduced and played in intervals of mere seconds. Flashy edits and visual entertainment using internet memes and found footage have become deeply embedded in our daily lives. Video content has come to hold more credibility than still images or texts, and anyone equipped with a camera and editing software can now create a personal channel to share content and receive feedback from an unspecified public.

Conversely, these edited video images and narratives generate intense debates by blurring the line between truth and fiction, past and present. They activate society and incite or divide the public. Despite our awareness of the dualities and hedonism embedded in video image-based worlds, our faith in and affection for (moving) images continue to deepen.

"Media Punk: Belief · Hope · Love" explores how video images, played on various devices, intervene in and manipulate not only everyday life but also society. The exhibition title reflects the spirit of "punk," which seeks to subvert normalized cultures or trends, and the current reality in which belief in and desire for video image content are ever-present. The works attempt to re-present and re-interpret concepts that have become normalized and entrenched in society through a different lens.


Rho Jae Oon, Universal Cinema 2019, 2019, Installation view of “Media Punk: Belief, Hope, Love” (ARKO Art Center, 2019) ©ARKO Art Center

The exhibited works arrange fragmented images and sounds, and inverted narratives to expose overlooked existences and contradictory structures in our world. They betray viewers' expectations of linear narratives and temporality, thereby disrupting perceptual norms and prompting skepticism toward the implicitly promised "bright future" of our social systems.

Rather than focusing on exploring digital media environments and technological aesthetics, the exhibition showcases works that avoid interpretations based on linear logic and clashing image arrangements. These works disrupt how video content is consumed and raise questions about the images being reproduced.

As a collaborative exhibition with the Arko Archive, "Media Punk: Belief · Hope · Love" features participating artists whose portfolios are preserved within the archive's portfolio collection and who have conducted research based on archived materials. The exhibition also presents artists' portfolios and Arko Media-Project-related documents within the gallery to aid viewer understanding and emphasize the Arko Archive's role as a space for visual art research.

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