Through the Lens of BTS and Land Art: Exploring Change
Land art is made from creating sculptures from the materials from the earth. Land art was a movement in the 1960s and 1970s by artists who investigated alternative modes of artistic production and ways to circumvent the traditional commercial art system. Land artists usually collect natural objects or created site-specific works. They have different processes such as using mechanical interventions to create, while others made minimal, temporary use of the landscape. Land artists typically document their works with photographs, films, and maps for exhibitions. In addition, land artists make sculptures and installations for gallery use (Utah Museum of Fine Art). BTS is a seven-member South Korean pop group known for their electrifying dance moves and chart-topping music. They all produce and write their own music. Surprisingly, land artists and BTS tackle a similar theme of change. In this article, I will be exploring how land art and BTS share the theme of change through three categories: place, time, and cyclical routine of life.
Place
Moving On is the song that is dedicated to BTS’ former Nonhyendong 3rd-floor apartment. RM recounts the memories of first arriving at the apartment to Suga: When you and I used to fight each other without any reason/Wallpaper, bathroom, veranda were all blue. RM attaches specific moments such as their arguments to their old residence. RM comments on the color of the wallpaper, bathroom, and veranda. RM uses these elements, along with memories, to explain what makes their old residence unique to him. It is what makes their place home.
Further along in the song, BTS sing There is more stuff than the beginning/There are more things that I own than the beginning. Change is shown through the number of material things that they own. They sing A new house that used to look so big now feels so small. When they first arrived, the house was big — perhaps as they were so small — now that they have grown the house has outlived its nurturing purpose. They grew, became comfortable within the safety of the walls, and now the house is small; for it’s time to go.
A new start, a new beginning
A time of excitement, thinking how we will decorate again
Move the boxes, place them, and dust them off
After we’re done, let’s get a bowl of black bean noodles for our hard work
BTS sing about a ritual of moving into a new home, which is having black bean noodles from Chinese-Korean restaurants after the move. Doolset, a BTS lyric translator, points out that it is very common to have these noodles after the move. Having black bean noodles is a marker of change as part of their culture as Koreans.
Wood Line is a snaky strip of eucalyptus trunks and branches that stretch through Californian woods that starts from a ridge above West Pacific highway and through between Presidio Boulevard and Lover’s Lane, one of the oldest paths in Presidio park (Public Delivery). This installation marks the place where it snakes along. This sculpture takes the visitor along a journey that is above a highway, where much of modern society continues their routine. Then, it takes the viewer through the woods there is a lack of human presence. Finally, it takes the visitor through one of the oldest man-made paths in the park. This installation shows the changes that humans have made through landscapes such as highways, man-made structures to hold man-made machines, to paths that are minimalist man-made interferences on the landscape. Goldsworthy has shown how drastically humans made changes on the landscape through a man-made structure Wood Line made from natural materials.
In Moving On, BTS see change through material items and the level of comfort that they attach to their home. Black bean noodles are a marker of change for them as they leave one place and enter another. Meanwhile, in Wood Line, Andy Goldsworthy sees change through the landscape as the installation at one place near the highway ends deep in the woods. Change is a physical thing that impacts the landscape and is accepted as a routine in society such as having black bean noodles after the move is over.
Time
Spiral Jetty, a sculpture in the Great Salt Lake area of Utah, is a coil that winds counterclockwise into the lake, which is 1,500 feet long and 15 feet wide. Robert Smithson used a crew operating dump trucks, tractor, and a front loader to displace 6,000 tons of black basalt rock and earth from an adjacent shore to form a coil. Basalt rocks are scattered remnants of now-extinct volcanoes in the Great Salt Lake area (Dia). This artwork constantly changed due to the fractured landscape, water fluctuating levels, and water’s salinity. For example, in spring 2012, the work was completely submerged in the lake. Over a year later, the coil rises out of the lake. This shows that time changes how the sculpture looks. Smithson had a preoccupation with entropy, a degree of disorder in a system (Merriam-Webster). In this piece, he has established the system, the coil, but the degree of disorder is shaped by the lake itself with its fluctuating water levels. Finally, this sculpture is made with the intent that it will decay over time to eventually become one with the lake’s landscape. Smithson is demonstrating that time is what shapes the landscape and what forces man-made creatures such as the Spiral Jetty to eventually become the lake itself. This shows the strength of nature shifts landscapes without the will of man.
The song 28 is significant to Suga as it was his age at the time of recording and producing in 2020. However, according to Doolset, the Korean alternate title 점점 어른이 되나 봐 translates to “Perhaps, I’m gradually becoming an adult.” This Korean title summarizes his feelings about growing up due to his changing perception of the world he is growing up in.
I grow older
And become to know the world
And yet, would it have been better to know the world?
As Suga grows older, he learns more about the world where he resides. He questions whether it is better not to gain more knowledge about the world. This indicates that he begins to doubt the world that he resides in. These lines remind me of a popular phrase “Ignorance is bliss”. Knowledge is a double-edged sword that allows one to understand the world but also understand its flaws. This is why nostalgia is quite popular within media content, such as the show Stranger Things and revamping of old Disney movies. These movies remind people of the times when they perceived the world as simple.
What are the things that I hoped for
Now I’m scared
Where did the fragments of my dream go
Suga sings about his loss of hopes and dreams. To him, hopes and dreams are what defines a person who is not yet an adult. This loss is what makes him scared because it is uncertain of what he wants to be. He sees the idea of adulthood as scary and uncertain. Usually, during childhood, one is usually asked about one’s hopes and dreams. As one becomes an adult, they are expected to find their own ways which can lead to an uncertain future. Suga perceives change by how one perceives their hopes and dreams.
Life’s continuous cycle
Like morning comes after night goes,
Would summer come after spring goes,
Like fruit ripens after flowers wither away,
Everything must suffer
In everythinggoes, RM sings how everything shall pass. He describes the feeling of passing through a series of changes that is common in nature such as the seasons and days. He shows this change through the ripening of fruit that symbolizes the coming of summer and flower withering as an indicator of the coming of winter. In addition, RM shows the cyclical nature of life through how summer proceeds spring, morning proceeds night. He states that everything, including nature, suffers as it is part of life. So, he sees change as a form of suffering. However, he also sees it as temporary.
Because all humans and all pains eventually die
We have to face the wind to become numb
Nothing can last forever in a dream
RM comes to the conclusion that suffering is temporary. He uses wind as a metaphor to symbolize an obstacle that one must get used to. One has to face it in order to get used to such suffering, or as he said, numb. He sees dreams as happiness, which is a temporary emotion. Happiness is part of one’s idea of an ideal life without suffering. However, like all things, these emotions aren’t meant to last forever. RM sees change as temporary through a change of emotions depending on what one encounters as they follow the course of life.
Nancy Holt arranged four gigantic concrete cylinders at precise geographical points to correspond with sunrise and sunset of winter and summer solstices. She additionally punctured the holes of the cylinder to create shadows of selected constellations (TheArtStory). The tunnels themselves don’t change, but nature’s surroundings change by aligning with the solstices. This shows the cyclical routine of nature. Depending on the light availability at each of these four tunnels, they show which constellations are in the sky. The source of light is provided by the sun. The galaxy follows the cyclical pattern due to the Earth’s rotation, the sun has the cyclical rotation around the earth along with its stars.
In everythinggoes, RM sees change as both a form of suffering but also temporary. These changes depend upon one’s state of being. Both RM and Nancy Holt see change as cyclical, however, Holt sees it through astronomy with the Earth’s constant rotation.
Change is part of life. BTS sees it as a part of life with its markers such as a bowl of black bean noodles. Suga sees it as a difference of perception of the world, while RM sees it as a change of one’s state of being through feelings. Andy Goldsworthy sees it as a change of landscape by man-made interventions. Robert Smithson sees it as a change of landscape through time with fluctuating water levels of the lake. Nancy Holt sees it as a cyclical rotation of the galaxy including the sun around the Earth that is reflected on her sun tunnels. Change comes in many different forms in nature and in man-made markers. RM believes that change is temporary, and yet by examining BTS’ journey, we can see that the only constant is change, too.
