The World Flipped Upside Down by Seung Woo Back (March 14, 2010) 
(14 votes, average: 3.07 out of 5)
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Introduction by Jeong Kim
IANN magazine focuses on art photography from Asia. IANN is printed quarterly and distributed in South Korea and Japan. Jeong Kim is the magazine’s chief editor and publisher. Weblink: IANN magazine
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Our poll "A photo essay always needs a great written story" closed. 267 people voted, 28% agrees, 72% disagrees. 233 people answered our follow-up question "Are you a photographer?" 82% indicated they are, 18% said no. Initially, negative answers to question #1 were almost 100% as was the pecentage of photographers among respondants. Then, when the level of non-photographers started to rise, the percentage of people indicating good text is always essential started to rise too. This seems to indicate that non-photographers think that adding good text to your photo essays is essential. In my opinion: if you want non-photographers to dig your work, you know what to do...
Seung Woo Back focuses on demolishing the border between what is visible and invisible. He draws on the ideas and assumptions that what one sees might not be reality and what is not visible might be closer to reality – and that these two are not very different from each other. This forms the foundation for the appearance of reality that the works in Utopia portray. The images are mobilized by imagination and curiously manipulated. The Utopia series consists of photographs of modern buildings in North Korea in consistency with their propaganda to show the progress of the nation. However, Back applies delicate changes to the buildings or to the images. Yet one wonders if this changes anything at all.
Back sometimes elongates a corner of a building by stretching it, at times he removes the middle section or he sometimes make a part of a building soar into the sky, he even constructs new buildings. Skies are covered in red or yellow.
These are the ways in which Back breaks the rules; a strategy used to deliberately twist the visual propaganda enforced in making photographs in North Korea. It is the common principle of the works in the Utopia series.
The world depicted in the images is essentially “no place”. But still, can we argue that this world represents unreality? When all is said and done, there is no positive proof to show and support the reality of the world inside the photographs even if it persistently claims it is reality.
Excerpt from the article (Un)reality of the visible world by Pyong Jong Park.
Seung Woo Back (1973) lives and works in Seoul, South Korea / New York City, USA.
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