Mr. Misang's corporate dystopia

We’re already living in a dystopia. Most people just haven’t realized it yet.

Or at least that’s what artist Ju Yong Lee believes. The Korean illustrator, who works under the name Mr. Misang (meaning Mr. Anonymous), creates intricate works that depict the corporate world in a grim light. These works, chock-full of vibrant colors and playful details, touch on dark, Orwellian themes and reflect the artist’s cynical perspective.

我们已经生活在一个反乌托邦社会。但大多数人还没有意识到这一点。

至少韩国艺术家 Ju Yong Lee 是这么想的。这位插画家以 Mr. Misang（意为佚名先生）的名字创作了许多错综复杂的作品，描绘出当下严峻的社会。这些作品充满鲜艳的色彩和有趣的细节，令人联想起英国作家乔治∙奥威尔笔下的极权寓言作品，也折射出一种他对世界愤世嫉俗的见解。

Lee’s meditation on today’s society forms the basis of Modern Life is Rubbish, a series titled after Britpop band Blur’s sophomore album. In it, he depicts a city where the populace has been subjugated by a powerful corporation. The city’s inhabitants are depicted as swarms of nearly identical men so lacking in individuality that they’ve been reduced to numbers and barcodes. Their insignificance is evident how they arrive to work: like specks of dirt, they’re simply vacuumed into the building. Once inside, the dejected workers are electrocuted and then resurrected by a Buddha-like deity into enthusiastic employees. This rebirth represents the indoctrination into today’s dollar-hungry culture, where money is worshipped as an idol. Each illustration in the series is loaded with enough details and symbols to operate as a standalone piece of social commentary, but together they form a larger warning against toxic work culture and the pitfalls of unbridled capitalism.

Lee 以自己对这个功能失调的现代社会的思考为基础，创作了《Modern Life is Rubbish》（现代生活是垃圾）系列，和英国摇滚乐队 Blur 的第二张专辑同名。这个系列中，他所描绘的城市由一间大型公司所控制，城市里挤挤挨挨的居民几乎毫无个性，千篇一律，已经沦为单纯的数字和条形码。而人们上班的方式更进一步突显了他们的微不足道：他们像灰尘一样，被吸入建筑大楼里。进去之后，这些无精打采的工人立即被处以电刑，然后被一个类似佛像的神灵复活，变成热情的员工。这种重生描绘了当今社会对人们金钱至上的这种思想的灌输，在这样的文化中，金钱像宗教一样被人们所崇拜。系列中的每一幅插画都充满着无数的细节和符号，每一幅都可单独成为一则社会评论，但放在一起，又构成了更宏大的画面，警示人们现代社会中的 996 工作制和极端资本主义所带来的问题。

Lee’s earlier works cast a similarly critical gaze at modern life. In Supersize Them, a title riffing on Morgan Spurlock’s documentary Super Size Me (2004), the artist puts the fast-food industry in his crosshairs, specifically the big four: Burger King, McDonald’s, KFC, and Wendy’s. The project depicts greasy factories where workers churn out food to satisfy the appetite of each brands’ iconic character—a conveyor belt delivers Whoppers directly into the Burger King’s stomach, feeding tubes pump Big Mac sauce and McFlurries into Ronald McDonald’s mouth, frying oil from metal drums is mainlined into Colonel Sanders’s head, and Wendy Darling is being injected by Frosty-loaded syringes. Through these intentionally unpleasant images, Lee questions whether convenience should be prioritized over health.

Lee 早期的作品也曾对现代生活的其他方面进行过批判。在《Supersize Them》（快餐胖报告）中，他引用了 2004 年 Morgan Spurlock 的纪录片《麦胖报告》（Super Size Me），批判了快餐行业，特别是四大连锁快餐品牌：汉堡王、麦当劳、肯德基和温蒂汉堡。这个系列描绘了一间间油腻的工厂，工人们在这里为各个品牌生产其标志性的食物：传送带将皇堡送入汉堡王的肚子，喂食管将巨无霸酱汁和麦旋风送入麦当劳的口中，煎炸油从金属桶中被抽入桑德斯上校的头中，而装满沙冰的注射器正插在温蒂身上。通过这些令人不快的画面，Lee 是在质问：便捷度是不是比健康更重要？

Lee’s latest project, temporarily titled Modern Life is a Theme Park, is just as charged. It takes place, as the title suggests, entirely in an amusement park. Against the backdrop of gargantuan attractions and masked carnies, he revisits several themes of his earlier works, such as the manipulation of media and the idolatry of money, and takes aim at other issues, such as the objectification of women, the rhetoric of hate, and passivity in the face of evil. “I’m not going to make bold claims about thinking my art can change the world,” Lee says, a statement that seems to be equal parts humility and equal parts cynicism. “Being able to use my work to communicate ideas and viewpoints important to me is already a blessing.”

他的最新项目同样如此，这个暂时命名为《Modern Life is a Theme Park》（现代生活是个主题游乐园）的系列一如其名，画中的背景均是游乐园。以巨型的娱乐项目和蒙面狂欢活动为背景，Lee 重新回顾了他早期作品的几个主题，如媒体的操纵性和金钱至上的理念，同时探讨了其他问题，如物化女性、仇恨言论以及对罪恶的无动于衷。“我不会自大地宣称自己的艺术可以改变这个世界。”Lee 说道，这句话听上去既像是谦卑，也似是讽刺。“能够通过我的作品来传达对我来说很重要的想法和观点，这样已经是很幸运了。”