The Routledge Companion to Research in the Arts

differentiaL i ConograPhy

hall, or an office space. Rather, the vacant spaces demonstrate a potentiality of novel
forms of functionality and actuality, of novel forms of reterritorialization. moreover,
those temporary vacancies without any function necessitate the investigation of the
traditional link of form and function. after all, if it is valid to argue that architectonic
form follows function, isn’t it also true that these photographs portraying the lack of
function demonstrate at the same time a lack of architectonic form, namely a zero
degree of both function and architectonic form?
The investigation of the connectivity between function and architectonic form re-
emerges in Kim sang- gil’s most recent work, the University Series. The photographs
in these series show facades of various university departments such as astronomy,
natural science, and the humanities. The buildings are characterized by various forms
of architectonic solidity, which, no doubt, correlates with the solidity of the specialized
knowledge their inhabitants believe they construct. strikingly, though, the photographs
show the facades of university architecture in a mere two- dimensional fashion. any
three- dimensional perspective on the academic environment has been erased from the
photographs. That is a conscious artistic decision Kim sang- gil made. The absence of
a perspectivist vanishing point produces a mode of representation escaping a centristic
model of control and domination. a similar perspective once constituted a classifying
reason which, inspired by Cartesian subject- object thought, divided knowledge
production into functional departments and faculties accommodating specialized
forms of sciences. The need for functional control created a form of thought focused
on a transparent system of classification. With that, a fluid and flexible concept of
knowledge was doomed to disappear.
The two- dimensional images of the University Series create dysfunctionality in
yet another way. They erase photographic depth, i.e. the medium specific quality of
photography. Whereas the Remodel Series dealt with the confrontation of a perspective
filled with emptiness, the University Series demonstrates the disappearance of any
centristic perspective. The two- dimensional images no longer show a perception focused
on a controllable way of representation. parallel to this intrinsic way of criticizing the
framing activities of the photographic image, the facade images also question how a
classifying reason once divided knowledge into specialized departments. Kim sang-
gil’s images seem to stress that the time has come for a movement of decoding creating
a renovation, an extreme make- over of knowledge production. such a make- over
invites systems of knowledge to renounce their frame of functionality and welcome
instead fluid, dynamic connections. an extreme make- over could erase familiar
fields of knowledge and metamorphose at the same time related forms of knowledge
production. indeed, Kim sang- gil’s University Series seems to foreshadow an academic
dysfunctionality which necessitates an extreme make- over as a moment of dislocating
any existent form of academic knowledge production.

Context responsive research

in a great number of topical art practices, a clear need can be noticed to work in the
realm of public space and create art dealing with urban and social issues. of course,
there is a long tradition of art in public space, but during the last decennium a strikingly
different artistic attitude emerged in that respect. most artists working today in public