Creating Identities: Nikki Lee’s Projects

We are back with an article! Have you heard of Niki Lee? She is an photographer and artist. Her motivation is being curious who she is, which means her desire to find her identity. Everybody wants to know his/her own identity because knowing myself is the key to move forward. Let us what you think through the comment!

Creating Identities: Nikki Lee’s Projects

Min Ji Kim
Sogang University

             What constitutes our identity? Is it created internally, or is it a result of our social perceptions? Talks on identities and how they are created have been numerous, and these issues also stand at the center of many other controversies. Especially in America where many different ethnic groups intermingle to harmonize into living together, defining one’s identity has become even more important. Regarding this, Nikki Lee, a Korean photographer and film maker active in New York City, has put together a series of projects that are named Projects that shows how such identities are created through people’s look.

 

             As a Korean with a strong Asian look, Nikki Lee fits perfectly into the category of the stereotypical Asian. However in Projects where Nikki Lee dresses up and puts on make-up to look like other social or ethnic groups, she blends in perfectly without any doubt on her original appearance. She can practically turn into anyone.

             For instance, Lee dresses herself in a way that Hispanics do in The Hispanic Project. Her resemblance to the Hispanic group of people is very high that it is hard to recognize her in this picture. Another example, The Skateboarder’s Project also shows her blending in naturally with other people.

            Through her projects, Lee shows how identity, which is a mechanism that is used to define you, can change. It is not absolute but subjective. Furthermore, she quotes a thought from Buddhism that “I can be someone else and that someone else can be me as well,” in order to explain her rationale behind the Projects, that she wanted to show how the views of others are important in constructing one’s identity in life.

             Nikki Lee’s photographs are just one interesting example of how identity is defined, even though another viewpoint might claim her idea of identity to be superficial and lacking depth as her notion of identity revolves around the surfaces. Debates are still going on regarding different constitutes of identity, and Lee’s Project stands firm in proving one side of the argument.

Check out the site if you are interested in knowing more about Nikki Lee and her projects:
http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/show/nikki-s-lee

#Election2014, Social Media’s Role to American Voters

It is Monday! DSKUSSS wants help you start this week with fresh mind! So we bring a new article that you might want to read :) This article talks about 2014 U.S. Election and Social Media. Let us know what you think through the comments!

#Election2014, Social Media’s Role to American Voters

HyunjiYoo

Department of Global Studies

Pusan National University

People’s decision-making processes have been affected hugely by the media. In the past, the media itself was limited to newspaper, radio and TV. In the middle of past-contemporary media, online version of newspapers has been replacing newspapers due to the increasing demands from smartphone users. Along with online newspapers, Social Network Service (SNS), or social media, recently became a hot communication tool among internet and smartphone users. According to the statistics of Statista, average SNS users are growing and the number is expected to hit 2 billion in 2017. As these huge numbers of users show, the leverages of social media are bigger. Usages of the media are also different from people to people. The midterm election of the U.S. in November, 2014 clearly tells us the power of social media in American politics.

The poll conducted by the Pew Research Center shows that among 2,003 participants 16% voters are SNS users who followed, or subscribed the pages of politicians. This estimate was increased compared to 6% on the research done in 2010. Using social media does not mean leaning to one political party. Both the Republicans and Democrats actively participated in social media mostly, among young generation. Furthermore, voters or participants of political activities use SNS frequently since “following” their supporting politicians give them much credible information and politicians can voice out directly, compared to the traditional media.

As SNS have huge influences globally, it becomes a tool for facilitating political activities. The day before the midterm election in the U.S., Facebook placed a banner to motivate voters at the top of U.S. users' newsfeed. Since most US people check Facebook daily, a notice on election is easy to remind the important events by using “sharing” to others. In this sense, social media can be manipulated by a huge institution for propaganda, but still it is useful media for the people by encouraging political participations.

I had thought that SNS existed just for gossips or uploading personal news, but it can be utilized in a strategic and beneficial ways for both voters and politicians through the example of the midterm election. SNS users have been increasing during the elections focusing on the youth groups; expect the age spectrum will be expanded in the future.

Culture of Failure: Silicon Valley

What do you think when you hear Silicon Valley? Innovation, Venture, or Creativity? Silicon Valley was able to succeed due to the creativity? Then, why has the creativity maximized in Silicon Valley? One of our members want to explain it. Look through this article, and let us know what you think!

Culture of Failure: Silicon Valley

Changhwan Hwang

Pusan National University

In the 21^st century, many people emphasize the creativity as a virtue of success.  Therefore, we can see the word ‘creative’ or ‘creativity’ everywhere such as advertisements, mottos of big corporations, and even government’s rallying cries.  Although people’s efforts to create innovative ideas, not many people are able to get these ideas what can astound the world.  Then, what makes people and society to be creative?  What limits people’s creativity?  In other words, what makes citizens’ have a tendency to behave differently rather than identically with others?

In my opinion, the tendency that people hesitate to be creative or behave differently with others comes from the fear to fail.  Except few Western European and Scandinavian countries, the majority of countries do not have enough social security system or even anything like that.  Therefore, when people fail on business, people may not survive after their failure.  Moreover, they may be considered permanent losers in society.  Steve Chen, ex-CTO (Chief Technology Officer) of ‘Youtube’, also pointed out this problem and mentioned Korea and Taiwan are representative cases of society where are afraid to challenge.

Then, what can foster the innovative society?  We could find an appropriate answer in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, U.S.A.  According to Steve Chen’s interview, Silicon Valley’s culture of failure is represented by simple phrases: ‘Fast fail, fail often’.  It means whether you have degrees or not, you can start your own business and even though you failed to success 4 times, you can challenge again.  Under this culture of failure, failures are just fine experiences, not the stigma for losers.  Therefore, many people who have some creative ideas start their business to see how valuable idea there is.  It leads creation of many small business in society.  Historically, the majority of innovation has been come from small business, not big corporation.  At this point, this culture of failure boosts the emergence of creative innovation.

The most important thing at this point is people do actual challenges to estimate the value of their new idea rather than just sitting on the desk for planning.  This simple disparity creates extremely different outcomes.  Airbnb, Apple, Youtube, Google and Tesla, these world leading companies born in Silicon Valley.  In addition, Silicon Valley’s number of patents per person and venture investment rate are No. 1 in the world.  Of course, someone might say there are many successful corporations born without emphasis of creativity such as Samsung, Hyundai.  Yes, these companies are huge and have great economic power.  However, they don’t lead the trend of the market.  They are fast-followers, but not trend setters.  The meaning of follower and leader is significantly different.  This is one of the great outcome of the culture of failure.  They create not just the big corporations, but also the companies which leads the global trend.

Embracing the failure means giving freedom to people to try what they want to attempt.  Through thousands of attempts and failure, the creative ideas that will astonish the world can be finally born.  Attempting bravely is a kind of catalyst to boost trials to create creative outcome.  The success of Silicon Valley as an incubator of successful ventures came from other institutional reasons too, such as subsidies from government, and etc.  However, it seems clear that the  Silicon Valley’s innovative perspective to acknowledge people’s failure eventually make creative outcomes and these outcomes are leading the world trends in many field.

A New Kind of Donation Culture from the United States - The Ice Bucket Challenge

Are you interested in donation? Recently, the Ice Bucket Challenge has hit the world. Due to this donation, the perspective on donation a little bit changed. Before the IBC, donation only meant something serious but after it led to the idea that donation can be fun. What do you think of this donation culture? Read this article, and let us know what you think!

A New Kind of Donation Culture from the United States

- The Ice Bucket Challenge

Hyun Jin Lee

Graduated from KyungPook National University

Dept. of French Language and Literature

A few months ago, the Ice Bucket Challenge, also called the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, was the trend of the summer. It is an activity involving pouring a bucket of ice water on someone’s head to promote awareness of the disease Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis(ALS) – also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease - and to encourage individual donations. The process of the challenge is simple. When someone is nominated by other participants who have done the challenge, the nominated can choose to make videos pouring water on themselves and then nominating others or simply donate money to related organization without dumping ice-water.

As American celebrities including Bill Gates and other famous figures in different fields took part in the challenge, it went viral through media and spread throughout the world. Likewise, in Korea, it was easy to see the videos of celebrities, politicians and even friends doing the challenge. But, why did the Ice Bucket Challenge become a huge trend?

It is because the Ice Bucket Challenge was striking enough to attract public’s attention and had power of influence to encourage individual participation. It is funny and amusing to see the videos of celebrities and friends getting wet with a bucket of ice water. Accordingly, it was easy to attract people to promote the existence of the activity and its purpose. When people think about donation, they usually think of it in the typical sense, simply giving money to charity. Thanks to this challenge, the common belief changed into a new idea that donation activities can be very active and lively. It leads to the increase of individual interest in donation.

However, some people are blaming the challenge for not being aware of saving water and pointing out that those who want to promote themselves are misusing the challenge. Despite these shortcomings, it is true that public’s current enormous attention and participation could not be made without the Ice Bucket Challenge. To conclude, the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge is meaningful in itself that it spread out the donation spirit all over the world and increases the public’s interests and practices of individual donation.

Hollywood’s movie history: from silent films to talkies⓵

Wow! DSKUSSS is back with new article on the blog! We finished our arrangement with new members and brought an article on Hollywood :) Thank you for waiting for our new blog and let us know your opinions through comments.

Hollywood’s movie history: from silent films to talkies⓵

-from the movie ‘Singing in the Rain(1952)’

                                                                            Lee, Jungwon

                                                                                       Pusan National University

                                                                                            Dept. of Global Studies

We love watching movies, especially those from Hollywood. Every year, Hollywood brings us pleasure by making movies of various topics like science fiction, romance, horror, etc. However, Hollywood was not successful from the very start. It has gained fame and success through many trials and errors, and now, it is regarded as one of the biggest and grandest movie making industries in the world.

In the early 1900s, film makers began moving to Los Angeles to start their business. They moved there because they wanted to get away from the strict rules imposed by Thomas Edison’s motion picture patent company in New Jersey. Also, the nice weather of Hollywood was an ideal place to make various films.

In the movie ‘Singing in the Rain’, we can see a minute depiction of Hollywood‘s turbulence in the late 1920s. This era was called ‘the silent film era’, due to the lack of recording technology. In the film, Don Lockwood and Lina Lamont were the best leading actor and actress of that time. However, the audience couldn’t hear their voices but only look at their lines as subtitles after each scene. In addition, the orchestra was below the stage and played instruments for the film’s background music. There were people who were critical about silent films, saying, “Movies are entertaining enough for the masses but the personalities on the screen just don’t impress me. I mean they don’t talk or act; they just make a lot of dumb show.”^[1] Still, the majority of the audience always took this “dumb show” for granted whenever they watched films in theaters. But one day, a revolution took place.

The head of Don’s studio, R. F. Simpson, showed a short demonstration of a ‘vitaphone’ to introduce ‘talking pictures.’ People were astonished to see that the voices were actually coming right out of the actors and actress’ mouths. People instantly assumed that there must be someone talking behind the movie screen. This was a huge turning point for everyone working in film industries. So, following suit, Monumental Pictures started to make a new film ‘Dueling Cavalier’ with actually talking actors and actresses, but it became a disaster.

This story will be continued in the next webzine of mine. I will talk about what were the disasters when people attempted to make talking pictures, and how those disasters were fixed and developed. 

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^[1] Kathy Seldon, from ‘Singing in the Rain’