My work development procedure in Mullae had to be in a different way than it used to be. External interaction was important, as long as the regionality had to come across in the first place. Even with this unused progression, the month in Mullae was a pleasant experience. A few of ironworkers that I encountered with during the process of mural painting were interested in what I was doing, and such the exchange of conversation was settled down as stable relationships. They sometimes came down to the basement and nagged like a slight banter at me with saying ‘what on the earth could this be an art?’ while they were very appreciative of artist’s efforts on living in a harsh life. The day when I showed up late than an usual schedule, they kibitzed me that the way of their greeting, just same as the delightful welcoming smile in the middle of the work when they saw my waving greeting hands. As time went by, I could sense that there were some kind of warm fellowship came up between myself and those iron district neighbors. Yet again, ‘relations’ of life and the matter of its ‘labour’ caused resonance of my sight while to accustom myself to the rugged and sharp roar through the daily city noise.
It was pretty interesting but weird to look up on the internet about Mullae during the progression of work. There were many of essay formatted posts that had main phrase with ‘the beautiful encounter of wage earners and arts.’ However, most of the iron workers in Mullae were not ‘wage earner’ but more like self-employed businessman who run their own iron foundries. Fragmented information from mass media is often solidified to obstruct of vision towards sensing the whole, and perhaps the ‘dissonance’ may be the reflection of it. Awareness, consequently, has fallen under the mass media’s influence. In fact, ‘arts’ in Mullae is a media that a platform which allows every individual of life to commune with one another. However, there were some awkward impression on using the word ‘arts’ with ‘wage earner,’ in terms of flattening every individuals by giving a definition to render a symbolic purpose. In case of this, therefore, ‘arts’ might easily be misread in our perception as a superior concept to ‘wage earners.'
The participation of electric device or mass media in our sensory system has been getting louder, and it exerts a strong influence to our intuition. I feel as if I was supposed to hand my sensory system over to electric media. This is very awful, and it is not just because of causing displeasure but being in dread of losing humanity. So, I’ve tried to defend myself from all this electric media circumstance rather than being an early adapter — consequently, I am a smart phone user who don’t manipulate it smart. My defensive attitude towards electric media is that because a fragmented image often represents the whole scene of life, and it distorts a perspective against my will. Besides, those drifting fragmented images are solidified as reality when it is at anchor in condition of insensibility. After all, it remains as a rigid line in our perception that draws an ultimate distance in relations of life and society. Obviously, therefore, concern is being voiced about mass media that distorts a good intention of ‘arts’ to fade Mullae's regional culture away from our sensory system.
Interestingly, the character of iron sheet was a proper material that could be representative of such circumstance. The solid formation of iron sheet seemed like a ground that no one ever tries to touch, just as the rigid line across our perception. The basic component of iron is actually vulnerable to air, so it has to be gone through with particular process layering a film on a surface to prevent its oxidation. My daily labour in Mullae was concentrated on grinding the layer unlike the iron workers who mainly put effort into welding the surface to attach pieces together. Thus, unexpectedly, such kind of dissonance was spun off from my total opposite gesture to the iron worker’s movement. Ironically, for some reason, however, a harmonic balance between me and the neighbors was in bloom within the dissonance. Those opposite concentration was crossing to make a junction during the process of my work. The painting collage work, <54, Mullae 3rd street>, was made out of cutting a huge long iron sheet into pieces and combining together. Due to the nature of iron, the material required professional skill in a process of manipulation. In the end, the progression was formed in a way of collaboration with the neighbors, the specialist of iron, even until the last moment of nailing the work on the wall — I felt very blessed for having this thankful experience. Especially, the owner of DaeRyuk Industry was a great benefactor all the time during my journey in Mullae.