Poses in Front of Complete Discipline
Choi Bong Lim, Photo Critic, Photographer

Kang Jaegu’s <12mm> portrays young soldiers: soldiers whose hair is cut to 12mm, standing before forced army training to obtain that psychological comfort of being a ‘normal’ man as well as moral and legal legitimacy as a Korean national. It is a souvenir photograph of new recruits who go through the initiation to fully understand the rules of military and complete their discipline. It is a social portrait in the form of souvenir pictures revealing certain mental trauma resulting from military discipline and physical effect inscribed by the process. If so, through which and what format does Kang Jaegu visualize effects of such disciplines?
The artist does not ask any demands of his models nor does he try to control them. This is unlike common souvenir photos where models are required to stand and pose in certain position, dressed in costumes fit for the rite. He lets these young men already familiar with souvenir photos pose for themselves. He only decides an appropriate background, moment of shooting and how many people should be nearby. The background may be a barrack at the training camp, or other facilities in the proximity. The main model may be smoking a cigarette, or cuddling his girlfriend. The photo may be a lonesome picture of the boy about to step into the camp by himself, or of a bustling goodbye party for the to-be-soldier. The artist thus shows diverse reactions of young men about to face military discipline. He captures diverse poses taken moments before entering the military, starting from behaviors that are unlikely to be tamed by the discipline to those already standing to well trained attention. The artist has chosen diptych, triptych and polyptych as the format of this project. This is to show the process of how these different young men with no common variables except for their ‘12mm’ hair and the twenty-something age, become assimilated through military discipline. In other words, by laying out the images in order of time, the artist documents how these ‘cynical’ or free-minded young men become ‘correct’ or identical through military discipline and magnify the physical effect imposed by the military. Disorderly hands are now neatly clutched in fists, free postures and blurry facial expressions replaced by poses gazing ‘straight’ ahead. Take a look at the shooting dates the artist has entered and you will be surprised how effective military discipline can be. A month, or three at the most is all the time needed to correct ‘unfavorable’ attitudes. Recruit’s body is trained fast according to the need of the military. Gone are the eyes unsteady and determined the expressions. Weakness transformed into strength. Look at ‘Noh Seok Min, 22, Nov. 26, 2011’. After 3 months of training, ‘Noh Seok Min, 22, August 22, 2011’, a ‘cynical’ boy with tattoos would now honorably protect his loving girlfriend with an adorable puppy from the fierce ocean wind.
Meticulously functioning upon effec-tiveness, military discipline targets at three aims. First is a strong body for the battle, second is completing an obedient mind and third is nurturing exclusive morals devoted to the group. Because of such economic effectiveness and administrative functionality, mechanism of military discipline can be directly and indirectly applied to managing countries, companies, schools or even social clubs. Furthermore, aims of military discipline can be stretched out to virtue of society members. This is so because military service ‘roperly’ teaches ‘reckless’ young people endurance the virtue of healthy labor, obedience the virtue of manners, and loyalty the virtue of organization.
To reach its disciplinary aims the military follows following principles. First is a strict hieratical order that is uncompromisable. Second is reward and punishment rules based on disciplinary achievements. Last is the principle of isolation. Through such seclusion the military drills its members with consolidated sense as a community and exclusive group consciousness, brainwashing that their identity is unique. These three principles that are implemented without an exception gain effective drive power of military discipline from several materialistic factors. First is the training camp, a space for lasting surveillance and control in the form of certain confinement and arrest. Training camp locks up footloose young men and tames them, a gymnasium to shape up feeble body and mind. Second materialistic factor is the ‘12mm’ hair and military uniforms. These two are body shells that intensely contain and control conscripts by standardizing their mind and looks, integrating its members’ reason of being. The moment they are summoned to the training camp with hair cut to 12mm, and the moment they are named as soldiers through uniforms, the young man deletes his personality shown through his own clothes and begins to recognize himself a subject of discipline and surveillance. As a result, Kang’s consecutive photos of before and after the enlistment carry out the task of explicitly comparing the crisis of identity and independence young Korean men go through during the process of military discipline. There are also an alternative photographic message hidden within. As witnessed from polyptych ‘Lee Youngshik, Yu Insang, Lee Jaehyuk, Lee Hogyu, 20, Oct. 24, 2011’, ‘Lee Youngshik, Yu Insang, Lee Jaehyuk, Lee Hokgyu, 20, Nov. 30, 2011’, ‘Yu Insang, Lee Youngshik, Lee Hogyu, 20, Dec. 05, 2011’, and ‘Lee Hogyu, Yu Insang, 20, Jan. 03, 2012’, enlistment of Lee Jaehyuk and another enlistment of his friend Lee Youngshik followed by Lee Hogyu who sent off Lee Youngshik to the military, clearly visualize the coercion, inevitability and endless repetition of Korean military duties.
Kang Jaegu’s <12mm> is a scenery depicting coming-of-age happening at a training camp, an event indigenous to Korea alone. From outside the barracks the project recreates the religion initiation-like process of a military man enlisting then to become a private. Soldiers get a 12mm haircut similar to a Jewish circumcision or Buddhist tonsure and bid farewell to their loved ones. Then after finishing a series of training full of loneliness and anxiety, they shed their shell of ‘reckless’ self to report the birth of an enduring body and a self devoted to the transcending fidelity for his country with a ‘right’ view and posture. This painful rite of passage piercing through me, my friend and friend of a friend does in fact provide a basis for unusual hierarchy, manners and collective mind of Korean society. Applied to the conventional management principles for social groups, military discipline has suppressed coming of democracy and revelation of individualism while contributing to Korean economy’s effective development in and out. As proved by Kang Jaegu’s 2012 photography project <12mm>, the effect of military discipline seems to live on even today, where democracy has been fulfilled and individualism has become an everyday principle for all generations.
However, it is the artist Kang Jaegu himself who points out military discipline’s weakness and fabrication. exhibited in 2004 had shown that such attempts of military discipline can never be perfected nor last forever. Consecutive images revealing the same person’s change of posture from <12mm> and perfected tamed body from have proved how effectively military discipline can function. Yet as the artist points out, the ‘reserved forces’ would all the same “show their own color within a unified and systemized clothing called uniforms” and “display small protests against the military in their own style.” Such ‘color and protest of their own’ are strong elements that deteriorates from the inside those rules sustaining the disciplinary system of the military: the mind obedient and devoted to the group. If Kang Jaegu’s photographic statement can be accepted as it is, the effect of military discipline starts from <12mm>, hitting its climax with then shows an evident down slide when it comes to . Nevertheless, let’s not think less of military discipline. Training of ‘reserved forces’ continues on in work training, work assessments and student records and attempts are made to see its completion at a place other than ‘reserved forces’. To achieve prosperity of the company and their children’s successful entrance to the college and a life thereafter, the Korean elders who can never forget the trauma of discipline they received at the training camp try to discipline their workers, students and children in a ‘military’ way even after they are excused from the ‘reserved forces’. Thus military discipline fulfills its duty when ‘reckless’ young men are trained ‘correctly’ through conscription. If they are ‘properly’ trained as those young men from <12mm>, they will in the future consistently seek to complete the discipline they had failed to achieve during the years as ‘reserved forces’ at their workplace and homes.