좋은, 살인

“문제는 그들이 ‘생각할 수도 없는 일을 사고’할 만큼 충분히 냉정하다는 것이 아니라, 사고하지 않는다는 점이다.”  한나 아렌트[1]

 

문제의 발단은, 그의 고백이었다.

그는 하지 말았어야 할 고백을 털어 놓았던 것일까?

스물두 살의 앳된 젊은이였다. 푸른 하늘을 마음껏 날고 싶은 꿈을 품었고, 그 길로 한 발짝 한 발짝 착실한 걸음을 걸어온 청년이었다. 짐작컨데 빨간 마후라의 작은 낭만도 그 안에서 꿈틀거렸으리라. 4년을 걸었다. 4년의 땀을 흘렸다. ‘막바지’란 말을 써도 좋을 시점이었다.

 

문제는, 그가 뒤를 돌아보면서 시작된 듯하다.

유황불로 ‘소돔과 고모라’를 벌하러 내려왔던 천사의 경고를 왜 떠올리지 못했던 것일까?

뒤를 돌아보지 말라던 경고를 어긴 롯의 아내가 시공을 초월해 참을 수 없는 유혹을 속삭였는지도 모를 일이다. 그는 뒤를 돌아보고 말았다. 4년의 길이 어떤 길이었는지.

 

더 큰 문제는, 그가 앞을 내다보려 했다는 데서 불거졌다.

그것이 뒤를 돌아보지 말아야 했던 진정한 이유였다. 지나온 길을 돌아보는 자는, 앞으로 이어질 길을 명상하려 드는 법. 그것이 그가 저지르지 말았어야 할 결정적 실수요, 사건의 도화선이었다. 절대금지준칙 하나! 모든 폭격자에게 폭격에 관한 명상을 금지한다!

 

그것을 ‘명상’이었다고 치자. 사실, 그것은 아무 것도 아니었다.

아무 것도 아니니, 아무 것도 아니라고 말할 뿐인데, 그것은 왜 문제가 된 것일까?

그것을 ‘고백’이었다고 치자. 그렇다 해도, 그것은 아무것도 아니었다.

아무 것도 아니니, 아무 것도 아니라고 말할 뿐이다. 대체 이깟 게 무어란 말인가?

 

그는 자신의 블로그에 짧은 일기를 썼다.

 

“F15K, 넌 참 좋은 기계인데 요즘은 살인기계로 보여. 나는 심란해. 내가 이 기계를 몰게 될 수 있을 텐데, 실수로 죽지 않아도 될 사람들을 죽일 수도 있겠구나.” 

 

기계에 관한 명상

좋은 기계에 관한 명상

그것이 살인 기계가 될 수도 있다는 명상

이 심란한 명상

 

문제 중의 문제는,

공군사관학교 4학년 생도의 상식적인 고민이 ‘문제풀이에 혈안이 된 어떤 수험생들’에게 출제되었다는 데서 터져 나왔다. 그들은 ‘아무 것도 아닌 것’의 존재가 ‘아무 것’의 존재에서 비롯된다는 근본철학자들이었고, 모든 명상이 좌파적 망상과 근친교배를 통해 잉태된다는 사실을 밝혀낸 적출주의자들이었다. 이 수험생들의 전능한 능력은, 그들이 이미 적어놓은 답안에, 모든 문제를 꿰어 맞출 줄 안다는 데 있었다.

 

보수언론의 융단폭격이 시작되었다. 공사생도는 폭격기에 올라 버튼을 눌러보기도 전에, 기습적이고 전격적이며, 융단스러운 폭격에 맞아 만신창이가 되었다. 명상 속의 폭격이, 입장 뒤바뀐 채, 상황을 달리한 채, 현실이 되었다. 중앙폭격일보가 앞장서고, 조선폭탄일보가 맞장구를 쳐댔다. 그들의 사설에 따르면, 사관생도는 “반군(反軍)·친공(親共) 생각을 가진 자, 대당 1000억원의 F-15K를 갖고 무슨 짓을 할지 모르는 자, 좌파 전교조 교육에 물든 자”였다. 심지어 본인도 모르게 “공산당 선언을 버젓이 블로그에 올리는 자”가 되었다. 무책임하고 과도한 언술들은, 명상을 망상으로 변질시키기에 충분했다. ‘아무 것도 아닌 것’은 ‘아무 것’으로 전환되었다. 4년의 길은 거기서 끊겼다.

 

좋은 총은, 그것이 아무리 좋은 것이라도 살인을 전제로 태어난다.

좋은 총은, 사람을 잘 죽이는 총이다.

좋은 폭격기는, 그것이 아무리 좋은 것이라도 대량살상을 전제로 태어난다.

좋은 폭격기는, 사람들을 잘 죽이는 폭격기다.

한나 아렌트의 단언이 없다 하더라도, 폭력의 유전자는 ‘수단’이다.

수단은, 폭력의 입장을 대변한다.

 

폭력의 수단, 특히 국가가 장악하고 있는 폭력의 수단은 금세기 첨단정밀과학의 대변인이다. 수학, 물리학, 화학, 생물학의 기초과학에서부터 정밀기계공학과 항공우주, 전자공학, 광학, 전자기학 등 수두룩한 응용과학의 근대적 견인차는 다름 아닌 전쟁이었다. 무기의 경제학이 국제정치와 맺고 있는 농밀한 관계를 떠올려 볼 필요가 있다. 무기의 진보가 곧 과학의 진보였다는 근대적 사실, 그것이 국가적 찬양과 권고의 대상이었다는 반박할 수 없는 사실…. 그러나 금지된 ‘사실에 대한 명상’…. 아울러 명상하는 자에 대한 빨갱이칠….

 

축제의 가면을 쓴 무기쇼가 전세계적인 유행을 타고 한반도에도 상륙했다.

국가와 기업, 무기상인, 지역 커뮤니티가 다정하게 손을 맞잡고, 국가안보를 위해, 한미동맹강화를 위해, 첨단과학발전에 헌신해온 기업을 위해, 국제경쟁력 강화를 위해, 지역관광 활성화를 위해, 아이들 현장학습을 위해, 기타 모든 것들을 위해, 쑈쑈쑈가 벌어진다.

 

에어쑈, 헬기레펠쑈, 탱크쑈, 기관총쑈, 미사일쑈, 파일럿체험쑈, 지뢰쑈, 화생방쑈, 테러진압쑈, 야간침투쑈, 군복쑈, 건빵쑈, 온갖쇼….

 

스펙타클의 정점에는 적에게 인질로 잡힌 아군을 구출하기 위해 투입된 A-10 썬더볼트 전폭기와 AH-64D 롱보우아파치 헬리콥터의 환상적인 특급구출작전이 장착되어 있다. 우리 편을 건드린다면 그 누구도 용서치 않겠다는 결연한 다짐과, 단 한 명의 아군도 소중히 하겠다는 따뜻한 휴머니즘이 이 작전의 요체다. 작전수행과정에서 불가피하게 야기될 ‘이유 없는 희생’에 대해선 언급하지 말자. 리들리 스콧의 영화 ‘블랙호크다운’이 그 끈끈한 전우애와 최첨단 휴머니즘의 전개과정을 잘 보여주고 있으니까. 

 

폭탄이 터질 때마다, 기합이 울려 퍼질 때마다 박수와 환호성이 터져 나온다. “앗싸, 부라보!”

 

그래, 앗싸, 부라보….

어쩌면 ‘앗싸, 부라보’였을 것이다.

문제의 사관생도가 F15K라는 좋은 기계에 올라, 빨간단추를 누르며 외쳐야 할 단어는 “앗싸, 부라보” 그 이상도 이하도 아니었을지 모른다.

 

폭격자에게 허용되지 않는 것은 ‘고뇌’였다.

가상폭격의 관람자에게 허용되지 않는 것은 ‘심란함’이었다.

 

경고: 지각은 참여를 요구한다.[2]

 

금지된 고민, 금지된 지각, 금지된 기억, 금지된 인식의 늪에 빠진 자는 탈출을 꿈꾼다. 허나 탈출은 허용되지 않고, 강제방출이 그를 기다린다.

 

이쯤에서, 금지된 기억 하나를 꺼내어 보자.

 

1945년 8월 6일 아침, 8시 16분 2초에 초강력 무기의 꿈은 실현되었다. 12,500톤의 다이너마이트에 버금가는 위력을 가진 최초의 원자폭탄이 아무런 경고도 없이 히로시마 상공에서 폭발했다. 새로운 종류의 전쟁이 시작되었다. 이 새로운 전쟁이 시작된 첫 1초는 다음과 같이 전개되었다.

 

0.0초 : 폭탄이 히로시마 중심부의 시마병원 약 600미터 상공에서 출근시간이 정점에 이른 시간에 폭발했다. 중심부의 온도는 100만분의 1초만에 수백만도로 상승했다.

 

0.1초 : 약 30만도의 온도를 가진 직경 15미터의 불기둥이 형성되었다. 그와 동시에 중성자와 감마선이 지상에 도달했고, 살아 있는 유기체에 직접 방사능 피해를 입혔다.

 

0.15초 : 불기둥이 팽창하였고, 폭발의 파장은 더 빨리 팽창했다. 공기는 빨갛게 달아오를 때까지 가열되었다.

 

02초~0.3초 : 계산하기 어려운 양의 적외선 에너지가 방출되고, 사람들에게 직접적인 화상을 입혔다.

 

1.0초 : 불기둥은 최대한 확대되어 직경 200~300미터가 되었다. 불을 확장시킨 폭발의 파장은 음속으로 퍼져 나갔다.

 

이 폭격으로 10만 명이 즉사했다. 또 다른 10만 명이 방사능에 노출돼 서서히 죽어갔다.[3]

 

이 심란한 기억들들, 이 심란한 인식들들, 이 심란한 장면들들, 이 기이한 충성들들, 이 좋고도 살인적인 기계들들….

 

한나 아렌트의 입을 다시 빌린다.

 

모두가 유죄인 곳에서는, 아무도 유죄가 아니다. 말하자면 집단적인 유죄의 고백은 범죄자를 발견하지 못하게 하는 실행 가능한 가장 탁월한 방어수단이며, 그 범죄의 거대한 규모는 (범죄를 해결하기 위해서) 아무 일도 하지 않는 데 대한 가장 탁월한 변명이다.[4]

 

대체 뭔 소리일까?

 

경고: 사고는, 사고를 부른다.[5]

---

[1] 한나 아렌트, 1969, 「폭력의 세기」, 김정한 역, 이후 출판사, 2000, p28.

[2] “이 문구는, 작가 안토니오 문타다스가 다양한 언어로 번역 전시했던 작품이다. 인식의 문제가 결국 참여의 문제로 나아갈 수밖에 없다는 뜻으로도, 참여의 선행조건이 지각이라는 뜻으로도 읽힌다. 여기에 ‘경고’를 더했다. 쉽게 말하면, ‘알면, 다친다’고, 뒤집어 말하면 ‘모르는 게, 약이다’가 아닐까 싶다.” 필자 주

[3] 스벤 리드크비스크,  2001,「폭격의 역사」, 김남섭(역), 한겨례출판사, 2003, p240.

 

[4] 한나 아렌트, 1969, 「폭력의 세기」, 김정한 역, 도서출판 이후, 2000.

[5] 노순택, 문타다스 할아버지를 흉내내다.

  ‘사고’는 ‘thinking’과 ‘disaster’라는 의미를 동시에 가진다. 필자 주

한 홍구 Hong Goo Han

평화박물관건립추진위원회, 성공회대 교수(역사학, 근대한국사 전공)

주요 저서: <한국공산주의운동사 1-3>, <북한사회의 올바른 이해를 위하여>, <한국민족해방운동사자료총서 1-5>, <韓洪九の韓國現代史>, <진실을 향한 험난한 여정 – 대통령소속의문사진상규명위원회 2차보고서>, <군대 내 인권상황 실태조사 및 개선방안 연구>, <1960-70년대 노동자의 작업장 문화와 정체성>, <대한민국사 1-4>

Organization Committee of Peace Museum, professor in Korean History, specialized modern Korean History at Sung Kong Hoe University

Selected Publication: <Communism in Korea: the Movement 1-3>, <Toward a New Understanding of North Korea >, <History of Korean National Liberation 1-5>, <The Republic of Korea: An Unauthorized History>, <Hard Road to the Truth>, <Research on the actual condition and ways of improving of human rights in the army>, <The Culture and Identity of Workers in 1960s-1970s>, <History of the Republic of Korea 1-4>

Keum Hyun Han

Photography of the Senses, Photography of Knowledge

                                                                           

 

Photographic sensibility exists in all photography, but contemporary photographers pursue a different sensibility from before, one that escapes from earlier esthetics.  Photography before, in line with modernist traditions, tried to stay faithful to the formalistic esthetic order of the elements in the screen, such as plastic composition, adequate color, and emotional moderation.  From the 1980’s onwards, photography starts to be recognized as art, but the important elements were the printing process, the stable tone and colors, and the mastery of the photographic details which amateur photographers could not emulate.  Photographers in the 1980’s with modernist tendencies strove to raise the artistic level of their work by capturing the subtle differences in tone and the details – which cannot be captured with today’s digital photographic process – and arranging the elements of the senses in a harmonious way.  On the other hand, contemporary photographers, although still preoccupied with perfecting the artistic level of their photographs, create a new order of the senses.  Photography contains different layers of sensibilities that cannot be expressed through painting.  Contemporary photographers seek to capture such sensibilities, and use the medium of photography in a strategic way.  In today’s multi-layered society, photography is becoming a medium which represents reality in a dynamic way.  Representation here does not mean passively transmitting a prepared object, but articulating the process whereby, the gaze through the camera, the image of the object, and discourses are intertwined.  In this moment where photography is considered as art as a matter of course, it is necessary to review once again the representation of the photographic medium.

Photography is also related to knowledge whose form is undergoing changes since postmodernism. Whereas knowledge in the past focused on positive learning, knowledge today is being expanded and opened to include even the way we deal with life, the way we act, and the way we express beauty.  It is no longer a knowledge trapped within the boundaries of what is provable, but a comprehensive one which includes the narrative and the senses that modernity and modernism had excluded.  Contemporary photographers form and maintain links with knowledge in diverse fields and disciplines in addition to that of photography itself, and are creating at the same time a new form of knowledge that is connected to the senses, a “sensitized knowledge”.  They try to link their objects to knowledge, and to understand photography in an intertextual way, by reading the many layers of texts that exist among photography, society, culture, politics, and history.  In this sense, contemporary photography takes interest in cultural phenomena, and seeks to stimulate diverse discourses through interdisciplinary research.

Korean contemporary photographers are also attempting to “knowlege-fy” the photographic sensibility.  Photography reproduces and accumulates knowledge in relation to other knowledge, but it itself can also become a knowledge.  Photographers in the previous generation tried to find “Korean beauty” through an anthropological or folkloristic approach.  They may have been quasi-anthropologists or quasi-folklorists themselves, but they failed to shake off their illusions and to assume an objective attitude, and attempted to coincide the gaze of the camera with that of an omniscient artist.  However, gazes in photography are not simple.  Even among Koreans, the level of bonding differs depending on their personal disposition including age, gender, social and educational backgrounds.  Sometimes, there are cases where people fail completely to identify with each other.  What is implicitly agreed in society is transformed and accepted differently as society changes.  As a result, what Korean contemporary photographers deal with is not historicity or tradition but the “phenomena of the present” and the “mechanisms of the present society.”

39(2) is a Korean contemporary photography exhibition which proposes the works of five photographers who each approach the deep-rooted militaristic culture and remnants of war in Korea in a different way.  The five photographers – Gyoo Sik Kim, NOH Suntag, Seung Woo Back, Young Hoon Lee, and Jae Hong Jeon – strategically utilize the medium of photography, and capture in their own style and viewpoint the militaristic culture and remnants of war permeating everyday life in Korea.  The artists transform social phenomena, which are changing with the times or with the diverse social groups, into visual images, and in the process, use photography in a strategic way.  The many techniques, including straight black and white photography, snap shots, and borrowing images from magazines and the mass media and transforming them digitally, are used to reveal the contexts that the images contain.  The strategic use of the specificities of the medium of photography is what sets contemporary photography apart from earlier photography.

Gyoo Sik Kim’s double-faced attitude toward the objects of his photography can be seen even in his use of actual weapon names as titles to his images of toy weapons.  The design of the diverse toy weapons alone show the ultimate in plastic beauty made only possible through state-of-the-art technologies, and is enough to make one forget the cruelty and violence inherent in the weapons. The imitation weapons captured through the micro-lens of Gyoo Sik Kim are depicted in soft tones and contrasts.  The toy weapons shed their crude plastic nature, and are reborn in photographic beauty, and the gelatin silver photography-looking digital prints confuse the sight of the viewers.  The culture of war games and toy weapons enjoyed by both children and adults penetrate our everyday lives without meeting any resistance, like the photographic images of Gyoo Sik Kim.

Air shows feature the world’s aircraft and promote the weapons produced by the armaments industry in Korea and abroad, and offer the chance to see the cutting-edge weapons first-hand, carrying such fear-inspiring names as next-generation fighter planes F-15K and KF-16, the Navy’s sub-spotting plane P-3C, next-generation infantry combat armored vehicles, K-9 self-propelled artillery, and K-21 tank.  Mothers seat their children on the ejection seats for “educational” photos, fathers shoot photos of their children pointing their gun at his father who is holding a camera.  It would be a frightening scene in real life, but in everyday life, it is a just another family photo during a pleasant family outing.  However, NOH Suntag’s “reallyGood, murder” contains a tension that breaks down the extremities.  The artist focuses out the crowd cheering at the fighter planes and reduces them to mere silhouettes, making them into powerless existences, and only highlights the small but vivid attack bombers as the object of his photos.  He also hides the faces of those posing proudly in front of the camera, thereby suspending a shadow of death over them.  The good, murdering weapon is the camera, and at the same time, chases after the camera like an anti-aircraft missile.

In 2002, when Seung Woo Back visited North Korea for the first time, he took snap shots of the city of Pyongyang while under the surveillance and control of the accompanying guards.  He was only able to shoot limited areas, and even had his films censored, but the camera had captured parts that even the artist and the North Korean security agents had failed to see.  “Blow Up” is about the domain of photography which is beyond all control, and about the “in-between” that even social systems and political surveillance cannot restrain.  It is the domain that exists “beyond”, which divides good and evil, harmony and conflict, and reality and imagination.  When Seung Woo Back visited North Korea at that time, he heard the North Korean children repeating three same things:  “We welcome your visit to the Democratic People’s Republic of Joseon”, “We are happy”, and “Only we can defeat the Americans”.  But what was being trained and controlled were not only the children of North Korea.  The promotional photos made by North Korea in the 1970’s that the artist stumbled on in a small bookstore in Tokyo were also politically controlled and artificially manipulated.  Just as original copies do not exist in photography, Seung Woo Back shows in “Utopia” our attempts to attain, by means of transforming and manipulating, our utopian illusions.  Seung Woo Back mocks at the utopian illusions that society has created by adding photographic manipulations to the images he shot in the controlled society of North Korea.  In the end, Seung Woo Back’s “Utopia” exists only as an elusive image that is beautiful on the surface but unattainable.

A sense of mission to find social contradictions by disclosing Korea’s militaristic culture, or a strong sense of professionalism, as a documentary photographer, to portray the other side of Korean society:  That has never been the motivation of Young Hoon Lee who took photos of a reserve forces training grounds.  What he wishes to do is to catch the momentary sensibility that only cameras are able to capture.  The artist does not translate objects into images; he translates the subtle experiences of the senses through the medium of these objects.  The Agfa Isolette 120 that Young Hoon Lee used is a medium-sized folder camera that is not only easy to sneak into an army base, but also a good choice to offset the reality of the particularity of the space that he chose to photograph.  Only some parts of the image are in focus, with the rest more or less out of focus.  As a result, Young Hoon Lee’s photos capture a different aspect of the space that the naked eye cannot see.  The slack sense of military discipline is seized by Young Hoon Lee’s camera shutter, and represented through loose images.   

Since 1997 Jae Hong Jeon has been taking photos and documenting the modern architectures that remain from the Japanese occupation period in the Jeolla and Chungcheong Provinces and has accumulated enough knowledge and experience to gain the reputation of being a specialist in the field.  As can be seen in his doctoral thesis titled “A Study on the Effects of Rice-related Facilities on the Change of Cityscape: Based on the Photo Studies of the Nonsan and Honam Plains in the Japanese Imperialism Era”, the photographer does not simply document images, but produces a knowledge of images through the collaboration with other fields and disciplines such as sociology and architecture.  He stubbornly keeps to analogue techniques for his photography, in line with his spirit of academic research.  Among his large archive of photos and documents of diverse architectures from the period of the Japanese occupation – which include production, transportation, logistics, public, and commercial facilities – he has selected photos of the architectures that represent the colonialist rule and power of the era, such as the residence of a Japanese landlord, banks, Shinto shrines, social gathering halls, and the cultural and social buildings that served as the seat of government organizations.  Through his photos, Jae Hong Jeon presents these modern architectures whose functions have changed today and are being used by the local residents in their everyday lives, thereby giving visual form to these objects whose meaning has changed over time.  Furthermore, the artist’s efforts over the past 10 years to research, document, and classify his field of interest makes one reflect on the connection between photography and knowledge, and proposes an attitude of the photographer as a specialized scholar. 

Images of war and the military, which up to recently had been considered only as political or social issues, are now being received differently in the daily lives of today’s diverse social groups.  The images, which for political propaganda or as remnants of colonialism, were linked to blind obedience or absolute trust and sacrifice before, take on the forms of magazines, toys, fashion, architecture, and commercial events in today’s reality, intervening in our everyday lives and showing different aspects in our capitalistic society.  Using the medium of photography, the five artists, to start with the way they incorporate their objects into their images, express our society’s ironies and riddles in their own way.  As a result, the photographic objects of their works are overshadowed not only by the composition of the photos themselves but also by the ideologies, capitalism and culture, and the products and commercialism of our society.  Also each from his own different perspective, they gaze at the particular reality of Korea that can be found in our everyday lives, and do not stop at creating fragmentary images, but advance the photographic image into the dimension of knowledge on a long-term project basis.  As a result, photography is starting to be recognized not as a mere medium to convey information or to record, or to propose plastic beauty, but as a “knowledge system of the senses” that explores and reflects on its objects.

39(2)

The title of the exhibition 39(2) comes from clause 2 of article 39 of the Korean Constitution, under Chapter II which specifies the rights and duties of citizens, which stipulates that “no citizen shall be treated unfavorably on account of the fulfillment of his obligation of military service”.  Clause 1 of article 39 of the Constitution stipulates that “all citizens shall have the duty of national defense under the conditions as prescribed by law”, and clause 2 has historically been quoted to provide compensation for military service under the Constitution.  This exhibition poses a realistic question:  Can the unfavorable treatment of individuals be controlled with just one line in the Constitution?  The five participating artists portray each in their different way the ironies and riddles of the Korean society through images of its militaristic culture and war.  39(2) was chosen as the title of the exhibition, because it proposes images of militaristic culture and war as one of the many contradictions and conflicts of the Korean society today.