I interviewed Comfortless director Gina Kim at Venice Immersive 2023. See more context in the rough transcript below.
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Rough Transcript
[00:00:05.452] Kent Bye: The Voices of VR Podcast. Hello, my name is Kent Bye and welcome to the Voices of VR podcast. It's a podcast that looks at immersive storytelling, experiential design, and the future of spatial computing. You can support the podcast at patreon.com. So continuing on my series of looking at Venice Immersive 2023, this is episode number 14 out of 35 of that series. as well as the first of two of looking at the context of entertainment, hobbies, sex. Today's episode is about a piece called Comfortless by Gina Kim, and it's looking at this phenomena of comfort women within the context of South Korea. These are essentially sex workers that are officially sanctioned within the context of South Korea, and they're there to service the U.S. military that is there in and around these different military bases. So this is kind of a blend of different types of contextual domains So the first one primarily is around sex and the sex workers But it's also the businesses around that and there's also different dimensions of the government and politics and war colonialism so there's a lot of other deeper contextual domains and primarily this is a piece that is almost entirely told through environmental storytelling there's some text at the very beginning that gives you some overall context but more or less you are going into these different scenes and piecing together what is happening with the different gaps that are there. So I had a chance to talk to Jeannie Kim because this is actually a third in a trilogy of a series of pieces around these comfort women within South Korea. The first one was called Bloodless, which is in Venice in 2017. And then there was Tearless, which was at Venice Immersive 2021, when it was a virtual festival still. And then this year, Comfortless is showing at Venice Immersive 2023. And so it's a continuation of this series. And it's showing you a lot of these different businesses in and around that what is essentially like a theme park Adventure land for these comfort women to be able to attract these different men at these different bars and karaoke places And so you're kind of going into these different spaces and you're you're seeing a lot of empty space There's not anything that's happening there. So you're kind of seeing some of these somewhat abandoned types of businesses But you're hearing the sound design as if it was actually happening and there's a lot of use of using mirrors able to give you a kind of portal into the past for some of the different main characters that you're following throughout the course of this piece and So the primary center of gravity of presence is very much an environmental presence and a lot of environmental storytelling. There's a lot of mental presence of trying to piece together what the narrative is. There's a lot of empty gaps and spaces that you're kind of left to the imagination to fill in because you're hearing a lot of the sound design, but you're not seeing any of the visuals. So you're asked to be able to use your imagination in a lot of different ways. I think overall there's also a lot of emotional presence of just trying to give you a Sense of a vibe of telling the story but in a very sparse environmental way But at the end leaving you with this emotional impact of the larger relational dynamics of the situation The story is being told through the environments that are being shown. So that's what we're covering on today's episode. Otherwise, it's a VR podcast So this interview with Gina happened on Monday September 4th 2023 at Venice immersive in Venice, Italy so with that let's go ahead and Dive right in.
[00:03:15.205] Gina Kim: Hi, my name is Gina Kim, and I am director, producer of a virtual reality film here at Venice titled Comfortless.
[00:03:23.510] Kent Bye: Great. Maybe you could give a bit more context as to your background and your journey into working with VR.
[00:03:28.838] Gina Kim: So I actually have a film background. So I'm a feature filmmaker who made like five feature length films and all that. But then I also am very curious about new media and experimenting on basically new genre, new platform and everything. And then I ventured into the virtual reality world in 2016 when I made my first virtual reality film in 2016 and then 17 titled Bloodless.
[00:03:58.208] Kent Bye: Great. And so in my chat with Liz and Michelle ahead of Venice of 2023, they were telling me that Comfortless is really a third part, a final part of a three-part series. And I had a chance to see the second part in the remote festival season that was also shown at Venice. I missed the first series that you've done here, but maybe you could give a bit more context as to this trilogy that you're telling here, the series of these three 360 video documentary films.
[00:04:23.702] Gina Kim: Right. So we call it U.S. Military Comfort Women Virtual Reality Trilogy. It's kind of mouthy, but then there is no other way to shorten it. So to give you a little bit of background of U.S. Military Comfort Women in South Korea, as some of you are familiar U.S. military personnel is still in Korea since the Korean War, basically. They have been stationed there, and the average number of the U.S. soldiers in South Korea is 27,000, more or less. It fluctuates. And then what's really sad about it is around the U.S. military bases, there are camp towns formulated. Some of them just kind of came about on its own, and some of them were government-sponsored and supported, and it was established as basically a brothel for U.S. military personnel stationed in South Korea. And the three virtual reality films that I made, Bloodless, Tearless, and Comfortless, are about what the women who are working as comfort women, or sex workers, if you will, had to go through in those environments.
[00:05:33.574] Kent Bye: Could you give a bit more context as to how you came across this story?
[00:05:37.977] Gina Kim: Yes, so especially the first piece, Bloodless, is a very, very personal piece for me because, as I mentioned, I'm a feature filmmaker until Bloodless, basically. I was a street activist in Korea in the 90s, and then something very important happened to me personally and also socially for Korean society as well. In 1992, there was a sex worker, home comfort woman, military comfort woman, was really murdered very, very brutally. And then her body was brutally mutilated and abandoned. And then the perpetrator was actually a US soldier, a medic, stationed in Korea. And then a lot of other crimes was happening. The average number of crimes that was committed by US soldiers in Korea back then was eight a day. But then this particular one somehow got a lot of media attention and just became a national protest started. And then as a student activist, I also participated. And before we know it, we were giving flyers and posters to put up on the walls and just kind of give up to civilians on the streets. And I realized that every single flyer had a picture of this mutilated body of the victim. And that felt like something was branded into my heart. It just felt like something was burning into my heart, literally. And then that was a very pivotal moment for my life in a way that it just made me realize that I'm a woman of color who live in this post-colonial society. called South Korea and then on the flyer there are all this like broken English as well like US Yankee go home and this is not fair and then all this like really really broken English and then there was another thing that I realized I am somebody who is being educated and raised in South Korea where English is not the first language. So all these like discourses around colonialism, imperialism, all of that and the fact that I am a woman trapped in Asian female body just made me realize who I was and then immensely sympathize with this woman and also made me feel like the whole thing was flawed because we were sacrificing the victim one more time for the sake of bigger purpose. Namely, we want this to be, I don't know, recognized. There were ideological war and all that, but then I just felt like that was so wrong to use this image. to get to the point and then 25 years later when I was introduced to virtual reality medium I realized that maybe with this particular medium I don't have to exploit the image of the victim or the body or even scandalize the event and I can just take the people to be there in the town where I can actually still go And nothing changed in the town, the camp town itself. And then once you are just kind of there, you feel what this town is about. You don't need a lot of explanation. You just experience a town. And I can ease the audience into the town and ultimately into the emotional volume of what this woman went through.
[00:08:58.573] Kent Bye: Yeah, I could definitely see this type of environmental storytelling, these long durational takes and the ways that you're introducing these women in some of these scenes, especially in your second piece in this trilogy. But before we dive more into this trilogy, I wanted to maybe take a step back into your film work. Because you have a very specific style in 360 video And I'm just wondering if the types of films you make or documentary or if you have this sort of long Durational environmental take and maybe give a bit more context as to your filmmaking and how that may be playing into the 360 video work that you've been making
[00:09:31.698] Gina Kim: Right. I mean, my style, I always joke about my style might be coming from my ignorance about the virtual reality media or lack of technological knowledge or something because I have a film background. And also, even before I became a filmmaker, I was a studio artist. So I did a lot of painting, installation art, then I kind of ease myself into making video art and, you know, documentary films and feature films and studio films. And I just, you know, So that's my story. So I'm just kind of really comfortable with creating tableau, so to speak. I went to CalArts a long time ago and my mentor is James Benning, so I was hugely influenced by his style. So the landscape cinema, that's how people usually label it. And then I just loved The fact that certain style of cinema, in documentary even, there is no such thing as like even voiceover and trying to explain, trying to make you feel something, but just let you be there and immerse yourself in it and just kind of process things on your own. I love that cinematic style to begin with. And then when I was introduced to the world of virtual reality, I realized that this is just truly revolutionary, without exaggeration. Because in cinema, what I was always not happy about was how autocratic it is. So think about it, in 2D cinema, the basic unit of 2D cinema is frame. So when you make a frame, it's like a rectangle. And then when you choose to frame something, you're basically abandoning the rest of the world, which is not very democratic. So what you are filming, what you're showing to the audience, what you choose to show to the audience might be a beautiful butterfly on a flower. But then what's underneath might be that millions of corpses, you know, you don't know. And then I just never really liked that feel of autocratic choices that we are making, because I always question the relationship, the power dynamics between the filmmaker and the audience. What are you showing? What are you choosing to show? And who has the power? Who has the agency and all of that? And then that was just kind of one problem that I had, particularly because I'm a woman of color, born and raised in South Korea, went through a colonial period and all that, and still under a lot of influence in the United States and all that. And then I was very acutely aware of the fact that the world is always divided by, you know, one line, and then there is one group who has more power than the other, and then the one group who has more power traditionally have the resources and finances and voices to make film, to objectify the other. And I just really never really liked it, even as a filmmaker. But then when I was introduced to virtual reality, sure, you still make choices, you still go to places, and that's your choice. But still, compared to 2D cinema, it's a lot more democratic, because you don't really dictate what the audience sees. So it's 360, like literally, and then you don't really know where this audience will look. And a lot of filmmaker friends of mine, they tried VR and then they walked away out of it because they were like, I can't deal with it. There's nothing I can do about it. And then I was like, oh, this is why I love it. Because I love giving them the freedom, the agency back so that they can choose. And I actually made sure that that just becomes my style. So in all of my films, VR films, the audience can choose to look at whatever they want to look. But then still, in the end, it ends up telling a certain story by, sure, change of location, by actually connecting with one spectral figure that shows up in my phone. Because you sympathize with her and you want to follow her. So in a way, there is There's no film, there's no story in my film if you don't connect with her. And I think that's a beautiful thing. There is just something that is happening every time you watch this VR film. It's almost like a performance and I love that. It's in line with experimental theater more so than a very melodramatic film with a lot of scores, sound effect, voiceover, and things like that.
[00:13:54.689] Kent Bye: Yeah, and so what was the VR experience that you saw that inspired you to start to experiment with it more? Can you take me back to some of those early experiences that stuck with you that convinced you to start to play around with the medium?
[00:14:08.153] Gina Kim: So this is another part that I have to confess that ignorance is bliss. My style came from ignorance and just lack of knowledge and, yeah, in a way, like, yeah, brevity in a way that I just didn't know anything, so I just jumped right into it. So the way I was introduced to the world of virtual reality was from academia. So I'm a filmmaker, but also I'm a professor at UCLA in film, TV, and digital media. And I was asked to moderate a panel, a conference, a very big one, international conference at Pusan International Film Festival in Korea on virtual cinema. So I just didn't know anything about virtual reality so I had to ask them to get me all the articles that the presenters will present and you know I had to read books to prepare myself and I just kind of studied and studied without looking at one single VR film because I didn't have any like VR apparatus or gear or anything so I just kind of read a lot but then at some point It almost felt like I was hit by a lightning, like a truly like Eureka moment that, oh my God, this is revolutionary. This is something truly, truly new. This is maybe not even cinema in a way that it is able to take people to places like literally. and I thought that was just incredible. So after I realized that, I was also reminded of the incident that has been haunting me 25 years ago. When it happened, it haunted me and is still haunting me in a way that I wanted to make a feature film about that incident, but I just couldn't come up with the right way to tell the story in the way that I want it to be told. Meaning, I didn't want to exploit the incident, the body, the victim. anything and then whenever I met with producers they were like well Gina like this like first of all you cannot make the victim the body as a main character of your film because this is a thriller and then usually in thriller the convention of 2d cinema is that it's the male detective and the perpetrator in this case rapist murderer who becomes a main lead And then there is like a totally silent, sometimes just dead woman. And that's how it works. And then like you are just kind of getting it all backward. And then I would be like, but that's why I want to retell the story. But then I just couldn't get over the hurdle. But again, like going back to VR, when I studied all these articles, I realized that maybe this is the medium that I can tell the story. So in a way, I started virtual reality only because I was just kind of really obsessed with this issue. And after that, I studied so I watched some I don't know like really really early VR works, but then for me that was good enough I had like this like cardboard Google things and I watched some like New York Times very early video works documentaries and things like that, but then that was more than enough for me to realize what VR was about you know because there was just some exploration of like deep sea water or something like that, ocean world. And then I realized that, oh my god, there's a shark coming towards me. I know that this is not real, but then I'm afraid. And that made me think a lot about what is agency in this world? What is gaze? And when you lose your body, But you have a gaze. It's a very particular type of feeling. And maybe I can actually utilize it in a way that the object, the person who is being featured in the film, will have the same kinds of agency as the viewer and have a pretty even equitable relationship with the storyteller. And that was my goal. And I think it was kind of effective.
[00:18:18.142] Kent Bye: Yeah. Yeah. And can you give a bit more context as to what you're teaching at UCLA?
[00:18:24.014] Gina Kim: Yeah, I teach a lot of different courses. I mean, first of all, I teach a lot of film directing. That's like film directing one-on-one type of courses. But then the courses that I really am engaged in building and teaching is augmented reality course that I taught during the pandemic. So the title of the course itself is visualizing anti-Asian violence during COVID-19. It's a very lengthy title, but then you get the idea. The title was a description of the course. So I invited six beautiful graduate students from all parts of campus. They were so diverse, like School of Music, Sociology, Education, you know, filmmakers, and they just studied the statistics and data and their personal stories of immigration and processed it, digested it, and visualized it. and then made an augmented reality project out of it. And the other course that I teach every year, a course that I created and put a lot of heart into it, is Media for Social Justice. So that is the course title. And it's not just about virtual reality or immersive media. It's everything from TV series, like really big commercial project, experiment with a film, video essay, AR project, anything. Like when I say media, it's like a really, really broad concept. So students are just really encouraged to experiment on finding the right medium for themselves to tell the particular story that they want to tell. And in that course, I teach a lot about ethics of representation, and power dynamics between people behind the cameras, as opposed to people in front of the camera, and that kind of things, and how they change the world, basically.
[00:20:11.058] Kent Bye: OK, well, that helps set a lot of context of the type of social justice themes that are being covered throughout this trilogy that you've had at each of the episodes have shown at Venice Immersive over the years. And so I've seen Comfortless and I saw the previous episode, but I haven't seen the first episode. So maybe you could take me back to where this story begins with what you covered with the first piece of VR that you created on this topic.
[00:20:33.380] Gina Kim: So Bloodless is about a real murder case that happened in 1992. A very young 27-year-old woman, sex worker, was murdered and brutally mutilated by a US soldier stationed in Korea. And that particular murder case got a lot of attention from the media, from all sides. And then a lot of people were involved in creating some sort of ad hoc committee for protests. So there were a lot of human rights lawyers. There were feminists. There were student activists. There were, of course, anti-American activists. And then we all got together and then created and formed some sort of committee and came up with a strategy. And I was just like a freshman in college as a student activist, so I didn't know all the details. But then at some point, I was notified that we are to give out the flyers and posters to the civilians on the streets. And every single poster has the image of the mutilated body. I wanted to delete all the images, all of her images from the world, and then that's still roaming around on internet. And there are not that much I can do, because once it's on internet, once it's on media, it just circulates. But at least philosophically, I wanted to delete those images from the world forever. And Bloodless, my virtual reality film, in a way, is my attempt to do so. So when we were shooting Bloodless, the first thing that we did was to go to the town. And then at first, I thought the town would be completely different because the crime happened in 1992. And then when we were filming and researching, it was 2016. So there are like 25-year gap. And then if you know South Korea, that's like a totally different time frame. So I thought all the buildings, all the clubs, and everything would be gone. But then I was so wrong. The entire town was preserved as if 1992 was like yesterday. So I was really shocked. So at the beginning, I was thinking about just creating a room, finding a room where she was murdered. And my theme was the absence of the body. So if I can bring the audience to the room, and feel the violence without showing the body or any act of violence, but somehow make them feel what happened in this room, not in a sadistic way, but in a way that's very contemplative, that really makes the audience be engaged in this topic, they'll be great. That was my first intention. But then when I went to the town, I realized that, my goodness, I have to preserve this town in a way I can't meaning visually archive it because this is so important. And then when I was located scouting, we were just kind of being chased by drug dealers and, you know, thugs all the time because it's an active camp town. And there are soldiers carrying machine guns. doing patrols every night, and then they actually ended up me on film because they didn't care about my small camera. So when I saw that, my God, I have to rethink everything. So what happened in the end was I started to thinking about her itinerary on the night of the death. So she met the medic, she met the soldier, her perpetrator, at a club called the Crown Club. And then her room, the building where her room was, was about like 150 meters. It's not very far at all. It's like a maybe 15 minute walk at the most. And there are very limited itinerary you can choose from. Crown Club to go to her room. And then, like a mad person, I was just kind of roaming around the town all night long again and again and again with two of my assistants. It was not the safest place to do so, but then we did it because we just wanted to know what this victim went through that night. And there were very little clues that we could find. But then we thought, if we just looked enough, walked the walk, in a way that she did that night maybe there was a clue and at some point I realized that maybe if she was dying alone in the room because she was bled to death maybe at the moment because basically what I wanted to do was to reenact the last moments of her life while she was dying and then of course there is no way to know right what she was thinking what she was feeling so that was why I was like desperately kind of roaming around the town trying to find out what she could have felt and things like that And then at some point I realized that maybe while she was dying alone in the room, being bled to death basically for two hours, she might have been incredibly lonely. So I started to imagine that she was having a really slow death. She was bled to death for two hours or more. We don't know for sure. So at the last minute, maybe like one minute before her actual death, eventual death, she sort of gets up as a figure. Because by that, she's like no longer living, but not dead yet. So she just kind of gets a bit of a spectral figure and just kind of roams around her turf where she would meet clients every night. And then if she connects with somebody, she would want to be with the person to bring the person home with her so that that person, the viewer in this case, can be with her. in the room at the moment of her death. And that was something that I wanted to do for her, if it makes sense. So that became my loose narrative. So my film, my virtual reality film starts with the scenes of the town from the entrance during the daytime, broad daylight. So the viewers don't feel threatened or anything. It's like, wow, this is interesting. Where is it? And then they just kind of slowly realize that, oh my God, there are soldiers. Oh my God, there are like, people, oh, there are women who look like sex workers, and there are soldiers wearing guns, and this is weird. And also the way I change the scene is it starts with wide to narrow roads, so they just kind of feel like they are just going somewhere. But at the same time, they start to notice this woman, or specter figure, kind of, sometimes they lose her, but sometimes she is like very present at some point, so the audience, the viewer, cannot help trying to locate her, but it's not easy. It's elusive. It's VR, so that's something that I took advantage of, right? So she's a very elusive figure, and then she just kind of keeps, I don't know, disappearing from your sight. But then at some point, you only hear her footstep, but then don't actually see her. So at that point, the viewers just kind of go 360 like crazy, trying to locate her. And at some point, she faces you and actually come towards you. and something happens because the connection happens. You lock eyes with her and then the connection happens and then she takes you to the room where she was murdered in 1992. And in a way, nothing happens. There is no act of violence, but then you feel it because there is blood on the floor that keeps coming out. And another thing that I thought was very interesting was that a lot of years they lift their feet when they watch that scene. I thought that's kind of really incredible because they know that it's virtual reality. They know that there is no way that the blood will hit their feet. But then they just kind of lift their feet, which makes me feel like, sure, it's not violence, but then they are just kind of in it together, not participating in violence because they are like totally innocent passerbys. But in a way, they are with her. And at the last minute, like right before the film ends, she comes back. With the footstep, it's only a sound effect and shows up on the mirror, which kind of gave me a clue to make it comfortless.
[00:28:57.336] Kent Bye: Yeah, it's kind of a motif you return to in Comfortless. But that was really helpful. Thank you, because I haven't seen it. And it helps me to understand the overall arc, because in Comfortless, it's the third in the series. You start off with a little bit of context of what we're about to see, and then we are seeing a whole series of images that's pretty sparse in terms of further exploration. You kind of set the context with a few sentences, and then you're kind of off. And my recollection is in the second one, when you have another introductory text, and then you have exploration of, What I remember is sort of like abandoned hospitals or something like that, that you're talking about. And there's a woman on a stairwell smoking a cigarette who is presumably one of the comfort women or former sex workers who is dealing with a lot of things in that context. So maybe you could set the context for the second piece and then we can dive into the third in the trilogy of Comfortless.
[00:29:47.492] Gina Kim: So my second piece of the trilogy is about a medical prison that was established by the South Korean government, as a matter of fact, and supported by the U.S. military. What happened was, in the 1960s and 70s especially, the STD rate amongst U.S. soldiers stationed in Korea was really, really high. It was like up to like 75% and things like that. So they were upset. The U.S. military was upset. And then they asked, they actually demanded the Korean government to do something about it. So instead of trying to do something about it with their soldiers, the Korean government decided that they would start a campaign called Camptown Purification Campaign in Korean. It was 기지춘 정화 운동 사업, which literally means purification campaign of Camptown. So what they did was they made it mandatory for all the U.S. military comfort women to do STD test twice a week. And all the women had to wear number tags on their chest, not on their waist, and not on their back, not anywhere else. It had to be on the chest. And then the number tag, if you flip the number tag, there was the results of the STD test of that week. And then if you're not wearing the number tag, you could be just taken to the medical prison right away. And then the medical prison was established to treat this woman, unfortunately, forcefully. It was against their will most of the time. And then the other sad thing about the medical prison is that if a US soldier just kind of points you, saying that this woman gave me STD, then without even testing, she would be dragged to the medical prison. So it really literally was a medical prison because once you're there, you couldn't go out, you couldn't make a call or anything like that. And now what's also really sad about the prison is the medics there were giving these women a huge dose of penicillin injection, which just far exceeded the recommended dosage. So a lot of women died, and without prior testing. So a lot of women died of penicillin shock, and some women also was really afraid of treatment, witnessing their colleagues' death. So they tried to escape the building and jumped off the building and died on the spot. So all of this happened in the 70s and 80s, but then the amazing thing is that the medical prison was operating until 2004, if you can believe it. And this is the interesting part. The land is private, actually. But then the building doesn't even have an address. It's not registered. Because once it was no longer in operation, nobody claimed it. Nobody can claim it, basically, because does it belong to Korean government? No. Does it belong to US military? No. Is it private? No. So that's what was happening. And because nobody could claim it, it was abandoned. And then when I went there in 2016 for the first time, it was basically just totally a haunted building. And I just couldn't believe that this building still existed after all these years. But then when I did more research and more digging up, I realized that, well, these things can happen only because what happened was so absurd. Like the level of absurdity just kind of exceeds our imagination. And then the other thing that was really absurd was that when I talked to the people, like civilians and neighbors, people who were just kind of having business in the neighborhood, because there is a hiking trail next to it, there are small restaurants and cafes and convenience stores are like that. And I would ask them, do you know anything about the building behind you? And they're like, what building? What are you talking about? And I'm like pointing the building right next to them, like that building right there. And then they're like, oh, what are you talking about? There's nothing there. So that's the level of absurdity that I'm talking about. So it's like, I mean, I felt like, wow, this is almost like a philosophical, ontological crisis going on here, because everybody wants to deny it. And then that just made me feel that I really have to film this, because nobody wants to admit that it's even there, even though there's a standing right in front of the building, because they want to deny it. Some history is like that. Some memories are so repressed that it is so hard to prove that it happened, right? And that was the only thing that I just wanted to do. This happened. This is right here. So that was my intention and I made a virtual reality film there based on the routine that was posted on the wall. So when I first visited there, there still was a daily routine handwritten posted by probably by like a jail guard or something and seven o'clock getting up you know eight o'clock washing up nine o'clock breakfast that kind of thing and treatment education and that that type of things it's like very rigid schedule basically it's a jail it's a prison so and then I basically made a loose narrative from that and positioned my camera from room to room sort of implying what happened in their room so once you're introduced to the room it's like when I filmed it was 2020 so it's like 2020 it's like abandoned haunted looking building But you hear something, like a water drop, and that's actually that ghost's footstep. And then once you hear that, some objects emerge very slowly in the room, and then the light changes, the color changes in the room very, very subtly. So the first room they introduced to is the bunker beds bedroom with like 12 women slept in bunker beds in one room. So that's the bunker bedroom. And then the second room is bathroom. There are toilets and there is shower space, but there are no doors. So you know what this is about. And the third room is the dining hall. And then the fourth room is a treatment room where the woman got treatment every day and examined for STD every day. and then there's like about one hour window of resting area and based on the testimonies a lot of women went to the rooftop to smoke but then also a lot of women jumped during the time and I don't know maybe some survived but then it's just one of those heights that it's low enough to make you feel like you could make it but it's high enough to break your neck if you fall in the wrong direction so in my phone it's implied that a woman jumped and then night falls and then you start to hear a woman crying with the rain and then actually within the building it starts to rain in the building and then you realize that all the footstep sound, which was actually replaced by the water drop sound, was actually woman's teardrops all along. So that is TLS, the virtual reality form of it. But then I also made augmented reality project and extended reality project along with it because at that point I was so committed to visually archive these sites because as we speak this building is being demolished this year finally. So I knew that this is going to happen sooner or later and that I just desperately wanted to archive it in a way that even for future generation people can look up and find the data and with better technology maybe like even build it in front of us virtually. I thought that was so important so we are extremely low budget. This was extremely low-budget film, but then I just kind of bleeded Ventar VR, the company that I work with. Can you just scan the site, please? Because it's going to be so important to archive it for the future generation. And we did that. And with that, we ended up making two augmented reality projects. One is called Augmented Reality Monkey House. Monkey House is the nickname of the medical prison. with which you can actually summon up the exterior of the building. And you can zoom in, zoom out, that kind of thing. It was 3D modeling. And then the second piece was extended reality of Monkey House. And with that, we actually scanned and remodeled and 3D modeled the corridor, the main space, main corridor of the building in one-to-one ratio. So with that, you can actually walk around and walk in the building. Because I thought it was very important for young generation to be able to go in there even after the building is eradicated from the world for good. And then I also recorded sound and added some sound design. and all of that. And the other reason why I made these two augmented reality project is that because of the pandemic. We shot during the pandemic, 2020, September. And then nobody thought that the pandemic would last that long. But then by 2021, I realized that, oh, my God, film festivals are still shutting down. Museums are still not shying away from virtual reality films because you have to put the gear on your face and How am I going to show this? How am I going to talk about it with the audience? And then I was like, OK, if they cannot come to the film festival, they cannot come to the museums, I will come to them. So I made this augmented reality apps, which can be downloaded for free on any mobile devices so that they can have, first of all, monkey house in their cell phone forever if they want to. even though people are eradicating it and denying it. And then second of all, you can summon up the crater of the building and walk in it wherever you are in the world. So that's how I made it.
[00:40:01.820] Kent Bye: Yeah, I remember watching it and there's this kind of haunting, melancholic, sad story. It's interesting to have you recount each of those beats because seeing it over a year ago now, there's just glimmers of a memory of the feeling that I'm left with rather than the specifics. And Comfortless, a piece that I have seen much more recently within this past week, There seems to be the continuation of this theme of the comfort women and exploring more of the actual context of this kind of brothel town, camp town, that we're going into the streets and we're seeing the intersection giving a broader spatial context. But then as we enter into each of these different buildings, we have a mirror that's often there that maybe we see reflection that creates this portal into this past existence of this protagonist who's a sex worker who's going across all these various different scenes but we also have a little bit more sparse sound and eventually you kind of like bring up the sound design of the past and so there's a way of being in the present spatial context but having the immersive sound of the past that you were taking us to imagine all the different gaps so we can Think about a big thriving bar scene or a variety of these different nightclub type of scenes. And then there's a sort of an interchange that happens with one of the sex workers who brings one of the men home and So yeah, I'd love to hear any thoughts for how you because I feel like in your storytelling style it leaves a lot of Ambiguity and the storytelling language where you're setting the context of what's happening at the very beginning with a few lines of text But then the specific moments of the narrative there is a lot of spaciousness for me as a viewer to look around and kind of piece things together and there's a lot of history that's captured within that spatial context and so it's a real in-depth form of environmental storytelling, especially with the audio and the spatialized audio. But the narrative is, again, a little bit of a puzzle to kind of piece together the specifics of that. And I get a sense of what may have happened, but yeah, I'd love to hear how you start to think about constructing this story.
[00:42:02.378] Gina Kim: Yeah, so Comfortless is about American town. That is the official name of the town, American town. So what's so different, what's so special about this particular camp town is that unlike other camp towns, it just kind of didn't grow naturally. I mean, sometimes it's kind of grown naturally around like U.S. camp bases and things like that, but This one was established by more or less a one person and a corporation. So what happened was in 1969, there was a former high rank official in Korea who bought this huge land, about more than two acre land near Kunsan Air Force in Korea. It's an air force base that is really, really big. And then he realized that there was no camp town around this. I'm going to make one because this is a very lucrative business, he realized. So he bought about two acre land and then started building this camp town out of scratch because he's in the middle of like rice field and everything. So it's like a small country town area. It's a countryside, but then he just kind of bought the land and started building restaurant, bars, clubs, sauna, barber shop, like currency exchange, you name it. So it basically became a very isolated, self-sustained city, almost like a theme park, mimicking some, I don't know, like sleepy towns in American town. And then after all of these are built, he also built dorm type of rooms for comfort women and he recruited all this woman from all the country in South Korea and Then used it so that they can use it as brothels. So it was basically like brothel that was Exclusively built for just soldiers stationed in Korea and then he actually established a corporation So the full name of the town is American Town Inc So it is an actual corporation, believe it or not. And then, believe it or not, the corporation still exists. So that's the scary part. So I always knew that I wanted this piece to be the last piece of my trilogy because this is, in my opinion, is the smoking gun that why these women need to be called comfort women instead of just sex workers or prostitutes or anything. Because government was establishing this and supporting this and all of the organizing it. And then I went there, and then I realized that it's unlike any other camptowns that I visited, because it's so isolated. And then I went there during the daytime first, and then because it's kind of like 90% of it is no longer in operation. So it's pretty much abandoned, and also because it's so isolated, it's in the middle of rice field. And I was kind of walking through the town during the broad daytime and I felt like I'm stranded in a very strange theme park. And then because it was basically like a brothel town, more or less, there were a lot of reflective surfaces in the town. Some of them are mirrors and some of them are just kind of dark glasses. And while I was walking through it over and over again, many hours, I just would be like startled by my own shadow and my own reflection. And I kind of started to think about maybe in this piece, the woman Sure, she shows up as a ghost in all of the other pieces, too. But then the woman maybe shows up in the mirror only, kind of like what happens at the end of Bloodless. So that just kind of became the starting point of my thought process. And I started building narrative. And I really wanted to show what one woman goes through. Basically, it was built as one was journeying into the night and the morning. but I wanted it to be pretty subtle. It's like business as usual. This is what she does for a living and then I really wanted to end the film with her daily activity, meaning maybe doing the dishes or raising her kid or doing the laundry or something like that so that we humanize her. She's not just a sexual object. She doesn't exist as this you know, sex organ. That's not the only thing she is. And I just wanted to bring that back to her. So that's why there is just no sexual connotation in any of the things that she does. So the way I introduce the audience, the viewer, to the town is it's just broad daylight. And then it's basically current times. So there is nobody. And there are cats. There are a lot of stray cats in that town. And then as the sun kind of goes down a little bit, you start to notice somebody surfacing in the mirror in one of the abandoned beauty salons. And then you kind of really notice her, but then like she is there. She's in the mirror, sort of Harry Potter style. Nothing else happens. And then as there is time lapse, as the sun sets, you hear her walking out of the beauty parlor and going somewhere, probably a club. and then after that you are in a club abandoned it's like totally abandoned and totally in decay but then every time you hear something you see her in the mirror and then the sound kind of kicks in and then it just becomes full-blown party scene of his heyday in 1980s and 1985 was the year that I thought this sound is being heard to the audience. So what you see there is like a huge gap between what you see and what you hear. So what you see is like 2022 but then what you hear is 1985 so that it can only be implied and I don't have to show any sexual activities or anything explicit, anything that can be an explication of the image of this woman. So she just kind of goes into the club trying to connect with some guys and then after that she helps other soldiers playing pool. There's some party going on and then she goes to a diner finally getting to know some guys more intimately and then they take her to karaoke and she dances barefoot. And then she managed to find a client that she goes home with. And then a lot of guys freaked out in this scene. You are in this very pink room. And believe it or not, that was not art direction. That was not production design. That room was totally pink like that. You're left alone on top of a bed. And then there are two mirrors. And a lot of guys say, I was so afraid that the woman may show up. naked and what does that make me right but that doesn't happen you realize it's actually post-coital and then she's outside washing up so that's her private space and that is something that makes a lot of udens uncomfortable and i thought that was very important like we are here hearing something that we are not supposed to hear for one but this is What she does, this is a very professional act. She washes herself up after the guy leaves, the client leaves. But then what does it make you to be here listening to that? And then after that she walks out and at that point you see her, not in the mirror, but mere presence, sort of. And she comes to you and engages with you. And then the film ends there. I don't want to spoil the entire plot, but there is a level of engagement. She actually talks to you, but she doesn't give you the chance to answer. So with this film, because this is the final piece of my trilogy, I wanted the audience to really think about things, about this issue, not just feel, wow, this is horrible. Wow, that was bad. Oh my God, that's all in the past. No, this is so much in the present because These camps are still existing in Korea, for one. There are still U.S. soldiers stationed in Korea. But then what I'm trying to say is actually a lot bigger than that. It's about human rights. It's about female body. It's about war. It's about colonialism. It's about imperialism. It's about all of that. It's about the power dynamics of the world and what happens when you stand on the wrong side of the power, unfortunately. and what happens you know if that was not your choice right so i just wanted people to really think about it not to the point that you don't have to feel guilty but you have to be engaged you have to be aware you have to be keen on learning, just sort of like a little bit more alert about what's going on in this war, like the Ukraine war right now. Interestingly, when I was there filming, because right now at this point, a lot of women serving U.S. soldiers there are from Russia and the Philippines, unfortunately. It started happening around like 2010 as Korea became more advanced in the economy. So I guess Korea outsourced and there were like a lot of international prostitution ring engaged in this business. So they import these women. And because of that, there was one Russian restaurant, pretty big one actually in that town. And when we were filming, the restaurant was actually running. And then we could hear the radio sound. And I don't speak Russian, so I don't know what the radio broadcast was about, but then later on I realized it was about the missile, it was about the war, and I was like, my goodness, this is just like, it's in the present, it's repeating everywhere in the world, thinking about like all the human trafficking going on in this world today, right now, right? So, ultimately, that became what I was trying to say, not just about the South Korean US military comfort women, because people might be engaged for a moment, but then, like, what is it to me, right? But then it should be a little more than that. So I wanted people to be confronted by her so that they think about who they are in this film, in this context, in this world.
[00:52:45.433] Kent Bye: Yeah, thank you for running through that again with each of your three experiences, because I think with that seed of trying to avoid using the image as an exploitation device, but to use the power of the environment and the sound to be able to get the gist of what's happening without having to show and to occlude those exploitative aspects of that, and to really try to get to the heart of this as a human rights issue. So yeah, and I guess as we start to wrap up, I'm curious what you think the ultimate potential of virtual reality and this type of environmental storytelling and immersive storytelling might be and what it might be able to enable?
[00:53:24.946] Gina Kim: I think this is just one avenue. We are still experimenting and we're still struggling to find out what's going to happen next. But I do believe that the virtual reality and immersive media is a feature of basically any visual art. in a way that we are not able to predict or foresee at this point because it's still infancy of its technology and every year I am faced with new technology and new lingo, new grammar of this technology so I am not an expert. I can't even start to pretend to be an expert in this field. So I do not know. But then I think the fact that the virtual reality and immersive media in general How it is different from the 2D cinema, I think that is the most important point. So what we fail to do in 2D cinema, right? Basically, 2D cinema is all about voyeurism. And that's why we are able to enjoy zombie films and war films. Anything can be a spectacle. Anything can be for your pleasure, right? Because there is so much of distance, psychological distance. between yourself as a viewer and what's going on on screen. So everything becomes entertainment, at least potentially, which creates a lot of ethical problems. And virtual reality, sure, it has its own ethical problems too. But then when you're in virtual reality world, You cannot help freaking out when a bomb explodes right next to you. And even with augmented reality piece, people shudder when they walk in the corridor of monkey house. Knowing that this is not real, they are just kind of looking at the experience from their cell phone, but then they shudder. There is something there, and there is a new potential of I know that empathy is an overused word in this field, but I think it is still relevant. I think it is still important that we focus on what the immersive media is able to do in a way that, you know, 2D cinema failed to do in many, many, many years. We can just kind of build on that, and maybe this is the medium that allows us to connect better with other human beings, generally the others, basically, and also allows us to empathize better with others who are in pain, who are on the wrong side of the power. And I think that is where the media ought to go.
[00:56:05.498] Kent Bye: Awesome. Is there anything else that's left unsaid that you'd like to say to the broader immersive community?
[00:56:13.342] Gina Kim: No. I think I've said it all.
[00:56:17.359] Kent Bye: Awesome. Well, Gina, thanks so much for all the work that you've done in this trilogy. And I can tell that you're really thinking deeply about how to go beyond the limitations of the 2D film and really start to explore the affordances of this medium. And I feel like you're really pushing forward a sort of grammar and a deep philosophy of being in relationship to the larger power dynamics and being aware of the ethics of it all. And yeah, I just think that being taken to these places and sitting with what happened in the context of that place is really quite powerful. And yeah, thanks again for creating this series and for taking the time to help break it all down and share some of your deeper thoughts about it all. So thank you.
[00:56:53.469] Gina Kim: Thank you so much.
[00:56:55.349] Kent Bye: Thanks for listening to this interview from Fitness Immersive 2023. You can go check out the Critics' Roundtable in episode 1305 to get more breakdown in each of these different experiences. And I hope to be posting more information on my Patreon at some point. There's a lot to digest here. I'm going to be giving some presentations here over the next couple of months and tune into my Patreon at patreon.com slash Voices of VR, since there's certainly a lot of digest about the structures and patterns of immersive storytelling, some of the different emerging grammar that we're starting to develop, as well as the underlying patterns of experiential design. So, that's all I have for today, and thanks for listening to the Voices of VR podcast. And again, if you enjoyed the podcast, then please do spread the word, tell your friends, and consider becoming a member of the Patreon. This is a listen-supported podcast, and so I do rely upon donations from people like yourself in order to continue to bring this coverage. So you can become a member and donate today at patreon.com slash voicesofvr. Thanks for listening.
