Bite the Bullet!

Web project still, *exe, bite-the-bulletz.net. Courtesy the artist

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Bite the Bullet!

Artist: Rho Jae Oon

Bite the Bullet!, 2007
Web project, *exe, bite-the-bulletz.net
Courtesy the artist

At the back of this small city, Dongducheon, there lies a grand scheme of things called the world political situation, especially the U.S. foreign policy in East Asia and the Global Defense Posture Review (GPR). RHO Jae Oon has been working with meta-text, meta-narratives that expose criticality over representation and reality, by appropriating all kinds of images, texts and information that float on the Web into signs. In this exhibition, RHO again disregards images directly associated with Dongducheon. He instead recomposes and re-organizes images through mise-en-scene; some images from classical Hollywood movies of the 1950s and other photographs he took himself. He speculates on the history of the American Forces in Dongducheon, Korean subconscious and issues of U.S. military alignment that are currently under process.

Bite The Bullet! can be considered as an introduction to his other web publishing project, (Someone) Walked Together With Zombies, which will be presented in the exhibition of May 2008. (Someone) will take the form of chronology that starts from the Korean War (1950-1953) and extends to modern/contemporary Korean history. In Bite The Bullet!, the artist used the 1955 Hollywood film The Bridges At Toko-Ri as a key text to suggest commentary and critical analysis on the politics of representation of the Other exemplified in the film, and to create fictional scene as the third text.

-Heejin Kim, Insa Art Space

Bite The Bullet Website

This work is part of Insa Art Space’s presentation in the Museum as Hub introductory presentation from December 1, 2007, through February 24, 2008, and “Dongducheon: A Walk to Remember, A Walk to Envision” May 9-July 6, 2008, Museum as Hub, New Museum.