○ Weltanschauung

In 20XX , a world devastated by endless small and big wars following scientific development. Those who can't stand it turn their eyes from the real world to the virtual world. The virtual world of refuge is made up of virtual things that are more real than real. Here people settle and flock. The crowd needed a leader to lead the crowd, which is made up of 'virtual democracy’, creating a virtual state. This country is called 'Neo Joseon'. In this 'Neo Joseon', people live an ideal virtual life full of their own ideals, and the reality and the virtual begin to be indistinguishable. People eventually found themselves in this small machine in search of a more ideal and free life.

○ Note

  There is two most prominent figures in the work. These two characters are the same but different. These figures are the central figure in the series of <Neo Joseon>, and the main character, and the object that the audience will import. There are three eyes in this work, the first of which is the viewpoint of the observer, the top face. Seeing the world from the first-person observer's point of view within the world of Neo Joseon. The second one is standing back below him, which is the first person point of view. It shows the gaze as a person living in Neo Joseon. Lastly, it is the gaze outside of Stained Glass. This does not tell the viewer's gaze at the work. This gaze can be seen in the lower part when the work is divided into two parts. Falling figures, stacked bodies, and the light that illuminates it, and the shadows that grow behind it, express the existential value of those who resist the power of light. In addition, in the context of Michel Foucault's "Discipline and punishment," it also represents a surveillance system. Light symbolizes institutional institutions and social devices for taming and suppressing freedom. The Panopikon, a circular surveillance facility proposed by British philosopher Jeremy Bentham, puts prisoners in a circular building and installs a high tower that can lights in the center. The shadows of the prisoners cast on the wall by this light allow us to grasp the minute action of each prisoner from the central tower. Foucault says “It is a form of prison that enables the most efficient surveillance”. In other words, the shadow in this work embodies the gaze of the power to see everything and the power to leave no shadow.

  This work borrows < Akira > from the overall image, for example, the entangled wires from the body of the middle figure, the red color and the top figure. This work borrows the contents of Akira, but the most important part is ' Cyberpunk ' itself. Since Akira is considered to be a representative work of Japanese cyberpunk, it is a symbol of cyberpunk, which borrows the image of Akira. 'Cyberpunk' is a genre of sci-fi literature that has been in the spotlight around the 1980s. It has a rebellious and antisocial character that repels its network in societies and worlds where the human body's ability and consciousness can be expanded mechanically and biotechnically. In Akira, with the year 2000 just around the corner, draws a dystopian world of the ills of science developed in the future decades later. And that's the present time in 2019. Thus, the Neo Joseon series depicts the image of the future, but not itself. The future image of the Neo Joseon series is from the days of Cyberpunk, not from the present. That is why images in a works are most easily seen in modern times, except for the wires that go through the body. The monitor screen in the work is even a form of the past that is hard to find in modern times. This work depicts the image of the future, but it is past and present. In addition, it also implies the social ills, absurdities, class conflicts and uncertainty of reality have brought about by the development of science that <Akira> says.  Another keyword that penetrates the piece, Jean Baudrillard's "Simulation" is the keyword that centers most on the content side of the piece and the <Neo-Joseon> series. In this work, “Simulation” is presented through the movie <Matrix>. The wires in the middle figure are identical in the <matrix>. The wires connected to the skin are borrowed from the <matrix> scene. The weltanschauung in the work is a virtual world, consisting of 0 and 1, which inevitably escape Simulacre. To escape from the problems of reality settled in the virtual world, however, through the outside eyes, this virtual world shows people the ‘simulacred’ reality of being symbolized, imaged, and digitized. People think they have seen the world through this simulacred image, seeing with their own eyes, and the whole story, but this is either true or not true. These images are symbols and images that people want to see and believe, or images that who want people to see and believe, which are determined by the hands of someone outside. Artifacts and imitations that are more real than the real, and the reality that is processed and directed more real than the real, make it indistinguishable from real and fake, and lead people's choice. This work talks about how to choose between these simulacre. This philosophical thought about the simulation is implicitly expressed through the Morse code sentence “ There is no spoon”, which consists of dots and lines falling below the top character goggles. This sentence plays the same role in this work as it gives the answer that distinguishes matrix and reality in the movie <Matrix>. However, the fact that this sentence is made of hard-to-read Morse code, the letter is hard to see, and the sentence is shaped like tears flowing from the top to the bottom under the eyes is the reality that this answer is not easily communicated. And, it shows the deplorable. 

    This concept of simulation is shown not only in the paintings inside the stained glass, but also in the materials used in this work. First of all, stained glass made of acrylic panel and glass deco. ‘Glass Deco’ is a painting tool made for children and is a copy of stained glass. The product is made of chemicals, so the image is the same as the stained glass, but the composition is different. In addition, Acrylic plates are glass imitations and are also of different composition. The light from behind <The Fake Stained Glass> acts as the sunlight from the stained glass, but it is also like the fake sunlight. Which, as mentioned above, represents the political power of light. The same goes for candle-shaped lights placed under the work. <The Fake Stained Glass>, made up of these fakes, penetrates the concept of simulation, while also representing the masses who are being whipped and thrown away without any backbone, the false deification of a false subject in an indistinguishable world. The resistance to the power of these world lights and to the insane masses is shown in the form of upside-down stained glass. After all, this work is a shout for a simulated and false world under power and oppression, and for the people in it.