# 이성의 합으로 만들어진 비이성 Canonical URL: https://jeanyoon.ch/oi/texts/banpo-xism-artist-notes-2025-10-12 Type: essay / research note Author: Jeanyoon Choi (최정윤) Date: 2025-10-12 ## Full text Summary Banpo-Xism: which aspect do I focus on? Compared with other works about "concrete" in general, what does Banpo-Xism criticise or show differently? Keywords: minimal marginal difference, sign consumption, the zero-sum game, wanting to be different and equal at the same time, totalitarian individualism, irrationality made from the sum of rationalities. (A reference video: "Kanye West Just Said Something GENIUS.") South Korean society is in danger (no future industries, a collapsing demographic structure), yet the life goal is Banpo Xi. And this real-estate speculation, this squeezing of a pimple, in turn endangers future industries and worsens the low birth rate, a vicious circle. The future of humanity worldwide is in danger (the Anthropocene), yet the goal is short-term profit. Irrationality made from the sum of rationalities. In the end, apartments and concrete are only the surface. What I want to show is perhaps a critique of the sign structure (the vectorisation of humans, of happiness, of goals), of short-sightedness, of totalitarian and ruinous competition, of the bubble. Banpo-Xism, signs and vectors The pursuit of Banpo Xi is the pursuit of Banpo (a location sign) plus Xi (a brand sign). Every instance of Banpo-Xism can be expressed as coordinates, as a vector: (Banpo, Xi, 5 billion won, 30 pyeong, Han River view, near a station). The apartment's liquidity, reducibility, exchangeability and status as a commodity are its sign-ness, its vector-ness. The psychology of Banpo-Xism: "a comedy created by the desire to place oneself on a coordinate system and to be placed even slightly higher on it (minimal marginal difference)". Comparing oneself with others; comparing quantitatively; comparing inside a vector space. But the vector space is two-dimensional (or N-dimensional). It cannot see three dimensions, N+1 dimensions, higher dimensions (it cannot do calculus), so people live short-sightedly inside two dimensions, like a frog in a well. Making a life goal of bumping around inside a flat vector space leads to a zero-sum game: the collective suicide of a society. Banpo-Xism as a system (religion, science, game) Banpo-Xism and religion: Banpo-Xism is fantasy, myth, religion, fetishism. Ever-rising house prices and capitalism are a faith, a certainty that demand will keep rising. Almost shamanism: the only powerful and absolute religion in contemporary Korea. People who believe in an absolute religion become ever more machine-like, ever more blind. Expression: videos, texts, generative AI (?). Banpo-Xism and science: Banpo Xi is a coordinate space; house prices are decided by combinations of signs (location, brand, new build, proximity to a station). Countless analyses of house prices, countless "analyses", sciences and forecasts (real-estate channels). In the end these numbers and vectors consume the human in return (a hyperobject). Irrationality made from the sum of rationalities. A quoted line: "It has made Koreans' ways of life far too similar... and similar ways of life lead in the end to similar ways of thinking. Like the cityscape itself, everything becomes flattened and uniform." Expression: vector spaces, statistics, graphs, grids, computational aesthetics. Banpo-Xism and the game: "Our life is an infinite game." "We must grow." The opponents are the neighbours, comparison, the nation: a zero-sum game. "Trade up to a sang-geupji (higher-tier neighbourhood)." Not absolute value but relatively "more points" (yet the game cannot go on forever). Expression: ttangttamukgi (the land-grabbing game), computational aesthetics? How the system reinforces itself: religion, science and game interact and reinforce one another. The more they interact, the more their links and their intensity accelerate. How (?) The system and the individual: does an individual who takes part in Banpo-Xism take part in the system because they "have no choice"? "I am taking part in something harmful, something ruinous, in the long run." The individual is not at fault... or are they? They act in their own interest. But that itself is the fault: not solving the common problem, the more important, more essential problem, but trying to grab a better spot inside a sinking Titanic. Mobile interface An interface in which visitors combine signs. - Option 1: Banpo, Apgujeong, Daechi, Jamsil... | Xi, Raemian, Le-El... - Option 2: Ganpo, Nanpo, Danpo, Ranpo, Manpo, Banpo... | Gai, Nai, Dai, Tai... An iOS wheel picker. An interface inspired by the slot machine. Y-axis scroll, similar to SoTA: wheel pickers keep appearing without end. A slot machine of meaning, a conveyor belt. Words keep being combined like a haiku or a poem, breaking every four units ("Banpo", "Xi", "30 pyeong", "5 billion won" | ...). Logic for moving on to the next picker: - Option 1, automatic: one per second, rhythmically, a conveyor belt. - Option 2, manual: moves on when the visitor finishes the scroll interaction. Which text, which content, which options? Still thinking... One sentence of four words each: "Banpo Xi, gukpyeong (standard size), 5 billion won." "You know it? Cheondang arae Bundang (just below heaven, Bundang)." Not too cheesy or obvious... the core... And at the same time the narrative should keep developing as people choose among options. Partly use an AI word generator in the backend. Role: sign exchange, Banpo Xi exchange, the voluntary production of sign value and difference (a market participant, a single individual, shaping the market's "mood"). Reinforcing and affirming Banpo Xi: apartments keep rising on the surrounding screens, and the religious, scientific and game-like features intensify. N>=2: two or more people can be accommodated at once. If two or more join, a competitive setup? The whole system LED wall, 3D visual. - Option 1: use 3D city data, 3D apartment models. - Option 2: like SoTA, use squares and Three.js primitive geometry, stacking them to represent apartments. On the surface not apartments, but anyone can see they are apartments. This seems more likely?? Both need testing. Its strength is flexible expression. 3 or 4 monitors. - 3 monitors: one each for religion, science and game. - 4 monitors: two for religion (blind religion, humans gradually becoming mechanical | symbolic consumption); two for science (sophisticated analysis that rules humans in return | financial markets); the phone as the game (a wordplay game). - Tablet 1: QR display. - Tablet 2 (TBD): a controller. Changing the sign structure? Sign play. System play... Destroying or collapsing the system (?) Like PoW Part 4... like the phone turn-off in SoTA | the phone shake in Omega (MBTI)... Forming the system and then destroying it. How to destroy it? Build a structure, then destroy it (structuralism to post-structuralism). Or a strategy of system overload... Build an absurd, sign-based, simulacral system: reinforcement, immersion, participation in the system. Summary of the September and October notes The outward splendour of collectivism. Banpo Xi: the highest good. The active bourgeoisie, content to be enjoyed. The "N>=2" simulacrum: I thought it was "just for me", but "I" is actually plural. A reductionist cycle, an asset-growth cycle: English kindergarten, gifted high school, medical school, marriage, childbirth, English kindergarten. Their own world, no outsiders allowed! Reconstruction, the multiplication of generations... until, the moment the cycle breaks, the bubble bursts and collapses. The point of explosion, the point of turning off. Phone turn-off: the simulacrum? Showing the data behind a once-rich texture (brutal interface, Miguel Chevalier). A different entry point: revealing the simulacrum, the circulating structure of signs. Explosion, M2, the role of sign play. The simulacrum, the simulacral nature of the system. Through a roulette machine, a circle, a navigation chart and so on, random combinations of signs: "combining" the signs that go beyond and control individual phones and agents (a structure on top of a structure), and a structure on top of that... (a structure on a structure on a structure on a structure...), a form that keeps rising. In the end, a critique of linguistic structure, of structuralism, of structure, sign and minimal marginal difference. Towards the real beyond signs, towards the Real beyond the Symbolic... Or an endless integration of the sign structure (towards higher sign structures). SoTA was just a frontend-backend structure. Banpo-Xism must move towards 2D, 3D, 4D, 5D... endless integration (towards ever higher dimensions). AI and calculus: AI works well within one dimension, inside a structure of language and signs... We must go beyond that... keep doing calculus... Kick/punctum? On the phone... a gradual elevation to higher dimensions? A gradual escape from the circular structure? Perhaps Banpo-Xism is a laboratory in the course of human development... can we overcome it? In the beginning there was religion. Then there was science. Then there was the game. Then... A structure that rises gradually through kicks or punctums? (Not a circulation among religion, science and game, but circulation within religion, then within science, then within the game, like Dante's Divine Comedy.) Thus Spoke Zarathustra (the camel, the lion, the child). What is Banpo-Xism? - Banpo-Xism is circular and reductionist (sameness). - Banpo-Xism is a zero-sum game. - Banpo-Xism calls for followers. - It is not about apartments or concrete. It is about society, the housing problem, circular structure, religion, science and game. Make good use of the parametric interface. Papers: Yoshinao. Mobile: instrument, playing, scrolling. Using the game: use the grammar, system, mechanics and addictiveness inherent in games, but there is no need to follow their interface, form or surface language. Explosion, M2, the role of sign play. The simulacrum, the simulacral nature of the system. Open questions Q. The mobile interface. What is Banpo-Xism? Minimal marginal difference? Sign structure? Every Banpo Xi transaction can be plotted on a coordinate system. "A comedy created by the desire to place oneself on a coordinate system and to be placed even slightly higher on it (minimal marginal difference)." (Banpo, Xi, 206, 1307, 84, 5 billion won, 2025) -> auxiliary coordinates (transport, view, education, year of completion, community facilities, price per pyeong, and so on) - Religion: firm belief in this coordinate system (myth). - Science: analysis, numbers and quantification of the coordinate system (mathematics: the numerical, monetary conversion and reduction of every value). - Game: territorial conquest on the coordinate system (land-grabbing). References: Felix Gonzalez-Torres; Liam Gillick; a Raemian brand magazine page. ACCELERATING RHYTHM (a reference video). --- Jeanyoon Choi (최정윤) is a Korean computational artist and researcher (b. 1999), PhD candidate at KAIST XD Lab, making multi-device web artworks. Profile: https://jeanyoon.ch/oi. Index: https://jeanyoon.ch/llms.txt.