Anyang Rainbow

Interview
Jang Un Kim : What was your impression of Pyeongchon as a space?
Oak Jung Ho : My initial impression was that Pyeongchon was not a “village,” contrary to what its name might have suggested. As well, Pyeongchon appeared to be exactly like other newly-built cities - with straight streets and not many traveling cars, together with broad sidewalks, many roadside trees, sparse pedestrians, large public parks and fountains. Actually, there were so many fountains. Landscaped grass areas here and there, and up-to-date fashionable building styles. Stores and bars concentrated within a few blocks of each other.
JUK : The performance of creating rainbows with acrobatic dancers in Pyeongchon region - what significance does it hold for you?
OJH : As I have just mentioned, most of the newly-built cities located in the outskirts of Seoul have similar scenery. They are almost the duplicates of each other. The “overall appearance as a newly-built city” actually makes the newly-built city to become one of the newly-built cities. The gratifying facilities which are usually referred to as “works well done” - rainbow is like the newly-built cities and the dreams of the residents of those newly-built cities, an ideal. It could also be the feeling of satisfaction about the overall feeling emanated by the newly-built city. Mountains are carved out to create waterfall, build pavilions and prepare grass fields. It was unnatural for sure, but when I looked over the city of Anyang, I also exclaimed “they’ve done a good job!” The reason why I did the performance with the acrobatic team was that I figured they would do a better job than me in making the performance to appear like a rainbow. I tried to do it myself, but it was neither pretty nor look anything like a rainbow. It was so stiff that it looked like a table of some sort.

JUK : When your work was shown during the educational program for the residents prior to the opening ceremony, a woman said she witnessed the photo-taking of the performance and expressed that it was very enjoyable and interesting just by watching the performance being recorded. Were there any episodes with the residents during the process?
OJH : There were no particular episodes with the residents, except for most of them taking cellular phone pictures of the process of us taking photographs. I am more curious about the images they photographed. I would really like to see them. If you can obtain any of them, let me see them.
JUK : What significance does the bus station hold as the installation place in this project?
OJH : Bus station usually has advertising, one way or another. The majority of advertising consisted of cosmetic advertising, I think. Also, there were several cellular phone advertisements. If spaces familiar to the users were to be posted on the advertisements in bus stations rather than flashing the famous actress or singer like Taehee Kim or Hyori Lee, those spaces will appear to be different. If a pretty rainbow were added to that scenery, it would add more pleasure to the daily lives of the users.
JUK : You wrote “Anyang Rainbow Artist Oak Jung Ho” inside the work in big characters. Do you have any special reasons for doing so?
OJH : Since the bus stations are literally wallpapered with advertising … I was cautious against the Anyang Rainbow being regarded as one of the advertisements. The food table appears different if side dishes are changed just a little … So, my intention was to let them know that “Not an advertisement, but this time, it is an artwork” in a playful manner. I also wanted to promote the Anyang Project.

OAK Jungho_옥정호

OAK Jungho_옥정호

Anyang Rainbow

Anyang Rainbow