Double Reflection: Seoul (Excerpt)

Multi-channel video installation  |  six HD videos, silent, loop (32″ LED monitor and Mac Mini), one HD video, sound, loop (40″ LED monitor and USB) | 8.5 x 6.17 x 3 m (27 x 20 x 9 ft) | 2013

To view the full interview, click here.
To view a shorter excerpt from the video and read the statement in Korean, click here. 

Double Reflection: Seoul is a multi-channel video installation that features six foreign nationals who resided in Seoul in 2013 along with one Korean who was recorded alongside his Russian girlfriend. In South Korea, racism and microaggression today has become subtle and may appear as certain types of gazes and facial expressions, which range from demeaning, judgmental, and suspicious to astonished; these stares tend to follow a person and last longer than accidental eye contact. Staged as direct documentations, each silent video is a reenactment of participants’ experiences being stared at in public places in Seoul and is presented on a separate LED monitor. Arranged as a maze-like, narrow, dark passageway, Double Reflection: Seoul controls viewers’ movement and creates a confrontational space that makes it difficult for viewers to avoid “contact” with the participants in the videos, who replay and return their experiences as spectacle to the Korean public. At the exit of the passageway, I present a video of the initial research interviews with the participants.