VICFA 2023 발표문
세계환상학회(IAFA)의 온라인 학술대회인 VICFA 2023(주제: AI, Algorithms, Automata, and Art)의 둘째날에 한국 SF에 대한 발표를 했습니다. 미국 매리스트 대학의 유상근 선생님이 전체 구성과 사회를 담당하고, 성균관대 임태훈, 한경대 전지니, 독립연구자이신 김효진 선생님이 함께했습니다. 프로그램은 다음과 같았습니다.
Date: Monday, November 6
Time: 8 AM EST / 10 PM Korean Standard Time
"Technofuturism, AI, and Feminist Narratives in South Korean Science Fiction"
Moderator: Sang-Keun Yoo (Marist College)
“Distinctive Genre Characteristics and Contemporary Thematic Awareness in Korean Science Fiction” Lee Ji-Yong (Chung-Ang University)
"Apocalyptic Imagination in 2020s South Korean Theatre” Jeenee Jun (Hankyong National University)
“Early Korean Science Fiction: A Study of Geopolitical Sf” Tae-Hoon Lim (Sungkyunkwan University)
“Recent Feminist Science Fiction in South Korea” Hyo Jin Kim (Independent Researcher)
그 중에서 저의 발표 내용을 정리하여 공유합니다.
Distinctive Genre Characteristics and Contemporary Thematic Awareness in Korean Science Fiction
Lee Ji-Yong (Chung-Ang University)
1. The Beginning of Science Fiction in Korea
Korean science fiction (sf) began in 1907 with an adaptation of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne into Underwater Travel Log in a magazine called Taegukhakbo. Since then, The Begum's Fortune was adapted into The Iron World (1908), From the Earth to the Moon into A Trip to the Moon (1924), and Karel Čapek's RUR into The Artificial Laborer (1924).
The first original sf work in Korea is Kim Dong-In's The Study of Doctor K (1929). This novel is about the story of Dr. K's research on turning human poop into food. After the Independence of Korea and the Korean War, Han Nak-Won published a series of sf fairy tales, including Venus Expedition (1964).
2. Cold War and Division, the Period of Metadiscourse
In the aftermath of the War, Korea went through a period of metadiscourse, including the Cold War and the Division of Korea. During this period, Korean sf was a way of promoting science policies and a channel to deliver scientific discourse to adolescents. In 1968, Korean writers inspired by Japan established the Koan SF Writers' Club. In 1975, the club created the Korean SF Complete Collection. The collection contained the translated international sf authors' works and Korean sf authors' work.
One of the most well-known Korean sf authors during this period was Moon Yoon-Sung, who published The Perfect Society in 1965. This work describes a feminist utopia during the 1970s, where only women lived on Earth without any men. This work presents controversial feminist issues; however, Searching for the Epitaph(1989) was more popular with the public. One of the major publisher published Bok Geo-IL’s work, and his work contains a nationalistic theme that most of the public is interested in.
3. The Era of PC-to-PC Communication and Webzines
The landscape of Korean sf saw a new chapter with the advent of personal computers (PC) in the 1990s. The high percentage penetration of PCs developed PC-to-PC communication. This period is when the first Korean sf fandom appeared, and at the same time, lots of sf works were created and shared actively through PC communities. Djuna, who appears in this period and has written these days, is considered one of the most representative Korean sf authors.
Djuna has created more than 160 sf novels in Korean, and next year is the 30th anniversary of his or her debut. Djuna is a writer who has shaped and built the identity of Korean sf. Recently, his or her work Counterweight was translated into English.
The Korean sf culture, which began with PC-to-PC communication, moved onto webzines, and it met a new form and phase. Mirrorzine, a webzine for fantasy literature, started in 2003 and has offered many SF writers an opportunity to debut their works through contests and continue their careers. Crossroads, a webzine published by Postech's Asia Pacific Center for Theoretical Physics (APCTP), has published sf novels and critiques since 2005 and become a critical medium for Korean sf. As shown above, Korean sf has established its own culture and created its unique characteristics in the virtual world, such as the web, instead of paperback books, since its early days.
4. Contemporary Themes and the Future
Against this background, many changes arose around 2015. Since 2015, paperback sf books have increased in publishing, and many various contests appeared. At the same time, it was the DeepMind Challenge Match between Lee Se-dol, a Korean professional Go player of 9 dan rank, and AlphaGo. As Korean society began to recognize the future of science and technology in person, their perception of sf began to change gradually.
Also, it is worth noting the Korean SF Award in the context of this trend. The Korean SF Award marks its 10th anniversary this year since 2014, and the award is similar to the Hugo and Nebula Awards. It awards Korean sf works published that year in the categories of short story and novella, novel, web novel, video, and comics/webtoon. This award helps to understand how Korean sf has changed in the last decades.
These works demonstrate that Korean sf has exhibited various changes in recent years. Korean sf works sensitively accommodate contemporary themes such as (1) feminism, (2) posthumanism, and (3) the Anthropocene. Regarding feminism, many sf works have emerged around 2015, when feminist reboot in Korea. The sf works featuring posthumanism go beyond just robots and androids and various themes, including animal rights. Sf works present thought experiments with various possibilities, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. Recently, the Anthropocene discourse has also emerged notably. Some sf works break down the boundaries between humans and non-humans and thought experiments of possibilities, such as co-evolution with plants or humans transforming into moss.
Lastly, Korean SF featured a new form of production and consumption called web novel. Web novel are produced and consumed through large platforms, such as Naver or Kakao Page. A writer creates a serialized web novel in a set format, while readers consume the web novel through the platform (usually on mobile). Korean webtoon is another similar form of its content. Sf also continues to expand in web novels as well. The Korean SF Award added the web novel category in 2019 to reflect the popularity and the size of the market. Major sf themes in web novels categories are Game Fantasy, Scientific Interpretation of the Spirit World, Underwater City, and Artificial Intelligence and Medical Technology.
The web novel is one of the essential formats for understanding the present and future of Korean sf because of its way of producing sf works. Considering the success of Korean video content, which has been made available widely worldwide via over-the-top (OTT) media services in recent years, I insist those successes originated from Korea's unique content environment of web novels and webtoon.
