녹슨 기관차의 알레고리‘ 경의선 장단역 증기기관차’

Abstract

This thesis is a study on ‘The Locomotive at Jangdan Station on Gyeongui-Line’, which is installed at the park of Imjingak in Paju city. It was destructed during the Korean War and abandoned in DMZ where it has been ruined for more than 50 years. Being reproduced on magazines, journals, textbooks, pictorial albums etc., the images of the Locomotive have been used as symbols of anti-communism, division of the nation, people's nostalgia and even the reconciliation and reunion. They have been coded for the establishment of the national icon about the war. On the other hand, the ruined Locomotive or its images give us some ontological or aesthetic experience. It can be considered as traces of time and fragments of memory. The Locomotive brings back not only the ‘historical trauma’ from the war, but also ‘structural trauma’ in the human subject, which is more fundamental. So, the significance contained in it is not a unitary and fixed ‘symbol’, but a complex and dynamic ‘allegory’. In the beginning of the 21st century, the rusted Locomotive became a registered national heritage. It means that the Locomotive became a public monument - ‘historic monument’ but negative, anti-monument as well. It was removed from DMZ to be repaired by physical and chemical treatments covering with fake rust. Being a fake ruin, the Locomotive contains the disorder of time, shift of space and diverted meanings. The Locomotive has been also used in public propagandas and commercial advertisements. In an ad, it was replaced by another imitation locomotive. The confusion between the original and copy reveals today's situation of simulacre. Beyond the symbolism of the war, the rusted ‘Locomotive at Jangdan Station’ serves as an allegoric object haunting between history and truth, culture and nature, and virtuality and reality to prove their unstability.