He graduated from the Department of Geography at Seoul National University and obtained his master’s and doctoral degrees in photography and visual studies at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris, France. He has taught photography aesthetics, the relationship between photography and contemporary art, visual aesthetics, media aesthetics, and art theory at Joongbu University, Yonsei University, and Hongik University. He currently serves as an associate professor in the Department of Aesthetics at the College of Humanities, Seoul National University. His authored works include Roland Barthes, The Bright Room (2018) and The Two Faces of Documentary Photography (co-authored, 2012). His articles include “Roland Barthes’s ‘It-was-there-ness,’ Surprise, Madness” (2017), “Reconsidering Roland Barthes’s Reception Theory of Photography” (2016), “Vilém Flusser’s Media Aesthetics: Technical Images and Photography” (2015), “Vilém Flusser’s Reception Theory of Photography and Technical Images” (2015), and “Roland Barthes’s Dark Room: The Specificity of Photography” (2010).