Seminar Ⅷ - Youngjune Lee  (Machine Critic)

Youngjune Lee, who studies the operative mechanisms behind large objects such as ships, talked about the act of critiquing machines and the significance therein. Inquiring into a machine’s mechanism and structure not only requires an understanding of the very materials it comprises, but also an examination of the contexts—environment and relationships—in which it lies. This process is in line with Lee’s definition of critique as a detailed investigation into how materials with forms function and acquire meaning. Critique is therefore a process of alternating back and forth, like a pendulum, between the concrete properties of materials and the abstract properties of ideas and phenomena. In an expanded sense, this definition implies that critique in art should neither remain solely in the terrain of media form nor in that of meaning. Critiquing art simultaneously necessitates a study of content and an invention of form that ultimately encourages the birth of fresh content.  

- Seunga You (DCW 2023) 

The seminar with critic Youngjune Lee was an opportunity to discuss the concept of machines in a comprehensive sense—the very concept upon which his course of work as a machine critic is founded. Rather than ideas and approaches typically tied to cutting-edge machines, systems, and concepts or directly associated with the term “machine critique,” the main motivation behind Lee’s pursuit of machine critique lay in his early experiences of machines (for example, those his father introduced to him during his childhood), interlocked with his physical experiences of certain moments or events (such as the sensations felt while driving a car or traveling on a boat). The critical, inquisitive, and revealing view of machine objects acquired as a result shapes his critique. This seminar encouraged me to ruminate on where the senses of foreignness and distance associated with the term “machine” originates and how the concept of “mechanic body” not only directly points to robots or artificial intelligence but also includes everything from prosthetics that could potentially be affixed to my body to the interaction between my fingers and the very keyboard I’m typing on and even the sound and sensation of the wireless headset cushion pressed against my ears. 

- Sangyeop Rhii (DCW 2023)

The seminar with critic Youngjune Lee discussed key elements (such as structural understanding and the significance of sociological, cultural, and geographical contexts) necessary to take a simple understanding of machines to a critical level. The challenge in curating an exhibition under the theme of technology lies not only in interpreting human needs and desires and structures supported by society, but also in determining the scope of understanding and interpretation of the mechanisms and systems through which technology operates. As technology continues to develop at accelerated speeds, learning to wield it is becoming an increasingly challenging endeavor, and as a phenomenon, people forego critique to jump on the bandwagon of the newest technology. Lee’s methodology of machine critique intervenes in such phenomenon, thereby securing us the time to rethink the “accelerationist” bandwagon we have unwittingly jumped on.

- Jieon Lee (DCW 2023)