RE: Search Request… (2015) is a two channel video that documents my twin sister’s search for our biological mother. The videos are synchronized and play adjacent to each other. RE: Search Request interweaves: the internet, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s notes for her incomplete film, White Dust From Mongolia, integrated media, and the out of map[1] roaming within the video game Homefront.[2] These references allude to moments where my experience aligns within a larger historical context.
[1] Out of map is a general term used to describe glitches within any game that allow the player to escape the bounds of the virtual playable landscape.
[2] Homefront (2010) is a first person shooter set in a dystopic America. In this game, North and South Korea have reunified under Kim Jong-un, forming the Greater Korean Republic (GKR). Your objective, as player, is to aid the resistance efforts of other Americans. (i.e. kill Korean soldiers)
Simulation: Haenyeo (2016) is a three channel interactive video installation. The project features computer-generated waves projected onto three clear acrylic sheets. Each ‘screen’ is mounted with a webcam. These webcams are programmed to recognize faces, and the videos will only play if a viewer is looking at the screen. If one turns their head to another screen the video that they were previously watching will pause and the other will play. Similarly, if the viewer leaves the videos will pause. The viewer emulates the sort of exchange I had sought when I went to see the Haenyeo.
The three videos relay three different narratives: my personal experience visiting the Haenyeo[1], the war fraught history Jeju island, home of the Haenyeo, Ieodo, (a submerged island thought of as an underwater utopia), in addition the video talks about a woman who has been dreaming of the Haenyeo, and travels to Jeju seeking resolution.
[1] The Haenyeo are female free divers. The Haenyeo are the only matriarchal society within the heavily patriarchal country of Korea.
