Not too surprisingly, video art is often considered to have begun with a Korean artist called Nam June Paik in the early 1970s. Though it is not concretely known about the motivation of this type of art, there are two most obvious suppositions: the artistic possibility of technology and the antithesis against the formalistic art movement. As it is, Paik was famous as an avant-garde artist even before he began video art.Regardless of the hidden motivation of the icebreaker of video art, the point is the pursuit of freedom of the audience in interpreting the pieces, as Dadaism suggested. It requ

The Postech Times had an exclusive interview with the alumnus Sang-Hyob Nam, CEO of the search engine company Buzzni. The opinion search engine was awarded first place at the National Institute of Standard and Technology, TREC 2008 Blog Track. Sang-Hyob Nam tells the secret to becoming a successful entrepreneur and app designer. What are the strong points of searching for opinionated voices rather than facts? When it comes to searching, traditional search engines are not convenient. Because they only show text matching with keywords, you need to read and figure out which match, and which do no

“It is a shape of a skull,” said a volunteer. The other students are laughing and trying to find eyes and a nose from a lump of a cheese; but it soon becomes clear that finding a piece reminiscent of Edvard Munch’s Scream from the lump of a cheese is going to challenge even the most proficient young scientists, and very soon they’ll all be crushing the cheese to eat it.These city-based students are not used to this sort of experience; although they might be skilful at calculating the earning rate of the chemical reaction from milk to cheese, they are not used to seeing and touching green chees

Dustin Jaesuk (Mix) Moon is a graduate student in the Department of Chemical Engineering. When he is finished with his research in the laboratory during the day, he teaches intermediate Korean to the foreign students every Tuesday at 10 PM at DICE. The Postech Times interviewed him to hear more about foreign students learning Korean.He started teaching because he felt the need to teach the colloquial style Korean to the foreign students. Also, he thought that it would be even more helpful because Korean students fluent in English live in DICE as well. Through this class, foreign students could

This past 9th was Hangul Proclamation Day, or simply just Hangul Day, a Korean national commemorative day marking the 1443 invention and 1446 proclamation of the Hangul alphabet by King Sejong the Great. As English is becoming the global language, more Korean students are struggling with a Korean-English dictionary and watching American TV shows to learn English. However, there is a group of students trying to learn Korean. In Dormitory 16, better known as DICE (Dormitory for International Cultural Exchange), there reside many foreign exchange students. As its name explains, Korean students al

Here Are The Postech Times MakersMany people have once misunderstood The Postech Times to be an English translated version of the Korean written campus newspaper. It is NOT true. The Postech Times is an independent medium having unique contents, and it is only printed in the same paper. Different reporters belonging to different editor-in-chief write different articles.Nevertheless, its basic organization is similar to that of The Korean Postech Times. The Publisher is POSTECH President Sunggi Baik, and both the English and Korean divisions are practically managed by the current Editor Profess

For students who study science and technology, and especially who study engineering, a deeper understanding to what makes a good product is necessary since the obligation of engineers is to invent or synthesize products that are likely to satisfy the people. In the past, the most important factors for a product were considered to be hardware-based aspects, such as function, weight, cost and practicality. For cost and practicality, adventures were unlikely to be made. Design was always the last thing to consider as an accessorial and decorative factor. These days, usually exemplified by the iPr

On May 27, The Postech Times had an exclusive interview with the special lecturer Youngse Kim. Youngse Kim is the CEO of a design consulting company INNOdesign. INNOdesign is renowned for its innovative ideas and designs that have brought huge impacts in the market. INNOdesign is based in Silicon Valley, CA and has branches in Korea.As The Postech Times had only a little time given for the interview, we could not ask all questions prepared. Answers to some questions are direct quotations, while others are based upon his lecture, under the approval of Youngse Kim.What is design?Design is not so

Many groups, such as athletes and students, hold camp meetings to achieve communication and rapid growth in a short period of time. Such are generally for young people, and as they get settled into their families and jobs, it becomes harder for a group of people to meet together. Moreover, it is not easy to imagine a camp of scientists. However, such a meeting occurred at POSTECH.From May 5 to 16, the APCTP-IEU Focus Program, which dealt with cosmology and fundamental physics, was held at the Asia Pacific Center for Theoretical Physics (APCTP). APCTP cooperated with the Institute of Early Univ

Relatively, the progress of natural science in Korea is regarded as quite poorer than that of engineering. Moreover, the number of researchers on theoretical science is limited. The Postech Times talked to Professor Changrim Ahn, chairman of the APCTP-IEU Focus Program, about these issues.How do you estimate the possibility of a Korean winner of Nobel Prize in Physics?Though I don’t know all the physicists on different areas, in my opinion, there is no one yet. The Nobel Prize is not for great scholars; that’s only the misconception of people. It is granted to pioneers who explore a new field

Open Course Ware (OCW) is a term applied to course materials available in online format free of charge. It is quickly becoming a new educational trend for distance learning with virtual access to anyone from anywhere. Most famous of all is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s OCW, which was first launched in Oct. 2002 and initiated this new trend among major universities. Some of the universities that currently participate in this program include Yale, Tufts, the University of California system, Stanford, and other schools in Japan, China, and India. The idea of OCW was first introduced

What is POSTECH’s stance on the subject on Open Course Ware (OCW)? Although some noted universities in Korea, such as Seoul National University and Korea University, have launched their respective OCW programs, POSTECH has not yet expressed any plans of participating in this knowledge-sharing movement.However, some efforts have been made to provide online resources to the students. In the case of the departments of Life Science and Industrial and Management Engineering, seminars which take place in the university are filmed and uploaded for everyone to have access on the department’s website.

Korea is known to have four very distinct seasons. After channeling through the dark tunnel of winter, the arrival of spring becomes manifest when observing flower buds about to blossom. You begin to feel the air is different and notice families and friends enjoying warm spring sunshine on a breezy day anywhere that has grass. One simply unmissable kind of springtime flower is the cherry blossom. Because this year’s temperatures have been quite low compared to the past few years, blossoms that normally disappear soon after the halfway point of April are expected to be there and wait for flower

On Mar.1 an advertisement concerning Dokdo was hung in Times Square in New York. The reason for such attraction-seeking publicity lies in the dispute over the ownership of the Island. The following article will explain the background of the dispute.The overview of disputeThe main position of each side is following; the sovereignty of Dokdo (called ‘Takeshima’ in Japan) is claimed by both South Korea and Japan. Dokdo has been physically dominated by South Korea after the foundation of the Republic of Korea. The Japanese Empire occupied Dokdo before that, and Japan insists on submission of the d

A dark and cold midnight of Feb. 28, it was in downtown Seoul where the Dokdo Academy expedition met. The 117 students who applied to be Dokdo Academy attendees were preparing itinerary for visiting Dokdo. Riding on our buses, we headed toward the East Sea. There is no nonstop ship to Dokdo, so we first approached Ulleungdo. At 3:30 pm, 15 hours having passed from the beginning, there appeared two tiny islets.Dokdo, the easternmost islet of Korea, has been a part of Korean territory from more than 1000 years ago. It had several ancient names like Usando and Songdo. Researchers predict that an

Good Morning!Congratulations to the freshmen, families, and all the people who helped you to be here today. And, thank you so much, President Baik for inviting me to this most prestigious event at POSTECH. So, you might ask why I am congratulating you. Because I believe this is the best time to be an engineering professional. As you all know, we have made tremendous advancement in engineering and science over the past several decades. But, we still have a long way to go. For example, computers are so advanced now but the speech recognition is no where near perfect and they don’t have their own

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.I would like to welcome all of you new students to POSTECH. The Matriculation Ceremony this year is as meaningful and significant as our very first one in 1987, because this is the year that will lay the groundwork for the globalization of POSTECH.As reported in the media, the Bilingual Campus Declaration will commence with this Matriculation Ceremony, and English, in addition to Korean, will be adopted as an official language of POSTECH. It may be somewhat odd and unnatural for you to hear me speak to you in English like this, but I am confident that you und

Makgeolli, raw rice wine, regarded for a fairly long time as a cheap alcohol which gives you a bad hangover, has been recently attracting people’s attention. Whereas the Western wine bar business has dropped off, traditional bars’ which mainly deal with rice wine, have sprung up everywhere. According to statistics, market volume increased by 40% from 300 billion won in 2008 to 420 billion won in 2009. And SERI, the Samsung Economic Research Institute, chose the rice wine as the greatest hit item last year. How could rice wine become so successful in a relatively short time?Key to making rice w

With just a few weeks remaining until this semester’s final examinations, two reporters from The Postech Times arranged a trip to Daegu, the place where a sensational festival was taking place. Being only an hour and a half bus drive from the destination, we decided to head to the location without hesitation.◈ What is 2009 KOREA in MOTION DAEGU?‘2009 KOREA in MOTION DAEGU’ is the 4th festival held annually in Daegu to promote Korean non-verbal performances not only to the citizens in Daegu, but also to the general public in Korea and international visitors to the country. This year, the festiv

After the World Class University (WCU) Program was established at POSTECH, many new professors came here from overseas. We are going to meet two foreign professors and talk to them about their research areas, their life in POSTECH, and their impression of Postechians.Meeting New Overseas Postechians With EnthusiasmProf. Stefan Kettemann I met Prof. Stefan Kettemann from Germany in the APCTP main lobby. He is currently working as an associate professor of the Emergent Materials Research Group in the Division of Advanced Materials Science, POSTECH. We talked about his research area and environme