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# Viewing the city ecologically in the post-COVID era

The cities we have been living in for the past three years have been almost at a standstill. The streets were sparsely populated, and many buildings closed their doors. In particular, COVID-19 brought to the surface the hidden aspects of our society that were previously unseen. In recent years, we have confronted various uncomfortable truths. The proliferation of fake news, conspiracy theories, political divisions, cults, and environmental pollution has challenged the values and beliefs we had trusted and held onto. There were also positive aspects to COVID-19. Amidst the complete halt of many activities, there have been news reports indicating the revival of the Amazon ecosystem.

The COVID-19 pandemic has allowed us to experience a world that we had never experienced before, and the world that follows will never be the same as it was before. In particular, as everything came to a halt, our perspective on the world underwent significant changes. Is it truly possible for humans to dominate nature? Are humans the sole masters of the Earth? Recent thoughts questioning these notions are overturning anthropocentric thinking. Recent developments in ecological philosophy, speculative realism, and neo-materialism share a common trajectory known as post-anthropocentrism. The transformations brought about by these shifts in thinking can be witnessed in various fields, including philosophy, humanities, literature, visual arts, and architecture, where attempts and experiments are being made.

The phenomenon of the city itself is constantly evolving, and from this perspective, recent attention seems to be shifting more towards sustainable cities rather than rapid growth. In particular, there has been a continuous effort to understand cities from an ecological perspective, leading to a re-evaluation of the way of life within urban environments.

The following artistic practices present various approaches that encourage a new perspective on cities through ecological reasoning. Let's take a look at examples such as Lee So-yo's <Feral in Seoul> and Kim Joon's <Ecosystem: Signals of City, Signals of Nature> and <Sensory Sounds of Psychological Place>.

#Lee So-yo: Revealing the "unseen gaps" of the city

Lee So-yo's work raises the question, "Is the city truly a place exclusively for humans?" It attempts to offer a fresh perspective on the cities we inhabit, encouraging us to see them in a new light. His focus lies not in the spaces primarily occupied by humans but rather in the overlooked and ignored gaps within the city, the spaces we tend to pass by without noticing. He focuses on and documents the diverse forms of non-human existence that are discovered within the crevices of the city.

<Feral in Seoul> is a project that explores organisms that were once domesticated by humans as resources in urban environments but have become feralized, creating their own ecologies. The project documents these organisms through text, photographs, and biological specimens. One plant discovered in the city is the "Karri tree", which survives and continues its life in the crevices of concrete and cement. Another organism is the "Korean boxwood", which was tamed by fences but has developed various forms and its own unique way of life through interaction with buildings. There is also a group of organisms called "Indian broomrape", which parasitizes the reeds in Haneul Park.

According to the artist, the karri tree exhibits vigorous reproduction and growth compared to other landscape trees, easily establishing itself and thriving in inconspicuous environments such as gaps in bricks or cement, empty spaces, and similar places that go unnoticed by people. In the past, the Korean paulownia, which was used for timber and medicinal purposes, has become less significant in modern times. However, in the rapidly changing urban environment of Seoul, it has acquired a new meaning and continues to survive as a presence with its own significance.

In the case of the Indian broomrape, when Haneul Park was being constructed, maiden silvergrass was brought from Jeju Island. At that time, the Indian broomrapes were attached to the roots of the grass and were transported along with it. Once in Haneul Park, they have exhibited their resilience and have expanded their population by reproducing, thriving, and spreading within the area. The reason that was possible is because although Seoul experiences cold winters, Haneul Park, which was once a landfill, continued to generate geothermal heat as the garbage decomposed. This prevented the ground from freezing and created favorable conditions for living organisms to survive. Indeed, the discovered community of life demonstrates the ability to adapt and interact with humans, showcasing a new form of resilience despite the change in their habitat.

Lee So-yo, <Feral in Seoul>, Korean paulownia, 2021, working process

Lee So-yo's work challenges the long-held belief that humans can alter nature by showcasing the sight of life rooted and self-sustaining throughout various urban spaces, not by their own will, but by external forces. Through this depiction, it aims to shatter the belief and prompt a reevaluation of the relationship between humans and nature, highlighting the ability of nature to create its own ecology. As both a researcher and an artist, Lee So-yo presents works that reside on the boundaries, peering into the invisible gaps of the city. By summoning non-human entities that have been marginalized from the human gaze, the artist seeks to advocate for their equal recognition and perception on an equal footing.

#Kim Joon: Ecological and urban sensibilities that "speak"

Kim Joon's work constantly observes and discovers the problems within the city, and conveys them through the medium of sound, which the artist believes to be the most truthful. He has worked on projects where he measures electromagnetic waves using electronic devices at specific locations and converts them into audible sounds that would otherwise cannot be heard. He has also worked on reconstructing urban noise and sounds collected from nature.

<Ecosystem: Signals of City, Signals of Nature> is an installation artwork where the artist travels to various cities and locations around the world, collecting sounds and arranging them within wooden furniture drawers to create a sound archive. The sounds collected from the urban spaces of Seoul, Berlin, London, and Sydney, as well as the natural spaces of the Blue Mountains in Australia, the South Island of New Zealand, and Jirisan Mountain and Jeju Island in Korea, each produce contrasting sounds that reflect the unique characteristics of their respective locations. When you open the drawer, it creates a connection between the inside and outside, so if one side is opened, the other side is closed. The viewers, as they walk through the interior and exterior of the artwork, experience the blending and collision of the sounds, awakening their senses through the immersive encounter.

The soundscape presented, including machine noises, bird songs, sounds of cicadas, and labor-related sounds, does not claim the importance of any single sound. Through the medium of sound that he has measured, he takes us to each location and creates a simultaneous presence of multiple landscape layers. The act of listening to sound in this way allows us to contemplate the gaps between the city and nature within that space. It also proposes another way of seeing that was previously imperceptible through a purely visual perception.

The artist's efforts to listen to and relay the sounds of the ecological environment surrounding themselves are evident in his recent work, <Sensory Sounds of Psychological Place>. The artist collects sounds from various places he has explored over a long period of time and presents them through four architectural structures resembling camping houses, each playing a distinct set of sounds. Through his own format called "soundscapes," which combines the words "sound" and "landscape," he brings to life places from within memories, creating an implementation of those locations. By presenting landscapes through "sound," the experiences created by him become even more unique and special. These subjective and experiential senses resonate with the imaginative places of the viewers.

If Lee So-yo's work aimed to reveal hidden places within the city, Kim Joon's work, on the other hand, seeks to shift the perspective of viewing the city and nature through the method of conveying the unseen through sound. Lee So-yo's work showcases the very existence of living beings in its own way, while Kim Joon's work reveals the point at which the method of conveying through sound becomes art.

Art has the power to present new ways of seeing the world and the sharp insight to reveal the unseen. Additionally, art encourages imagining the future and actively intervening in it. Through art, we can experience the various sensations that surround us and contemplate the urban spaces, revealing that the city we live in traverses multiple layers and intersects at various points. In doing so, we can look at the city with fresh eyes once again.