On the importance of space and social empathy

DJ Steve Aoki's photographer?―?Mark "The Cobrasnake" Hunter?―?snaps partygoers at the Walker Hill Hotel in 2008, when Korean youth were quickly learning debauchery-filled, Western-style, branded DJ parties as a market-sanctioned mode of adult play. The Cobrasnake's pictures (and their display on his website for the world to see) were part of a process in which Korea was subjected to and defined by a global gaze, which helped Korea and Koreans see it and themselves in an increasingly global way. Photo by Michael Hurt

By Michael Hurt

I'm in the middle of the final crunch leading up to the publishing of a book with professor of sociology Ikki Kim that compares Beijing and Seoul at different stages of their development, with the former as an example of that city's journey through modernity and the latter as an example as the cradle of hypermodernity.

This small essay is just the beginning of a couple of samples from the book, with later, finished installments to include pictures from both professors' work.

In a hypermodern age in which identity is fractured and is something based on myriad affiliations and affinities than in a modern mode of living in which identities were assigned to you by the state and society, finding ways to bridge the gaps and boundaries between various subcultures and points of separation becomes more important. This book explores two societies' developmental journeys in terms of their representative, respective capital cities. It also does so by way of the camera, through a visual sociology of space and how space both reflects and shapes the way people relate to one another and even defines them in society.

Space and its use in modern, urban areas helps define and set the stage for how people interact with one another in old and new ways, how and if communities form, and how individual idiosyncrasies shared between people separated by space, interest, or income can coalesce into shared practices and even cultures. Space in hypermodernity informs how disaffected youth form cultures, how consumers become creators, how those on the sidelines become the main event, and then take the stage and create their own spotlight in which to shine.

Space ?― especially in hypermodernity ― acts as both the stage and tool for identities to form and for people to make direct and empathetic social connections. This is often based on shared affinities, such as found in K-pop fandoms, the ability to form new markets in which to sell tickets for EDM music or world-famous DJs in events with which the Korean populace had been completely unfamiliar, or the street fashion youth culture that has coalesced into concrete shape at Seoul Fashion Week that the international fashion press has taken notice of. It is also often based on people finding new ways to utilize urban spaces for their own social purposes and not the ones for which they were ostensibly intended.

This book uses the camera as a means of visually chronicling this process.

Steve Aoki moves the crowd in 2008. Photo by Michael Hurt

Myeongdong, late 2008. The extreme anonymity of the crowd can allow for the formation of small eddies of privacy in the stream of people. Photo by Michael Hurt

The hip neighborhood of Hongdae is the stage for their largely global media-informed notion of their hip-hop, hip fashion identities. April, 2008. Photo by Michael Hurt

On Seoul's Namsan mountain, people have consecrated a space in which to leave physical expressions of imagined eternal love. Photo by Michael Hurt

The Hongdae Playground (now called Hongdae Park) in May 2008. Youth culture transformed a playground/park for toddlers and kids into a stage for alcohol-driven socializing, street (and other) fashion activities, and then a formalized, officially sanctioned play space for youth that actually lost some of its edgy appeal once it became denuded of the graffiti in the background, the playground equipment scrapped, and the street stall on its perimeter officially registered and regulated by the Mapo District office. Photo by Michael Hurt

Dr. Michael W. Hurt (@kuraeji on Instagram) is a photographer and professor living in Seoul. He received his doctorate from UC Berkeley's Department of Ethnic Studies and started Korea's first street fashion blog in 2006. He researches youth, subcultures and street fashion as a research professor in the Center for Glocal Culture and Social Empathy at the University of Seoul and also writes on visual sociology and cultural studies at his blog and book development site Deconstructing Korea, and contributes to the podcast "Two Brothas and a Korean Chick." His PR/image curation company Iconology Korea also engages in an effort to positively shape images of social others in Korea, construct a positive face for Korea-based or Korea-interested clients, and positive images of Korea in the world.

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