Chapter 28. Don’t Think of an Elephant
“Right! I feel like I’ve heard it too.”
“Ah, it’s that song. That one.”
“Yeah. I even went to the concert. It was seriously no joke.”
“Really. You went? Take me with you next time!”
Hearing the students whispering, Team Leader Seungjin casually slipped in and said,
“Um, did anyone here go to the Pink Floyd concert in Korea this April?”
Ah. Right, Pink Floyd.
Before he even finished speaking, a few students proudly raised their hands, shouting, “Me! Me!”
How could it not be something to brag about, when it was the one and only Korea concert. Watching them, Geonshin nodded as if to say, ‘As expected.’
Pink Floyd.
A legendary team, formed in the UK in 1965, the most successful band in progressive rock history, and at the time, the third biggest record seller in rock music history.
Based on a spirit of resistance against society, they had no hesitation about exposing problems.
With somewhat avant garde music videos and lyrics, they made an entire album into a single work of art.
In particular, the song “Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2),” where they smashed a wall with hammers and shouted, “We don’t need this kind of education! Teacher, leave those kids alone!” was Pink Floyd’s signature song, a signature track that almost anyone would have heard at least once.
April 2002 was the time of Pink Floyd’s domestic tour concert.
It was the moment when their songs and related information would be loudly covered on the news and radio.
If Geonshin had mentioned Pink Floyd before his regression, most people would not even have known who they were, but now it was different.
This April, the songs that kept playing in cafes and bars near campus were all Pink Floyd songs.
To students of this period, Pink Floyd’s image was “the spirit of resistance” itself.
In accordance with the policy that nothing beyond the submitted materials could be used as presentation content, Geonshin pretended it was a mistake and played Pink Floyd’s music.
Seeing the president’s sharp gaze, the Facilities Manager signaled Team Leader Seungjin to hurry up and begin.
Then, before opening the first page of the PPT, Team Leader Seungjin said,
“Then now, don’t think about Pink Floyd. We will begin Yeongjo Architecture’s presentation.”
Don’t think about Pink Floyd? Why would he say that on purpose.
As the students began to form subtle thoughts, Geonshin scanned the students, faintly visible below the podium in the dark.
‘If you say, “Don’t think of an elephant,” the other person thinks of an elephant first.The image of the elephant is remembered more strongly than the message telling them not to think about it.Now, for the entire presentation, the afterimage of Pink Floyd will remain in the students’ minds. And that afterimage will stir up their symbol, that spirit of resistance.’
In the end, the reason he made them think of Pink Floyd was nothing else. The purpose of their presentation.
In the end, they had to win the students’ votes.
While preparing the scenario, Geonshin used the creativity of the status window. Then, the number “5” appeared on his forehead and shone with light.
Strangely, even theories that did not yet exist in this world were being categorized in his mind, waiting for Geonshin’s selection.
‘Wow, this is insane. If this project ends, it’ll be 15 points. Then what’s going to appear.’
Geonshin decided to borrow a strategy used in political discourse by linguists: “framing.”
George Lakoff, the founder of cognitive linguistics, whose work had not yet been published in this world.
Among his theories, there is one that says: in elections, the side that strategically defines the public’s thinking first with a pre-built frame wins politically, and the more you mention it in order to refute that frame, the more you reinforce the existing frame, falling into a dilemma.
In line with that, the strategic frame Geonshin created was as follows.
[Mirim Architecture’s plan is what the school needs, and what Yeongjo Architecture made is for you.
The owner of a university is the students. So why would you choose what the school needs, instead of choosing what you need?
Do not be blinded by the president’s huge greed. Cast your vote for the campus change you truly want.]
The first page of the PPT Geonshin made was the existing view of the current appearance, seen from the stands. Since it was a familiar scene the students always saw, they did not react much.
One student quietly muttered in a fairly loud voice,
“What is this? There’s nothing.”
A few students snickered, going, “Pfft,” and laughed.
But in the next scene, the laughter drained from the students’ faces.
Because a huge boulder appeared, covering half the sports field. Because of that boulder, a dark shadow formed over what remained of the field, and the familiar scenery on the other side, the blue sky they always saw, almost disappeared from view.
This was an image comparison cut placed on the very first page of Yeongjo Architecture’s design report.
It was one thing Mirim Architecture had not mentioned.
They were trying to say, “The sports field disappears.”
“In the second image you just saw, that boulder is the completed sports center view from the proposal presented earlier. They tried to hide it with flashy materials and dazzling design, but once you strip away all the dressing, that construction is no different from burying your sports field under a boulder like that.”
Now that he said it, in Mirim Architecture’s presentation earlier, there had only been perspective views from outside the school, and no images from inside the campus. Realizing a fact they had not noticed, the students straightened up.
“The sports center that appears on the field will encroach on the campus’s already limited open space, and it will erase one more important thing. The resting space where you sat blankly, the stands and benches, and above all, the cool blue sky you used to see out the window.”
Before talking about their own plan, Team Leader Seungjin began with a warning that the sports center the school was pushing would wipe out the students’ only resting space.
Strictly speaking, it would not disappear, but it would be more accurate to say it would lose its role as a resting space.
But language had nuance. If it was within a similar range of meaning, they needed an aggressive, extreme phrasing right now.
Because this was meant to stir resistance.
Based on the assumption that the song he told them not to think about was still lingering in their heads,
To strengthen the frame even more, nuance in language was very important.
Then, in an instant, the students remembered facts they had forgotten.
Even the rumor that tuition might rise because of that sports center.
On the other hand, the students began to feel curious about Yeongjo Architecture’s intention, openly saying things like this.
Then Team Leader Seungjin said, as if he had been waiting for this.
“Of course, what Gwangseong University needed might have been an image makeover through a new sports center. A truly flashy and magnificent sports center might raise the school’s status. If people looking from outside think, ‘Wow, Gwangseong University has gotten this good. I wish my kids went to this school,’ then from the school’s standpoint, it will be a very satisfying success. But what happens on the inside?
Maybe it becomes one more stifling wall. An irreversible, powerful wall.
We decided to break that wall. Maybe it means we broke the set rules.”
At the words “break the wall” and “break the rules,” a faint Pink Floyd melody seemed to echo in the students’ minds.
“We don’t need this kind of education! Teacher, leave those kids alone!”
Geonshin watched the reactions and looked at Team Leader Seungjin. And then Team Leader Seungjin said the decisive line.
“We thought that what you students needed most here might not be a sports center, but a space where you can finally breathe. A space that lets you step away for a moment from employment anxiety, GPA anxiety, and anxiety about the bosses who will grab you like they’re squeezing a rat. A space like that. So we placed the sports center underground beneath the sports field, and we tore down the walls around it.
The reason that kind of space must come first is obvious. Because the owners of the school are you.”
We are the owners of the school?
That line created a certain motivation in the students. The reason they were sitting here was to make a choice as owners.
And this timing was the perfect moment for Geonshin’s scenario to appear. Now was the time to show the plan.
The students’ psychological excitement was approaching its peak.
If it was a plan no different from Mirim Architecture’s, their disappointment would double.
Now it was time to show Yeongjo Architecture’s PPT to the students who had been swept up by Mirim’s flashy tricks.
Geonshin operated the PPT.
Then the sports field in the photo began to change.
First, the clouds in the sky began to drift as if riding the wind, and the boulder crushing the sports field began to crack. The fragments vanished in an instant, and cracks spread across the high walls around the it, then they collapsed with a crash. Unless it was an illusion, this was clearly happening inside the PPT program.
“Wow, what is that?”
“This is insane.”
Then the blue sky wrapped around the sports field, and the barren sandy field began changing into a garden.
Green grass covered the space like dominoes falling, and colorful flowers appeared within defined sections, stretching as if waking up.
The city on the other side came fully into view, and a smooth ramp connected from the outside sidewalk wound around the sports field in a circle. And then people appeared. Someone lying down on the space that had become a park, people walking along the ramp, even students laughing and talking on the nearby stands.
The stifling appearance of boulders had now turned into Yeongjo Architecture’s aerial view.
The students kept gasping as they watched the image transform inside the PPT file.
Like watching a 60 second commercial made for broadcast, Yeongjo Architecture’s plan was delivered step by step, from eyes to head and then to heart.
Even Director Ham, watching this, was flustered.
‘No, what program did they make this with. This isn’t a level you can handle with just PPT. In those two days, what company did they work with, and how?’
Director Yoo-uk, smiling as he watched Director Ham’s startled expression, gave Geonshin a thumbs up. Geonshin smiled back at Director Yoo-uk in reply.
‘Right. The reason we “didn’t have PPT tricks” was because we didn’t need them. In this era, there is nothing as powerful as video for impact.’
The program Geonshin used was Adobe After Effects.
A program developed in 1993 by Adobe Systems, famous for Photoshop and Illustrator.
A digital motion graphics and compositing software used for making content like non linear film editing, advertisements, and games.
In Geonshin’s pre regression time, when YouTube creators dominated media, it was a common editing program, but in 2002, the idea of an architecture firm using a program like this was on a different level.
It was not that it was too hard to use, but rather that they did not even know it existed, so they could not use it.
Fortunately, Geonshin spotted After Effects on the server manager’s computer, who was usually interested in video editing too. The moment he saw it, he planned to use it for the student presentation.
Then how did Geonshin know this program?
The reason was simple: his current school, Gyewha Technical College.
Unlike a typical four-year university, technical colleges built curricula around employment skills because students tended to get jobs not at major architecture firms, but at their subcontractors and partner companies.
So in 2002, as the first game departments were created and similar departments started appearing everywhere, a course dealing with After Effects, commonly used in game companies, was also created at Gyewha Technical College, Geonshin’s alma mater.
Geonshin opened the status window and used a skill. The shining number “5” appeared on his right hand. What more explanation was needed?
‘Right, in the 2002 version, the 3D rendering function is updated. Heh, I’ll show you what real new technology looks like.’
In Geonshin’s pre regression time, presenting architecture like a commercial through this kind of video production was a common scene in the industry.
But for the people in this auditorium watching it now, it was absurd.
And that was only natural, because the “common scene” Geonshin knew was from a time past 2020.
In the early 2000s, video editing technology with this unbelievable level of quality was truly a whole new world.
Even President Park, who had sworn to nitpick no matter what, was no exception.
Director Ham had clearly said there would not be anything special in Yeongjo Architecture’s PPT.
‘Th-this is on a completely different level, even I can see that!’
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