-
115
MVCR 1 (1) pp. 115127 Intellect Limited 2010
Metaverse Creativity Volume 1 Number 1
2010 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. doi:
10.1386/mvcr.1.1.115_1
KEYWORDS
puppetavatarmixed realityparadoxritualperformancemetaverse
SEMI RYUVirginia Commonwealth University
Virtual puppet, my love
impossible
ABSTRACT
This article expounds upon the convergence of two seemingly
disparate psychic manifestations; namely the mode of Han, a mindset
deeply embedded in traditional Korean culture and the contemporary
relationship of a human handler to his or her avatar in three
dimensional virtual environments. As an artist whose artistic
medium is virtual puppetry performed through three dimensional
media, the author has found an extreme state of paradox as a key
aspect of her own Korean culture, embodied by the concept of Han as
the paradoxical state of the human psyche, initi-ated from the
micro-politics of body. This article investigates the potential
relation between human and virtual bodies, and avatars and their
users in a paradoxical manner: this is a story of the love
impossible.
INTRODUCTION
There is an interesting paradox in Korean thought. One
methodology in Korean Son Buddhism is called Hwadu(Why dharma went
to the east?). Hwadu is a word that cuts off the paths of language
and thought. It completely cuts off all conceivable exits,
therefore, one cannot settle down. Hwadu activates massive doubts:
in the state of being lost in complete chaos. It continuously
fights against our tendency to stabilize man-made structures such
as language and rational thought. It is interesting that Hwadu uses
lan-guage in order to fight against language. It would be painful
to stay within such a problematic structure. It is difficult to
live with dilemmas but it is
MVCR_1.1_art_Ryu_115_127.indd 115MVCR_1.1_art_Ryu_115_127.indd
115 10/29/10 7:46:25 AM10/29/10 7:46:25 AM
-
Semi Ryu
116
equally difficult to continuously fight for them. This is the
extreme structure of paradox.
Paradoxical structures can be seen in layers of mixed reality,
as continu-ous conflicts, emerging between actual/ virtual
presence, and man/ machine. The author perceives a similarity
between such states and the Korean clowns tightrope walking, which
looks risky, unstable and unbalanced, continuously swinging left
and right. The clown usually holds a fan in one hand, which seems
to defy the act of balancing, but actually demonstrates a different
philosophy: that of oscillating continuously between balance and
unbalance, in order to find the greater moment of balancing. It is
the cosmic tree, which connects between separated poles: left and
right. The taller the cosmic tree the more unstable it appears,
and, paradoxically, the greater its stillness also appears. It is
the paradoxical process: what can be termed as ritual. The
potential relationship between the user and his/ her avatar can be
discussed in this paradoxical context. Its complexity goes far
beyond singular expressions such as control, immersion or
interaction.
Potential relationships between subject and object have been the
primary issue in the authors ongoing virtual puppetry projects.
What would be the potential ritual between virtual
puppet/puppeteer, and user/avatar? What would be the height of the
cosmic tree in between the two states? What would be distance
between a virtual puppet and a puppeteer? The parameter of the
distance is not only physical, but also emotional, and
psychological. In the romantic sense, it would be a distance
between lovers, embroiled in a continuous process of becoming and
farewell. It would be the story of love impossible.
This article will explore the micro-relationship between puppets
and their puppeteers within the context of love impossible. The
Korean cultural psyche Han will be introduced to explain this
tearful story, in an extreme state of grief but with a fearsome
desire for challenging impossibility; the authors virtual puppet
performance Parting on Z will also be introduced within the context
of love impossible, exploring the Korean concept of Han within
virtual puppetry.
THE PUPPET
It has been found that the cultural, social and philosophical
meanings of words have been driven in different ways. Migrating to
different language environments, the author herself has experienced
miscommunications, caused by cultural differences and different
modes of thinking. Language suggests a certain assumption of
understanding things and experience. Fundamental ideas associated
with it are an invisible system we usually take for granted. Thus
many terms which frequently appear in new media such as
interaction, immersion, puppet, are all open questions.
The word puppet is interesting in and of itself due to a dynamic
range of different interpretations. A puppet is a simple object
related to humans, easily situated within our contemporary daily
lives, as well as popular play spaces including online virtual
games and the metaverse. It can provide a playful and interesting
platform for debates, contrasting different thoughts and
perspectives.
There are a number of definitions of the puppet, deeply rooted
in the hier-archical separation of subject and object, based on
western cultural traditions (Shershow 1995: 1415.) The puppet has
served as a metaphor for power rela-tionships an object to be
controlled by man, the puppet master. This idea has been also been
passed into the digital realm, from the avatar to automated
MVCR_1.1_art_Ryu_115_127.indd 116MVCR_1.1_art_Ryu_115_127.indd
116 10/29/10 7:46:25 AM10/29/10 7:46:25 AM
-
Virtual puppet, my love impossible
117
programming languages, invisibly supporting the ontological
lowness of the puppet.
Shershow points out the ontological lowness of the puppet in his
book, Puppets and Popular Culture, saying that Pupa seems to
manifest at once a psychosexual expectation of gender behaviour
(little girls play with dolls) and a more general semantic impulse
of diminution, that is the small made even smaller (Shershow 1995:
17, 69.) Furthermore, the Latin term pupa itself derives from the
Indo-European root pou (little), which figures in other English
words such as pupil, puppy, puberty, pauper and poverty a semantic
map of social and corporeal subordination.
Puppets have been understood pretty much in the power structure
of a man-made system, suggesting a certain prototype of
subject/object relation-ship. In the metaverse, the avatar as a new
type of puppet seems to be the newest extension of puppets within a
hierarchical structure. A users strong attachment to his/her avatar
has been frequently explained in terms of aspects of easier and
more precise control of the digital body, thus magnifying the power
relationships between the puppet and the puppeteer (Meadows 2007:
36.) Bringing the diverse perspectives of puppets to light would be
a great place to start a further discussion of the user/avatar
relationship.
PUPPET: THE RITUAL OBJECT PARTING ON THE Z-AXIS
Historically, there is clear evidence of how ritual objects such
as masks have been transformed into puppets, showing the inherent
connection between ritual and puppetry (Baird 1965: 3031.) Masks
are considered the evolutionary step before the puppet. They were
gradually transformed so that they could be held in front of the
body, and subsequently made to move by strings. In primitive
societies there has been a widespread use of the articulated mask
in religious ceremonies, pointing towards clear evidence of an
eventual transfor-mation from ritual into the art of puppetry.
It is of interest to see the historical presence of the ritual
object getting more and more dissociated from mans body (Kaplin
2001: 2124). This phenomenon has been assisted by the development
of technology, from strings, rods, to wireless connection and
digitally distributed networks. Ritual objects such as masks were
placed directly on the skin providing direct contact with the human
body. The point at which the ritual object began to be detached and
separated from the body is critical for the author, since this is
in fact the point at which the ritual object starts being called a
puppet. However, puppets have been parting from their objects for
some time, as far as they can, and as far as technology supports,
starting with the length of a human arm, progressing on to strings,
rods, and finally telematic networks. This dramatically increases
the aspect of separation from the ritual object, which is
transformed into a puppet through that very process of
separation.
In this respect, separation seems to be a critical aspect in the
description of what a puppet is. In the romantic sense, it is a
process of farewell between the puppet and the puppeteer. The
puppeteers gaze and interest creates and reconfirms the distance,
coordinating the Z-axis and marking the depth between puppet and
puppeteer. The act of distancing always happens on a Z-axis,
creating the genuine moment when the beloved and the lover
sin-cerely face each other. The puppets departure on this Z-axis,
starting from the puppeteers gaze, interest, and love slowly turns
the process into the story of love impossible. With digital
technology, the puppet is departing on the Z-axis
MVCR_1.1_art_Ryu_115_127.indd 117MVCR_1.1_art_Ryu_115_127.indd
117 10/29/10 7:46:25 AM10/29/10 7:46:25 AM
-
Semi Ryu
118
into the infinite depth of virtual fields. It is this infinite
distance which makes virtual spaces so potentially appealing to
human consciousness and the human psyche. Symbolically, virtual
spaces would be infinite places for farewell.
Thus the puppet is a ritual object which is continuously parting
on the Z-axis from its puppeteer, and his/her leaving is endless in
the metaverse, reaching into the virtual realm. It is a new type of
farewell, beyond physicality, continuously stimulating mans desire
for becoming the other: object, puppet, something alternative. It
is a ritual happening on a micro-level of human consciousness. The
puppet is a ritual object in relationship with man, involved with
mans dynamic mental engagement, which continuously liberates mans
body into becoming the other. Puppets life cannot be discussed,
without the puppeteer. The puppet truly comes to life in mans
consciousness, as in this description by the remarkable Russian
puppeteer Sergey Obraztsov:
In reality, no inanimate object can be animated not a brick,
rag, toy, or theatrical puppet no matter how expertly it moves when
manipulated by a puppeteer. Regardless of circumstances, the
objects listed above remain objects lacking any biological
features. However, in mans hands any object the same brick, rag,
sole of a shoe, or a bottle can fulfill the function of a living
object in mans associative fantasy. It can move, laugh, cry, or
declare its love.
(Tillis 1992: 23)
There is the wilful engagement as the puppeteer continues in
this state of play, as well as the continuous transforming state of
the puppet, from inanimate to animate, as well as from animate to
inanimate. The puppet as a marginal object revolts against a fixed
identity. It is a revolutionary object going beyond the
hierarchical structure and endowed with mans powerful mental
attachments: mans fantasy, imagination, and suspension of
disbelief. We may call this love, especially impossible love,
starting from the tragedy of the puppeteer.
THE TRAGEDY OF THE PUPPETEER
The author proposes the term tragedy of the puppeteer in order
to address the emotional grief involved in the process of becoming.
The tragedy of the puppeteer lies embedded in the ironic process of
continuously joining before the farewell. In this scenario, the
puppeteer is in love with the puppet, despite all of the definite
portents of the upcoming farewell. It is a tragedy because of the
puppeteers continuous desire for an impossible relationship. It is
the paradoxical aspect of becoming the other. The puppeteer faces
the irremediable distance of the puppet and experiences nostalgic
for fulfilled moments of integrated unity. The puppeteer laments
his/her separation with the puppet who is the symbolic lover, the
symbolic dream of oneself forgotten. It is tragic when you
recognize the separation from what you love: your lover, dream,
puppet, yourself. It would be tragic when you are aware of the
upcoming farewell, even when deeply in love. It is the beginning of
the story of the love impossible.
Tragedy comes from a paradoxical situation: from continuous
denial of the current state, which is part of a problematic state
like Hwadu (as previously stated). It is akin to a continuous
denial of our own body; we free ourselves to explore alternative
places through the puppet, but we always have to return back home
to our own bodies situated within a definite socio-economic field.
It is the quantum state of paradox.
MVCR_1.1_art_Ryu_115_127.indd 118MVCR_1.1_art_Ryu_115_127.indd
118 10/29/10 7:46:25 AM10/29/10 7:46:25 AM
-
Virtual puppet, my love impossible
119
Our body has been contaminated and repressed under the
micro-politics of power structures: society, hierarchy, and
language. We are systematically trained to be better adapted to the
formations of power (Guattari 1996: 714.) This is particularly the
case with subject-object relationships occurring within a definite
socio-economic field, especially one which is socially predefined,
promoting certain modes of behaviour and constructing
self-observatory systems. In short, the idea of a norm defined by
society would be a tremendous obstacle in looking for human freedom
and identity.
Felix Guattari talked about the micro-fascism of our own body
and the molecular revolution. This is what can also be termed as
ritual, one which happens on a microscopic level of human
consciousness (Ryu 2005: 105). Ritual celebrates the quantum mode
of the self, starting from an ontological or transcendental
oppression (Weinstone 2004: 17). During the ritual, we like to
prove ourselves to be much more than our definitions, exploring
critically different modes of the self. This constitutes a
revolution against the power structure, and one which would be
impossible to be involved in within our physical state of being.
The tragedy of the puppeteer contributes to the ongoing story of
the love impossible, an ongoing state of becoming, of being
continuously in love with our displaced selves.
Lacan also discusses impossible relations as a never-ending
desire for becoming, and a desire for love. As desiring machines we
are the main char-acters of the love impossible; we follow the
rainbow that cannot be perceived except from a distance. We can
only see, feel, and dream about it from a distance. The distance
challenges us to look over, standing on our toes, length-ening our
neck, and narrowing our eyes, very carefully and longingly, for the
eternal process of loving. The author is especially interested in
the emotional states happening in this story. Mans broken heart and
tears are the very sign of a molecular revolution; in Korea this is
called Han, the paradoxical state of consciousness driving the
story of the love impossible.
THE MODE OF HAN
Han is well known as the most important characteristic of the
Korean mindset and of the emotional states of the culture (Choi
1993: 78). It is a paradoxical state of consciousness that combines
an extreme state of grief, caused by physical or mental
constraints, with a great hope and strong desire for overcoming the
impossible. Han drives dynamic and playful process of the Korean
shamanic ritual, Gud. What the kings of the Chosun Dynasty of Korea
feared most was to see people looking up to the sky with sighs or
tears, since this was per-ceived to be the sign of Han (Kim 1992:
228230). Han calls forth revolution, which makes people look to the
sky with fearsome desires for change. As such Han motivates people
to look beyond the power structure.
Han has also been considered to be a blood clot, blocking the
healthy circulation of energy flow in the body. The way to treat
Han is through releasing, rather than through resolving. Critical
differences between the two can be explained through comparison of
Han and Won. Won () is another emotional state, commonly driving
the heroic literature of Asia. For example if ones master is killed
by the enemy Won emerges from the servers heart, promising to
avenge his/her master and kill the enemy (like Confucious virtue
and heroic attitude). Won tries to overcome a distressing situation
by eliminating the source of the problem, e.g. through resolving.
It projects a linear process with a definite end, often culminating
in revenge, animosity, and resentment.
MVCR_1.1_art_Ryu_115_127.indd 119MVCR_1.1_art_Ryu_115_127.indd
119 10/29/10 7:46:25 AM10/29/10 7:46:25 AM
-
Semi Ryu
120
Figure 1: GO-PU-RI: The process of releasing Han is one of the
primary aspects of Korean culture. A scene GO-PU-RI, from a
cleansing ritual SSI-KIM-GUD, in Jin-Do, Korea, visually
demonstrates the process of releasing Han. In this scene, there are
white cloths with seven or nine knots, which represent the Han of
the dead person. A shaman releases the knot one after another
singing and dancing in grief. This ritual is quite emotional and
accompanied by tears and cries, both on behalf of the shaman as
well as the audience (Lee 2004: 137).
MVCR_1.1_art_Ryu_115_127.indd 120MVCR_1.1_art_Ryu_115_127.indd
120 10/29/10 7:46:25 AM10/29/10 7:46:25 AM
-
Virtual puppet, my love impossible
121
Han is predominant in the Korean cultural environment. Quite
distinct from Won, Han is the mental state of the non-objective
(Kim 2004: 320321), which means acknowledging ones own
participation in the entire situation (Choi 1993: 89). This
perspective means projecting the sources of problems towards
oneself, rather than others. It creates extreme states of grief,
weakness, self-accusation, and a sense of futility. It may indeed
sound very passive: it is true Han has been primarily discussed
negatively in Korea, related to its tragic history of never-ending
invasions from neighbouring countries (Han and Han 2007: 8485).
However, Han reflects a quantum mind that positions itself as part
of a problematic interconnected system. Han has an attitude of
embracing everything, including difficulties. The role of ritual is
to release Han. For the author it is the essential aspect of the
Korean shamanic ritual.
Korean writer Ji-ha Kim highlights the essential quality of Han
as passive activeness in his book Hwang-To, where he uses a lotus
flower as a metaphor for the endless flow of love.
The lotus flower is born in morasses of mud. It has hidden
meaning of life, transparent, endless wandering, disappointment,
frustration, and discouragement. It is always abandoned but always
loves with endless passion toward the world, toward human, toward
all things
(Kim 1970: 101)
It is an endless flow of love and process, through constant
pain, grief and difficulties arising from the state of paradox. It
is an infinite process of loving. It is unconditional and eternal.
Han shows a way to live with problems but with great hope and
strong belief, asserting with a soft but powerful voice, not yet
but some day! Korean scholar Eeo-Lyeong Lee supports this
opti-mistic sense of Han, saying Han cannot be shaped without a
strong desire to overcome the situation (Lee 1982: 923). Han gives
one the courage to deal with pain, even magnifying it for the
ritual. Yeol-Gyu Kim said Han is the necessary condition to
heighten the extreme state of playfulness called Shin-Myung,
showing the other side of Han, and how opposite emotional states
can contrast, balance and indeed transform into each other (Kim
1986: 123133). Han is a sense of grief but also a sense of joy. It
is a cry but also a laugh. It is the soft but very powerful energy
of creation.
VIRTUAL PUPPET, MY LOVE IMPOSSIBLE
It is interesting to what an extent impossible love stories are
omnipresent in Korean culture, represented in its music, drama,
movies, and literature. These stories have heartbreaking and
tearful storylines, which tend to make people emotionally involved
and immersed, crying and laughing at the story. In a traditional
setting, impossible love stories often incorporate the class
conflicts present within Confucianism society, dealing with the
illegal marriages between different classes. This represents one of
the examples of mans struggle with impossible relationships. In
these stories it is Han that drives the story of the love
impossible, presented in the diverse layers of human oppression,
from micro to macro scales, and from invisible to vis-ible layers.
The author proposes Han within the puppeteers consciousness,
embedded in a tragic moment of recognizing the unavoidable
obstacle, but nonetheless with a strong wish to overcome it. As
previously stated, the puppet is seen as a ritual object
continuously separating on the Z-axis of space. As the
MVCR_1.1_art_Ryu_115_127.indd 121MVCR_1.1_art_Ryu_115_127.indd
121 10/29/10 7:46:26 AM10/29/10 7:46:26 AM
-
Semi Ryu
122
puppet gets further away from the puppeteer, the depth of Han
increases. The level of grief and tragedy is overwhelming, and
therefore the ensuing ritual is all the more tearful and
powerful.
It is interesting to see that technology has supported the
farewell between puppet and puppeteer, maximizing the distance for
challenges and an increased state of Han. Technological development
has been dedicated to the critical quality of ritual object,
continuously parting on the Z-axis of the virtual realm, the
metaverse, over the network, over the rainbow, over the horizon. We
seem to be drastically increasing the height of the cosmic tree
connecting and also disconnecting the separated poles, reflecting
mans increased desire to tell the dramatic story of love
impossible.
This author is fascinated by virtual space in terms of the
infinite depth of the Z-axis found therein. Virtual puppets
travelling on such a vast Z-axis would be new ritual objects in the
context of the love impossible, becoming more and more remote,
intangible, flexible, deconstructed, multiplied, and fragmented,
challenging us with new types of distances. The quality of the
distance presented by the virtual puppet is not only physical, but
also psychological. There is a level of uncannyness arising from
the paradoxical conflict between life and death, and also between
materiality and immateriality. The distance between the virtual
puppet and the puppeteer is far greater than the one found in a
traditional setting, with regards to the physical as well as to the
mental aspects.
Virtual space is an infinite stage for the enactment of the love
impossible. It is a space for creating Han, and also releasing Han.
The virtual puppet as the agent of the love impossible laments the
gap between virtual and real pres-ence. Despite pain and
difficulties, the author chooses to address Han rather than hiding,
encouraging rather than discouraging. However, the greatest sadness
possible would be to lose the sensation of distance, the
disconnection and the love impossible, to lose the sense of
ourselves as human beings strug-gling with power structures, to
lose the ability to experience powerlessness, to really cry: to
lose the ability to feel Han. Could it be that we are the main
characters of the story of the love impossible? Without feeling the
tragedy, how can we cry or laugh with the story? Without feeling
the distance, how can we dream of revolution?
The author sees her virtual puppet as an agent of the story of
the love impos-sible, proposing a taller cosmic tree, and deeper
Han, for a heightened process of the ritual. Her virtual puppetry
proposes Han, embracing conflicts, difficul-ties, and the distance
of virtual/actual presences, traditional/digital media, and human
computer interaction. The virtual puppet performance Parting on Z
explored Han in the paradoxical relationships between the virtual
puppet and the puppeteer via the distance between avatar and user
symbolic lovers facing each other, continuously exchanging
dialogues of love and farewell. The story chosen for this
performance was the farewell scene from Chun-Hyang-Ga , the classic
Korean impossible love story that demonstrates Han.
VIRTUAL PUPPET PERFORMANCE PARTING ON Z
Parting on Z was a virtual interactive puppetry performance
enacted at The Project Room for New Media, Chelsea Art Museum, New
York, on 27 May 2009, working with the puppeteers voice, weight
balance, and facial tracking.
Parting on Z connected virtual puppetry to the traditional
Korean oral storytelling performance known as pansori. Pansori is a
Korean traditional folk play/one person opera. The pansori master
plays all characters for the duration
MVCR_1.1_art_Ryu_115_127.indd 122MVCR_1.1_art_Ryu_115_127.indd
122 10/29/10 7:46:26 AM10/29/10 7:46:26 AM
-
Virtual puppet, my love impossible
123
of an oral storytelling performance. Pansori consists of singing
(SORI), speech (A-NI-RI) and body-motions (BAL-LIM). It is a
combination of throat sing-ing and oral storytelling play, and was
originally performed by nomadic folk artists who belonged to the
lowest class of society deeply in the mode of Han, and who were
prosecuted and mistreated. Pansori masters undergo a rigorous
training in order to achieve the level of quality in throat
singing, which projects Han into the texture of the voice, which is
rough, emotional, and appealing. Literally, Pan means space for
play or situation play and Sori means singing (Yoo 2005:
143144).
Unlike traditional settings which promise clear visibility,
Parting on Z positioned the audience in a difficult spot when it
came to following both the virtual puppet and the puppeteer
simultaneously, since they were located between the virtual puppet
and the puppeteer was placed at opposite ends of the space, with a
long distance in between. Thus the audience had to turn their head
and choose one of the embodiments, whilst retaining the other in
their memory or their imagination. The story was orally told in
Korean, without direct English translation. It explored the
meta-layer of communica-tion by providing a set of keywords instead
of the verbatim translations of the original dialogue from Korean
into English. Considering oral storytelling as a transformative
creation of narrative continuously imagined, evolved, and generated
by listeners, keywords allowed the audience to navigate through and
compose their own storytelling. Speed and display of text
generation was
Figure 2: The virtual puppet, Mong-Ryong, from virtual puppet
performance Parting on Z.
MVCR_1.1_art_Ryu_115_127.indd 123MVCR_1.1_art_Ryu_115_127.indd
123 10/29/10 7:46:26 AM10/29/10 7:46:26 AM
-
Semi Ryu
124
determined by the puppeteers voice input through a wireless
microphone. A sample of the keywords and the text generated:
farewell, many thoughts, cannot help crying, what can I do, so
many thoughts, random thoughts, thinking about past, a brave man,
even heroes cried, awkward, cry for farewell, tears, walking and
walking, hold back tears, distraught.
Parting on Z invited the pansori master, Junghee Oh, to be the
puppeteer interacting with the virtual puppet on a large projection
in real time. The puppeteer interacted with the virtual puppet,
which faced her but at quite a distance, speaking back her story in
real time mimicry, and mirroring her body in swaying motions. She
stood on a Nintendo Wii Balance board, transmitting her balance
signal to the virtual puppet within the virtual space in order to
steer, breathe and walk as her reflection. The sound input of her
oral storytelling through the wireless microphone motivated the
mouth, body and facial expression of a three dimensional virtual
puppet in real time. The virtual puppet constantly spoke and sang
back to the puppeteer, very much akin to an echo or a mirror
reflection. The audience was physically and spiritually located
between the spiralling interactive dialogues of the virtual puppet
and the puppeteer. The puppeteers face was tracked and
video-captured in real time, and projected onto the virtual puppets
face at the climax of the performance.
Parting on Z demonstrates Han through the classic Korean
impos-sible love story: Chun-Hyang-Ga. It uses the most tearful and
saddest scene of farewell between lovers, Chun-Hyang and
Mong-Ryong. Through usage
Figure 3: Symbolic lovers, virtual puppet and puppeteer, from
Parting on Z.
MVCR_1.1_art_Ryu_115_127.indd 124MVCR_1.1_art_Ryu_115_127.indd
124 10/29/10 7:46:28 AM10/29/10 7:46:28 AM
-
Virtual puppet, my love impossible
125
of this poignant tale Parting on Z demonstrates Han not only
through the literary side of the impossible love story, but also
through the relationship of the virtual puppet and the puppeteer in
a meta-layer. Parting on Z is, in fact, an impossible love story
between symbolic lovers: a virtual puppet and a puppeteer who shape
a continuous dialogue of love and farewell, over a distance. This
meta-layer is slowly revealed throughout the performance. The
perform-ance starts with two virtual puppet characters clearly
distinct from each other,
Figure 4: The virtual puppet, mapped with live video of the
puppeteers face, from Parting on Z.
MVCR_1.1_art_Ryu_115_127.indd 125MVCR_1.1_art_Ryu_115_127.indd
125 10/29/10 7:46:29 AM10/29/10 7:46:29 AM
-
Semi Ryu
126
however, their monologues and dialogues start mixing and
confusing one another, breaking the traditional narrative, then the
virtual puppet appears with the puppeteers lively captured face,
creating the inner dialogue of the puppeteer herself.
CONCLUSION
This article has investigated the potential relationship between
human and virtual bodies, avatars and their users, in a paradoxical
manner: using a story of the love impossible to discuss the concept
of love, a story of distance and dema-terialization to discuss the
concept of becoming, and a story of disconnection to discuss the
concept of connection. Paradox seems to be a key issue in
address-ing the complicated relationships that come about in
multiple realities both real and virtual when compounded by the
emotional engagement of human experience. The author has found the
extreme state of paradox to be a key aspect of her own Korean
culture, embodied by the concept of Han as the paradoxical state of
the human psyche, initiated from the micro-politics of body.
It is to be hoped that the virtual puppetry project will provide
a platform to further discuss human perception, sensation and
consciousness, through the usage of paradoxical means. In this
context, virtual puppetry would be dedicated to broader pursuits
such as art, education, therapy, psychology, and philosophy. The
virtual puppet would be a paradoxical object against its own
definitions, putting the self into ongoing enquiries of being,
identity and desire. It would be a ritual object continuously
departing on a Z-axis, exploring the complexities of human nature
that might become neglected at this highly technology-driven moment
in time. Micro-relationships between subject and object can be seen
to be the points of trajectory for molecular rev-olutions, which
may affect real change at the macro level of human existence.
Three-dimensional, socially interactive virtual worlds such as the
metaverse, with their integral agents and the puppet embodied as
avatar, seem to possess great potential to begin this tearful
ritual.
REFERENCES
Baird, Bill (1965), The Art of the Puppet, New York:
Macmillan.Choi, S. (1993), Korean Psychology of Shim-Jung:
Phenomelogical understan-
ding of Jung and Han, Dae-Wei Symposium, Seoul: Korean
Psychological Association.
Digital International Buddhism Organization (2009), Overview of
Hwadu Meditation,
http://buddhism.org/board/read.cgi?board=Hwadu&y_number=68&nnew=2.
Accessed December 2009.
Guattari, Felix (1996), Soft Subversions, New York:
Semiotext(e).Han, M. and Han, S. (2007), Cultural Psychology of
Shin-Myeong, Korean
Journal of Psychology, 26: 1.Kaplin, Stephen (2001), A Puppet
Tree. Puppets, Masks, and Performing objects
(ed. John Bell), New York: New York University and Cambridge,
MA.: Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Kim, J. (1970), Hwang-To, Seoul: Han-Er Press.Kim, J. (2004),
Interpreting Han in the perspective of Hope Philosophy,
Philosophy, 78: 2, Seoul: Korean Philosophical Association.Kim,
Sang Yil (1992), Hanism, Seoul: Onuri Press.Kim, Y. (1986), Korean,
who we are?, Seoul: Jayou Moonhak Publisher.
MVCR_1.1_art_Ryu_115_127.indd 126MVCR_1.1_art_Ryu_115_127.indd
126 10/29/10 7:46:29 AM10/29/10 7:46:29 AM
-
Virtual puppet, my love impossible
127
Lee, E. (1982), Culture of Releasing in Shin-Ba-Ram, Seoul:
JoongAng Daily Newspaper.
Lee, E. (2003), Culture of Releasing in Shin-Ba-Ram, Seoul:
Moonhak Sasang Publisher.
Meadows, Mark Stephen (2007), I- Avatar: the culture and
consequences of having a second life, London: New Riders.
Ryu, Semi (2005), Ritualizing Interactive Media, from Motivation
to Activation, Technoetic Arts, 3.2.
Shershow, Scott Cutler (1995), Puppets and Popular Culture,
Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Tillis, Steve (1992), Toward an Aesthetics of the puppet:
Puppetry as a theatrical art, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Weinstone, Ann. (2004), Avatar Bodies: A Tantra for
Posthumanism, Minneapolis, USA: University of Minnesota Press.
Yoo, I. (2005), Prospect of Korean Performing Arts, Seoul:
Korean Literature Publisher.
SUGGESTED CITATION
Ryu, S. (2010), Virtual puppet, my love impossible, Metaverse
Creativity 1: 1, pp. 115127, doi: 10.1386/mvcr.1.1.115_1
CONTRIBUTOR DETAILS
Semi Ryu received a BFA from the Korean National University of
Arts and an MFA from Carnegie Mellon University. She is an
associate professor in the Department of Kinetic Imaging at
Virginia Commonwealth University. She is also a media artist who
specializes in experimental three dimensional anima-tions and
virtual puppetry based on Korean shamanism and the oral tradi-tion
of storytelling. Her works have been widely presented at
exhibitions and performances in more than fifteen countries, and
her academic papers, which have focused on the ritualization of
interactive media, have been published in international journals
and conferences. Her virtual puppetry was recently performed at
Chelsea Art Museum, New York. She is currently writing a chapter
for Point of Being (editor: Derrick de Kerkhove, Cambridge
Scholars), and is a senior advisor for the project Avatars for
virtual heritage funded by the National Endowment for the
Humanities.
Contact: 2144 Ridgefield Green Way, Richmond, VA 23233,
USA.E-mail: [email protected]: www.semiryu.net
MVCR_1.1_art_Ryu_115_127.indd 127MVCR_1.1_art_Ryu_115_127.indd
127 10/29/10 7:46:29 AM10/29/10 7:46:29 AM