Theres a korean idiom that goes “If you save it it becomes poop” - but poop is also value, and maybe this value can revolutionize the world-economy. In 2024 I developed an audiowalk that proposed such an economical pottyrevolution in Seoul.
The audiowalk invites the audience to travel to the future, past and present of a new shitty economy where everybody gets paid to go to poop, using the excellent and abundant public toilets of Seoul as portals for this timetravel. All they have to do was pay for the fare with a contribution to the toilet.
The audiowalk is available below to walk by for anyone at anytime - but on dec. 1st 2024 I took a group on a guided tour. Here I also paid the fare with my own pee, which I brought in a bottle.
Additonally, I also promoted the audio walk and demonstrated ideas from it, in an info-installation at the exhibition “On Gatherings” at MMCA -residency - Changdong, Seoul.
Photo Credit: ChadPark/@WAVEFILM
(scroll down for English)
아끼다 똥 된다 – 서울의 화장실에서 화장실로 향하는 오디오워크 여러분은 이 오디오 워크 프로그램을 통해 모두가 똥에 대한 값을 지불 받는 똥 투성이 경제의 미래, 현재, 과거로 도보 여행을 할 수 있습니다. 이러한 시간 여행에 동참하기를 원하신다면, 서울 곳곳에 널려 있는 훌륭한 공중화장실을 포털로 이용하면 됩니다. 아래 화장실 지도를 통해 서울의 모든 공중화장실을 쉽게 찾아볼 수 있는데, 이 중 4개소를 방문하는 여행 경로를 계획하면 좋을 것 같습니다. 어느 공중화장실을 이용할지 결정하셨다면, 이 오디오의 가이드를 따라 가장 가까운 공중화장실로 이동해주세요. 울라와 함께 걷기: 2024년 12월 1일 (일요일) 오후 2시, 우리는 국립현대미술관 창동레지던시(서울 도봉구 덕릉로 257)에서 만납니다. 헤드폰과 더불어 인터넷 연결이 가능한 휴대전화를 꼭 챙겨주세요. 오디오워크 진행일 이후에는 본 웹사이트를 통해 누구나 원하는 때, 원하는 방식으로 걸으며 오디오 워크를 청취할 수 있습니다. 각본 및 아이디어: 울라 하베셀 음악: 반달 대화: 박현정, 울라 하베셀 인터뷰: 조재원
소개:
3장 – 미래
1장: 과거
2장 현재
If you save it, it becomes poop – An audiowalk from toilet to toilet in Seoul/ English version
In this audiowalk you can travel by foot and toilet to the future, past and present of a new shitty economy where everybody gets paid to go to poop. You can use any of the excellent and abundant public toilets of Seoul as portals for this timetravel. You can find all public toilets of Seoul In the convenient toilet map below, and I suggest that you plan a route in which you can visit 4 of them. When you have decided which ones you want to use, please walk to the nearest public toilet while you follow the instructions given in the audio. Map: https://map.seoul.go.kr/smgis2/smap/XkJBU0VNQVBfR0VOXlQ6MTFeRl5GXkZeXl5eXl4xMjYuOTc4NTc2XjM3LjU2NjUwMl42XjEwMDEwNl5jaXR5TGlmZV5eXi4= Script and Idea by: Ulla Hvejsel Music by: Vandaal Music Speak by: Hyun Jung Park and Ulla Hvejsel Interview with: Jaewon Cho
Introduction:
Chapter 3: The future
Chapter 1: The past
Chapter 2: The present
Sources: The Sewerage System of Seoul: www.seoulsolution.kr/en/content/2373 Author(s)Kim Young, Ran Liernurs pneumatic system of Sewerage: The Atlantic/ April 1876 Atlantic, Authors(s): George E. Waring Junior. On the Health and Sewage of Towns: A series of articles in Journal of the Society for Arts, May 26, 1876, Vol. 24, No. 1227 pp. 653-674 Author(s): Richard Brewer, Alderman Taylor, George Elcock, G. Walter Pearse, Thomas Mason., William White Fereday, Adam Scott, Captain Liernur. Night Soil: Origins, Discontinuities, and Opportunities for Bridging the Metabolic Rift: Published July 18, 2019 in Ethnobiology Letters , authors Nicholas C. Kawa et al., Korean Public Toilet Improvement Experience and its Implications: KDI School of Public Policy and Management, and Ministry of Strategy and Finance, Republic of Korea Government Publications registration Number 11-1051000-000576-0, Author(s): Prof. Baran Han and Prof. Seulki Choi
Below: Installation visualizing concepts in the audiowalk from toilet to toilet consisting of toiletroll-flyers, dirty fashion for a dirty future and a video promoting the audiowalk and details of a toilet paper flyer, with a QR code pointing to the audiowalk as well as a detail of a future fashion where the process of eating dirty and making value with digestion, may make inspirational messsages appear on our clothes shirts.
