Flowing Violence: meet me at the water, immersive video installation
흐르는 폭력: 물에서 만나요, 몰입형 비디오 설치
3-channel video (4K color, stereo), 9’ 09”, Dec 2024
<흐르는 폭력 Flowing Violence>은 한국계 미국인 시인 김경희와의 협업으로 제작된 멀티센서리(multi-sensory) 설치 작업이다. 시간과 국경을 초월하는 전지구적 물의 흐름과 연결되어 함께 흐르는 폭력을 다룬다. 한국전쟁 학살 희생자들을 태운 재, 한강에 갓난 아기와 투신하려던 할머니의 피눈물, 그리고 현재 이루어지는 폭력의 현장에서 흐르는 모든 잔여물들이 흘러 ‘우리’의 몸에 닿는 순간을 상상하도록 이끈다.
Flowing Violence (2024) is a multimedia installation made in collaboration with Korean American poet Kyunghee Kim. It invites the audience to imagine how silenced violence may flow with water, reaching the land and the bodies we live in, transcending borders and time.
The average speed of water molecules is around hundred meters per second in an open space. We are 70 percent water and about 98 percent of all the atoms in our body are replaced every year. We are in constant flow. The flow of water, the flow of life, the flow of history, and maybe, the flow of violence.
the blood and ashes of a few hundred civilian refugees, who were massacred by American
armies under the No Gun Ri Bridge during the Korean War,
and ‘the tears of blood’ (피눈물) that my grandmother shed, while dragging her two babies to Han River to commit family suicide after the war,
and more
and ‘the tears of blood’ (피눈물) that my grandmother shed, while dragging her two babies to Han River to commit family suicide after the war,
and more
might have been dissolved into the water,
flowing from there to here, from then to now,
taken into our bodies, haunting us,
saying,
meet me at the water
I am here,
all along
with us, before us,
in us*
I am here,
all along
with us, before us,
in us*
A video component of the installation is a 3-channel video, meet me at the water (2024), of which title is borrowed from the title of Kim’s poem written for the video. The video consists of distinct perspectives: high-angle shots and underwater shots of the Huron River near the artist’s residence. These represent two views: one of humans living their everyday lives, and the other of violence, which may flow beneath the surface—quietly but constantly. The seemingly peaceful river carries faint, almost invisible traces of blood and ashes. As the voice in the video whispers and recites a poem revealing American imperialist violence in Asia, the camera begins to travel underwater, where the blood and ashes visibly mingle and dissolve into the river’s flow. The video invites the audience to feel submerged, flowing alongside these particles, and to connect with a silenced tragedy carried by the water.
*an excerpt of the poem, meet me at the water (2024)
Full Work Statement (ENG) ︎︎︎
Read the poem (ENG, KOR) ︎︎︎
Directed
by Okyoung Noh
Poem by Kyunghee Kim
Filmed by Okyoung Noh, Ben Zink
Edited by Okyoung Noh
Music by Chien-An Yuan
Installation advised by Joe Rohrer
Voice by Kyunghee Kim, Leah Crosby, Okyoung Noh
Poem by Kyunghee Kim
Filmed by Okyoung Noh, Ben Zink
Edited by Okyoung Noh
Music by Chien-An Yuan
Installation advised by Joe Rohrer
Voice by Kyunghee Kim, Leah Crosby, Okyoung Noh