Trace of Everyday Performance: A Contemporary Reinterpretation of the Ondol and Dot-Jari

This practice-based research investigates floor-based living, focusing upon the realm of Korean everyday life. My particular concern is with the relation of the body to domestic space through memorised rituals, such as cleaning, polishing and removing shoes. The thesis asks the question: how does space determine and respond to such repetitive activity? It traces how the spatial typology of the floor, so important for Korean architecture, has been transformed by changes in such domestic activities. I present a series of design responses that draw upon everyday domestic performance, addressing a number of issues such as ritual, trace and materiality. By developing a spatial practice focusing on the ondol (traditional Korean floor heating) and the dot-jari (floor mat), this research explores territory that is un-theorised and underdeveloped as a subject in a Korean contemporary design context. The floor is a way to explore the wider role of ritual and trace in the construction of symbolic space, and is central to the Korean cultural and spatial identity.

My research therefore explores floor-based living as a manifestation of a social practice: one that has spatial consequences. The Korean expression of ilsang ei eisik (everyday ritual) is defined here as a bodily-embedded activity that is inherent within the culture. A series of my spatial installations, such as Trace of Ritual Ceremony (2014), Beyond the Boundary (2015), Invisible Space (2015) and Spatial Extension (2016), deal with issues of transience, warmth, comfort and tactility, locating my everyday performance in architecture or public space. The gathering of dispersed visual research materials is a significant part of my methodology, and the research has involved compiling and editing images into the thesis in order for it to be conceived as a visual archive.