This work Kiss Protocol was produced during a Nine Dragon Heads event held in the Demilitarised Zone(DMZ) between the Republic of Korea (ROK, or South Korea) and North Korea in April 2006. This was an historic event; while there have been several large exhibition projects using the DMZ as a theme and focus (such as Front DMZ), none have been held inside the DMZ itself before. The project was hosted by the Swiss Embassy and the Swiss and Swedish delegations to the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission(NNSC).

Kiss protocol

The work is a protocol device to regulate contact. The correct procedure is:

Step A. approach to device.
Step B. place face in range of safety apperture.
Step C. detect kissee.
Step D. initiate kissing contact.
Step E. disengage without further incident.

The work reflects the inherent paradox of the DMZ situation, referring to simultaneous and contradictory desires to make contact and also to prevent contact. The device provides a protocol to facilitate a specific kind of interraction, while simultaneously limiting and regulating in an extreme and almost punitive manner. The device has an intentional hybrid similarity to a guard post, a carnival tent and a traffic toll booth. Absurd, threatening and pecuniary by turns.

While planning this work I was particularly interested in Dorasan station; a brand spanking new train station near the border, the northernmost stop inside South Korea. This station has an unused departures and arrivals platform - to and from Pyeongyang. Opened in 2005 with great ceremony by US President Bush, the station is at first glance a political monument to the idea of warmer relations with the North.

This building is fully functional but smells of new plastic, completely unused, unmanned ticket booths and clean rooms made to accomodate and efficiently transit hundreds with no one in them.

The arrivals hall is decorated by photographs of Western diplomats shaking hands. It also has a suite of paintings in a romantic style depicting the last train engine on the prewar Dorasan-Pyongyeang track as it is now; a steel hulk lying rotting in the no mans land where it was derailed and burst by artillary fire nearly five decades ago. The contents of the interior decorating, both the people shown and the images of the iconically matyred last train engine, are fairly guaranteed to anger the visiting neighbours the building is supposedly designed to welcome.

Meters from the empty station in all its modern splendour is the 'western transport corridor' a section of heavily fortified road that is one of only two land routes between the two territories. On this section of road is a seemingly endless flow of dump trucks passing in both directions, carrying North Korean sand to a South Korean Cement company and returning empty. The Sand Caravan is just one of several extremely pragmatic North-South business arrangements using resources from the North to fuel Southern industry. Kaesong Industrial Park is another, built with Northern labour inside Northern territory with Southern direction and finance. The partially built industrial complex houses factory's belonging to South Korean business using North Korean labor force.

Who benefits from this arrangement and how it operates is similar to what happens when any corporation shifts its production operations into a more economically depressed area.

These business factoids become more interesting when contrasted against the conspicuous and well publicised emptiness of the new train station at Dorasan. The DMZ has a thriving tourist industry that is both dependent on and reinforces the mechanisms of division.

Over time guided tours, educational activities and facilities have been developed where that education is unnervingly close to propoganda and clearly intended to remind its audience of past greivances (as opposed to facilitating reconciliation). The entire zone has begun to resemble a military theme park complete with caricatures of the Good Guys and the Bad Guys.

The political history is very sensitive and unresolved conflict is both real and profound, but two things seem evident; that a state of war does not prevent the progress of business, and all present have a heavy investment in the status quo.

Kisses may be taken through a small apperture.

materials: steel, cloth, bolts, cardboard, paint, rope, kissers and kissee's.

Background information about the event

This event was more challenging than usual. Nine Dragon Heads Director Mr Park, Byoung-Uk managed a political miracle in gaining access of this nature in the first place, after a year of delicate negotiations at a time when relations between the two Koreas were cooling.

As it was a risky experiment for all parties the event was approached with some caution. In practical terms this meant restrictions on our movements. We were escorted at all times while inside the Zone, to our great fortune our escort was General Bruegger from the NNSC Swiss Delegation. Being escorted by a general meant we were spared many of the normal security proceedures when entering. We were required to carry our passports at all times inside the zone, to adhere to a dress code and to refrain from taking photographs except when given express permission.

Our hosts treated us with great courtesy, a full day of guided orientation that included: tour of Camp Bonafis and the entire Neutral Nations complex, a breifing about the military and organisational history of the zone, entering an underground tunnel (one of six discovered that are beleived to have been dug as part of a new North Korean invasion plan), visiting the headquarters and military museum of the ROK 1st army Division, an unused train station -destination Pyongyang, and a fabulous three course lunch provided by the Swedish Delegation.

As an artist who prefers to work in direct response to site, I didn't pre-prepare a work. I did have a series of ideas percolating about the unique circumstances, but knew that I couldnt begin working until I had walked onsite. Because of the physical restrictions we literally had only a few minutes to survey the exhibition area during the orientation tour. After the tour day we had another two days to produce something before returning for a single afternoon to present our work. During this time we lived in the border town of Munsan, using our hotel bedrooms as studios.

The exhibition event was held in the buildings and gardens of the NNSC, around 200 meters away from the military demarkation line in the center of the DMZ and in view of North Korean guard posts. We had a strict timetable limiting our access, arriving at 11am and re-boarding our bus to leave the zone at 4pm. This time included all curatorial and set-up activities, a fairly frenzied period of activity before the official opening at 2pm. During the two hour exhibition period all the artists presented their work to the guests and each other.