I was invited to write about Mup, and I met with members Son Minsun and Cho Hyeong-jun at a café near the Wooran Cultural Foundation in Seongsu-dong, where "Short Three Times, Long Once" is being held. After a brief explanation of the purpose of the commission, the two expressed a sense of urgency about the need to archive Mup's works and seemed to be planning to gather writings about Mup from various people. While I thought they must have given it some serious thought, I felt a bit puzzled because I had never seen a Mup performance until that point. However, both of them smiled brightly and said that archiving doesn’t necessarily have to be done only by those who are well-versed in it, and that it doesn’t seem to matter much whether one has actually seen the work when writing a review. Throughout the conversation, Son Minsun was cheerfully laughing, while Cho Hyeong-jun wore an oddly clear and transparent expression, with a faint smile, as if both were looking somewhere beyond me. It felt as if we were face-to-face yet existing in some kind of misaligned dimension… For instance, even their casual remarks while sipping coffee reflected this. Son Minsun suddenly mentioned that during performances, she feels as if she is dying. Cho Hyeong-jun nodded in agreement. I nodded too, but internally I thought it was a bit strange. Dying…? Of course, such thoughts can arise. In fact, this is true for all artistic works and representations. Hegel said that writing kills things. The act of representing something through the body can be seen as a form of writing with the body, which could imply a killing of the body-object by the body-writing. There is certainly some truth to this. Still, it felt, how should I say it, somewhat… speculative… as an expression, didn’t it?

I had thought that way. In other words, that was the case until I saw the video "Short Three Times, Long Once" in the exhibition hall. The video begins with a person on stage tightly wrapped in a burlap sack, and a woman struggling to unwrap the unconscious person inside… It looked somewhat like a bizarre labor. Not only at the start, but throughout the entire video, a similar atmosphere was felt. People collapsed on stage, someone dragged a fallen body away like a piece of luggage, or a fallen body dragged itself away like a burden, and so on. No, it clearly felt like death… Under these circumstances, even the most non-speculative person in the world would likely feel a sense of dying. Why could I not take it literally? Reflecting on this, I watched the video almost in a trance and stepped outside. As I was met with the clear autumn sunshine and breeze, the stories we shared in the café and the exhibition I had just seen all felt somehow surreal.

However, upon reflection, it seems that these two layers are not completely distinct. Why do we find a chilling allure in the representation of fallen bodies, the act of collapsing, and death? In the video, the performer lies down, and as the smoke on the floor envelops him, he raises his hands and legs, much like someone drowning. The movements of writhing, tossing, crawling, being bound, resisting, and being dragged are all combined into a passivity that characterizes Mup's performance. Why did Mup create a performance with such gestures? This can again be considered in relation to death and representation. Representation is something that appears in place of the original, taking its place and occupying its space. I believe that stories about doppelgängers all encapsulate this fear: How can I distinguish between what represents me and myself? The represented claims my identity, occupies my space, and asserts that it knows me better than I do. In an old tale, a young nobleman disregards a warning not to cut his nails at night, discards the clippings, and a mouse eats them, becoming the nobleman. The mouse-nobleman claims to be the real one, and the family asks questions only the real nobleman would know to discern the truth, but the mouse-nobleman answers effortlessly. But where do the mouse's memories come from? In this story, the only thing linking the mouse and the nobleman is a small nail clipping. Thus, it seems that the tale implies our bodies—specifically, the dead parts of our bodies—hold all this information or that they are connected in some sort of magical way. Even if this connection feels utterly surreal, if it were to be asserted that no such connection exists, it would also imply that writing this piece is impossible. After all, I must write about Mu:p based on the reproduced version of a performance I haven't seen and only a few bits of information. Therefore, this piece is written from the perspective of the mouse.

Since the mention of a mouse has come up, it’s worth noting that in the exhibition "Short Three Times, Long Once," the audience cannot view the video directly. This is because the space where the video is screened is enclosed by a partition, and to enter this space, the audience must peek through a hole, akin to a "mouse hole," from outside the wall. This hole is positioned at an awkward height, requiring people to bend down or crouch to press their heads against the wall. By looking through this opening, they receive a password that allows them to enter the wall and finally see the entire video. Thus, the first exhibit that we encounter in "Short Three Times, Long Once" is the wall-partition that obstructs the video from the audience. Interestingly, in this context, it’s clear that the screen itself serves as a barrier. We walk past one barrier only to encounter another.

Why is it specifically a barrier? To answer this question, we first need to consider what a barrier actually is. However, it might be better to discuss the mouse a bit more first. As mentioned earlier, a barrier relates to the act of not approaching an object directly, and the mouse, as an animal, is closely linked to what barriers are thought to produce—namely, boundaries. In this regard, Robert Darnton succinctly captures the essence: “We insult someone by calling them a mouse instead of a squirrel. ‘Squirrel’ can be a term of endearment, like when Helmer called Nora that in 'A Doll’s House.' Yet both squirrels and mice are rodents, dangerous and teeming with germs. Squirrels appear less threatening because they are clearly associated with outdoor spaces… All boundaries are dangerous. If left unguarded, they will collapse, our categories will disintegrate, and our world will descend into chaos.”^{[ 1 ]} Unlike squirrels, mice belong neither clearly to the outside nor to the inside. This is why we instinctively feel fear when we see a mouse. The saying "A bird hears the day’s words, a mouse hears the night’s words" suggests the same thing. Night is the time when things can cross the boundaries assigned to them, making it indecent. As we view "Short Three Times, Long Once," we become the mice standing before the barrier of night. Mup sets up layers of fences in the darkness and invites us to move freely between those barriers.

^{Translated by ChatGPT}