lost | born in translation
Directed, written, filmed, performed, translated, edited by C. Ryu
2022-2023
all imagery was produced by the Axis Q-19 thermal surveillance camera series
24:49 Minutes
1. 생존 Survival - mistranslated to Birth Zone
2. 원귀 Vengeful Ghost - mistranslated to Vengeful Ear
3. 가위눌림 Sleep Paralysis - mistranslated to Scissors that Press
Sound: Pansori (Korean traditional opera) performed by my deceased grandmother 임도순 Lim Do Soon in 1980s-1990s played from a tape player in Chapter Two.
Thermal camera provided by the Frank Ratchye Studio for Creative Inquiry.
lost | born in translation (left) & Time Liver (right) multimedia installation at the Miller Institute for Contemporary Art in Pittsburgh, PA; Photo Credit to Tom Little; 2023
PART ILLUSION SHOW
PART COUNTER FICTION
PART REBIRTH
Performing for the lens, Ryu uses a thermal camera to document her body losing and gaining body heat that are considered shameful in the context of contemporary Korean culture – menstruation, cisgender female narcissism, nudity. Her footage produced by surveillance technology serves as a metaphorical resistance to the violent perspectives of patriarchy that has oppressed the contemporary Korean-American femme. All footage is completely filmed through the Axis Q-19 thermal surveillance camera series. There was no CG manipulation involved in this production. All imagery was made through an understanding of how heat is visualized through the machine and creating illusions that seem to defy the logic of reality.
The film is composed of three separate but related film chapters, each containing a different narrator. These narrators are voices that have been silenced in migrational and national history from personal oral histories to matriarchal mythologies. From tracing | translating the forgotten mythology of the 대모 Mother of all <MAGO 마고> to implicating Ryu’s own matriarchal lineage in cycles of patriarchy, to crafting a spell for multiplicity to exist for the diaspora in the present, Ryu uses this film as a way to amplify the feminist versions of history while being critical of the nostalgia and romanticization that surrounds diaspora storytelling.
If you would like to see the film, email c.ryu.portal@gmail.com
