FAQ

Anything to keep in mind?

Min Guhong Manufacturing hopes this FAQ will answer your questions about the company and the person who runs it. It brings together interviews, long and short, conducted since 2015, carefully compiled and then scattered into random order. Depending on when a question was asked, some facts may differ from those of today. Honorifics for people mentioned have also sometimes been omitted to suit the tone of the question. If you have read your way through the FAQ and still have questions, please tell us all about them at support@minguhongmfg.com. Min Guhong Manufacturing is ready to understand and acknowledge everything. Please look for a reply in the FAQ someday, though, rather than in your inbox.

What is your relationship with Laurel Schwulst?

She is my closest friend, colleague, and teacher in Brooklyn, New York. She is also a longtime business partner. When I die, Min Guhong Manufacturing is due to become ‘Laurel Schwulst Manufacturing.’

If you are reluctant to be called ‘teacher’ at New Order, why is that?

Since New Order also works alongside Paju Typography Institute, from 2018 to 2021, and Hongik University, in 2022, it may look like another school to some people. Of course, it has a more or less set curriculum, and it is a place where I explain things. But I also learn a great deal from the participants, known as ‘friends of New Order,’ in the process. It is a school where the distinction between teacher and student is blurred. So we drop titles such as ‘teacher’ and ‘professor’ and simply call each other by name. We even drop the Korean honorific ‘nim,’ saying things like, ‘Hello, Seulgi. How have you been?’ Deciding how to address someone matters when beginning a relationship. The moment you use a particular form of address, you enter a particular relationship. A kind of hierarchy is created. I do not think this hierarchy is very helpful for communicating effectively, especially at New Order.

First, please introduce the company.

Min Guhong Manufacturing (in Korean, “민구홍 매뉴팩처링,” which may also be written without the space as “민구홍매뉴팩처링”) is a one-person parasitic company. “Parasitic” means that it lodges with another company: my workplace. This is one of Min Guhong Manufacturing’s operating methods. It is currently parasitic on Workroom, a graphic design studio and publisher. Its previous host was the South Korean company Ahn Graphics. When I founded it in 2015, I first introduced the company through a list of thirty-seven items. The piece, About the Company, was published as the thirteenth Audiovisual Pavilion Document and was the company’s first product. This was because its main business was unclear then, as it still is to some degree. A somewhat groundless belief also played a part: for any self-respecting company, what it should not do matters more than what it should. Each item remains valid, including “Min Guhong Manufacturing does not collect donations in Bitcoin.”

During a visit to New York a few days ago, I decided to add some items while riding the train back to JFK Airport. Some existing items also needed revision. In doing so, I settled on one principal business that had been unclear until then and put it into a sentence.

Above all, Min Guhong Manufacturing concentrates on introducing the company.

Then I thought I should add a few phrases to make it more specific and avoid confusion.

Above all, Min Guhong Manufacturing concentrates on introducing the company, that is, Min Guhong Manufacturing itself, in various ways.

Why do you call what the company produces “products” rather than “artworks” or “work”?

Since Kant, the illusion that language transparently reflects its object has been shattered. What matters is how a subject sees, defines, and, further, edits an object. Words such as “artwork” or “work” not only fail to reflect the circumstances in which things are consumed today; they add an illusion that obscures those circumstances. Since Min Guhong Manufacturing is a “company,” I thought “products” was a natural umbrella term for what it produces. Or perhaps I called it a “company” because I wanted to use the word “products.”

We left out the most important items. What brands are your underwear and socks?

Usually Uniqlo. It is not that I insist on a brand from a particular country; there is simply a store ten minutes’ walk from home. As the most important items, they must be easy to replenish as soon as they show any wear. But whatever happens, I do not wear no-show socks or ankle socks.

I am a student at the University of Seoul. What are your goals as a designer?

I am sometimes called a designer, but I have rarely been conscious of what I do as design. If I had to invent a description, I would say I am closer to a ‘word processor’ than a ‘designer,’ since I mainly process words and, beyond them, letters. So near the end of a project, I often suggest crediting my work as ‘word processing’ rather than ‘design,’ but the suggestion is rejected every time.

Anyway, as a word processor, when you write, you want to write well. When you write well, you want to present the writing well. When you present it well, your attention eventually turns to letters themselves, the smallest elements of the world that constitutes writing. In other words, you begin to want control over everything surrounding yourself and your writing. From that perspective, wanting to make my own font seems natural. I think that once I settle on a font name, I will be halfway there. But in fact, I am already stuck at the name. It feels as though ‘Min’ has to be in it somehow, but wonderful names like ‘Min Gothic,’ ‘Min Sans,’ and ‘Minburi’ already exist.

In fact, it is at lectures like this that I question my identity as a designer. I do not do so at work, because saying I am not a designer would make it hard for clients to trust me. My intention is simply to prompt you to reconsider what design is through my example. After graduating, you will begin to question the work you do. It is good to start thinking about this while you are still a student.

Virus Simulator, from 2020, is currently on view at DDDD. While your earlier products focused on introducing the company, this one takes the new infectious disease COVID-19 as its subject. Has Min Guhong Manufacturing changed since COVID-19?

At Min Guhong Manufacturing, the company is introduced in various ways: sometimes naturally, sometimes overtly, sometimes unexpectedly, and sometimes by relying on someone else’s reputation. This product also performs the task of introducing the company, even if all it does is place Min Guhong Mfg. among flowers, trees, stones, humans, and cherries in its world. Since COVID-19, we have received more inquiries about products and technical support, particularly from museums whose physical exhibitions were canceled. As a one-person company, we take a little time to respond, but we do so with sincerity, following the Min Guhong Manufacturing Email Response Guidelines. A Korean student intern who had been working remotely from Arnhem in the Netherlands also returned to Korea and spent a month at Workroom, the company’s host. The intern is now on a business trip to Jeju Island.

I am a student at the University of Seoul. Why do all your Instagram Stories consist of sentences ending in ‘…why?’

The conceptual artist On Kawara continued his I Am Still Alive series until his death. He sent telegrams. He avoided public appearances so thoroughly that there are only one or two photographs of him taken during his lifetime. At the same time, he must have needed connection. As the title says, this was how he let others know that he was alive somewhere.

The ‘…why?’ series began suddenly around 2022, and I am still looking for the reason myself. When I think about it, perhaps my reason is similar to On Kawara’s. I do not actually use social media, including Instagram, very diligently. But in the awkward situation of having to use it anyway, this is the smallest gesture I can make. In other words, I am asking myself, ‘…why?’

I would like to ask a somewhat sentimental question. As you leave Workroom, what is—or was—Workroom to Min Guhong Manufacturing?

Workroom itself is so special and precious to me that I would not want to call it simply a ‘workplace,’ and I find it difficult to casually say I am ‘leaving.’ I feel as though it would really happen the moment I finished the sentence. During the remaining month, I will wrap up the work I have been involved in. Until I find the perfect expression, I also want to continue, in some form, what my senior colleague Kim Hyung-jin jokingly but sincerely called ‘a relationship in which we exploit each other without awkwardness.’

I hear that Min Guhong Manufacturing has no business registration certificate. ‘The moment it receives a business registration certificate, it is destined to close.’ If we make memories together, can you issue an invoice?

Of course. I issued one to 908A just recently.

Pisces are easily swept up in emotion. You love yourself more than anyone I know. Have any creators caught your interest or stood out to you recently?

I am not sure.

Min Guhong Manufacturing’s official website seems considerably faster.

That is correct. We have used the American company DreamHost for hosting since 2015. We moved from its data center in Oregon, on the west coast of the United States, to Singapore, which is closer to Korea, and also started using Cloudflare’s nameservers. It was not easy, but as a result, our ping time dropped from nearly two hundred milliseconds to under one hundred.

When introducing the company, Min Guhong Manufacturing says it ‘lives parasitically’ on Workroom. In other words, it is a company that lives on its operator’s workplace. Why choose parasitism as its way of operating?

Parasitism naturally became the company’s survival strategy. All kinds of ‘infected’ appear in The Last of Us series by the console game studio Naughty Dog. Like cordyceps, they invade human bodies and control their hosts. Without humans, they have no source of energy. Min Guhong Manufacturing is much the same. It makes up for its lack of courage and capital through a host. In exchange for labor and a measure of amusement, the operator receives a salary that covers the company’s running costs and uses the host’s movable and immovable property, such as computers, tables, and coffee machines. This also naturally resolves tax-related matters that I never want to understand. I am sometimes urged to leave the host, become independent, or obtain a business registration certificate. But doing so would be the same as filing notice that Min Guhong Manufacturing was closing. Even if I left Workroom to live parasitically on Google or Tesla, it is hard to imagine Min Guhong Manufacturing becoming independent. Despite this state of affairs, an intern who came from the Netherlands has recently been working here.

To what extent should the difference between experiencing an artwork online and offline be overcome?

What if, from the outset, we allowed for a work to exist in two branches, online and offline? Or what if its original existed online, and the process of translating it into an offline form became an element of the offline work?

What are your future plans?

First, to maintain the way the company operates parasitically at its operator’s workplace—in other words, using the workplace’s movable and immovable property without permission. This provides a platform for the operator to treat Min Guhong Manufacturing as a hobby, in form as well as in fact. Second, to try a food business centered on ricotta cheese. Ricotta is relatively easy to make, delicious, and very white. Of course, as with any plan, these may be revised or postponed indefinitely.

Min Guhong Manufacturing collaborates with institutions, organizations, companies, and individuals under the name “technical support.” This takes many forms, from building websites and developing software to writing and translation. This may be a sensitive question, but how do you usually set your technical support fees?

The more sensitive it is, the more clearly it should be stated. Whether much or little, long or short, the company commits its labor and time, so this matters to its survival. There is a minimum, but beyond that, the more the better, as long as neither party feels awkward. There is also a basic condition: the client must introduce Min Guhong Manufacturing in some way. If meeting the minimum is difficult, active publicity for the company can sometimes substitute. A novelist, for example, would have to publish a work about the company in one of the four major literary journals.

If Min Guhong Manufacturing were a design agency, however, I would use the advice of E Roon Kang, who runs 908A, as my standard.

One of the three is enough: people, money, or portfolio.

Do you use a content management system such as WordPress when making websites?

Not unless I have no choice. They say a third of the world’s websites are made with WordPress, but I find it excessively heavy. It is like trying to take the KTX high-speed train to a park near your home. Besides, although WordPress plugins are varied and convenient, they are close to the worst possible option for maintenance. Because of this, even ‘Code is poetry,’ the phrase at the bottom of WordPress’s official website, feels excessively lyrical. Min Guhong Manufacturing uses Management, our own customization of open-source software that overcomes WordPress’s drawbacks, and we actively recommend it to clients. Why not experience the details firsthand as a client? Of course, sometimes hard coding—entering the content and code one stitch at a time—is the most time-saving method.

What do you usually do outside the company? Is that too personal a question?

If you are curious, I should tell you as much as I can. Ever since I was taught long ago that “work should become life itself,” I have kept work and life strictly separate. I tried working at home for a few days early in the epidemic, but I could not get anything done. Cho Kyung Kyu, a first-generation Korean web artist and the author of Omurice Jam Jam, whom I have known since I was a child, says he works and plays with home as his workplace. I am fond of him, but we could not be more different on this point. I read enough books at the company, so at home I mostly lie on the sofa and watch TV. Sometimes I fall asleep without noticing. When the sun sets and a cool breeze comes, I walk along the Gyeongui Line Forest Park near my home or through the alleys of Yeonhui-dong. Lately I have taken up climbing and composing music again after a long break.

Were you familiar with COS before this event?

All I had done was happen to leaf through its free magazine a few times. But I am now considering using COS products as workwear.

I tend to believe that naming is the most important part of most things, though some names, like “Google,” arise by mistake. What does your company’s name mean?

“Manufacturing” generally refers to the mass production of goods by processing raw materials with human or mechanical power. In baseball, however, it also means scoring through means other than hits, such as stolen bases, advancing runners, and sacrifice plays. I wanted the company name to express a will to put the word’s functionalism and opportunism into practice.