Experiencing Interruptions?

5.25m²

In 2015, the artist was sentenced to 18 months in prison for objecting to Korea’s mandatory military service. After three months of imprisonment at the Seoul Detention Center, he was transferred to the Tongyeong Detention Center, far away from his home. He came out as a queer which left him in solitary confinement, isolated away from other male prisoners 13 months until his parole in 2016. Being more strictly controlled than ordinary inmates, a prisoner in solitary confinement spends every second alone and faces a sense of isolation when waking up in the morning, exercising, eating, and sleeping, in an environment where contact with others is completely prohibited. Although it is well known how walled-off and authoritative correctional facilities are and how inhumane solitary confinement could be, chances for ordinary people to visit or experience prisons are very rare. 5.25㎡ invites viewers to a virtual cell the same size as an actual solitary confinement cell, which is 1.5m wide x 3.5m long, and allows viewers to experience a prisoner’s time and space. There, we encounter a figure of a prisoner wandering like a ghost and hear the voice of the artist reading a letter to a friend who is serving in the military.

  • Kyungmook Kim
    Director
  • Nakyong Yoon
    Producer
  • Kyungmook Kim
    Key Cast
  • Inseon Kang
    Lead Artists
  • Jungsu Kang
    Lead Artists
  • Taehyoung Kim
    Key Collaborators
  • Project Type:
    Virtual Reality, Installation, Interactive Film
  • Runtime:
    18 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    July 7, 2022
  • Production Budget:
    60,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Korea, Republic of
  • Language:
    English, Korean
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival
    Bucheon
    Korea, Republic of
    July 7, 2022
    Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival
    Beyond Reality (XR)
Distribution Information
  • Mook Pictures
    Distributor
    Country: Korea, Republic of
    Rights: All Rights
Director Biography - Kyungmook Kim

Kyungmook Kim (b. in Busan, 1985) is a filmmaker, media artist, and educator based in Seoul. Ranging from video arts to documentaries and narrative films, their works explore the precarity of marginalized individuals such as queer individuals, sex workers, North Korean defectors, and prisoners. They began working as a columnist for several publications since 2001 and served on the editorial board of the independent film magazine “Independent Film” (2006-2007), as well as a committee member of the Association of Korean Independent Film and Video (2011-2012).

Their directorial debut was with “Me and Doll-playing” (2004) at the age of nineteen. Since then, they have engaged in various forms of cinema, including the ‘Things Trilogy’ consisting of “Faceless Things” (2005), “Stateless Things” (2011), and “Futureless Things” (2014). Their most recent works include the VR installation, “5.25m²” (2022). These films have been invited to and received awards at numerous international film festivals such as the Venice International Film Festival, the International Film Festival Rotterdam, the BFI London Film Festival, the Museum of Modern Art, and the New Museum, among others. Additionally, their works have been the subject of retrospectives at the Black Movie Film Festival (Switzerland, 2013), the Taipei Film Festival (Taiwan, 2012), and the Festival du Film Coréen à Paris (France, 2012), the Indie Space (South Korea, 2016).

In 2015, they objected to the mandatory military service following their belief in pacifism, resulting in an eighteen-month in prison. They were paroled in 2016 after one year and three months of imprisonment in solitary confinement. In 2018, they studied new media in FVNMA (MFA) at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and had their first solo show titled “Quarantine” at Post Territory Ujeongguk in 2021, using the medium of VR and game engine. They are currently pursuing a major in Visual Arts (DFA) at Yonsei University’s Graduate School of Communication & Arts and working on a feature film, “You and Our Millennium” (working title).

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Director Statement

Contrary to general knowledge, solitary confinement does not just mean imprisonment in a cramped space of 5.25㎡. Prison is an institution of a legally binding oppressive order in which discipline and subsequent obedience are the top priority. It is mandatory to wake up at 6am and go to bed at 9pm. There are roll-calls twice a day, and inmates cannot lie down in the room except during bedtime. Even in the middle of the summer, inmates cannot take off the prison uniform, and it is against the rules to exercise in a room, sit on a cushion because your butt hurts, or stay standing without a specified reason. At the same time, solitary confinement induces an inner and meditative life due to its peculiarities. Staying solitary for a long time, a prisoner lives in a mental space, not in a physical space. It is a kind of a meditative state, where the body is in a physical space, but the mind resides in an inner world. As revealed in many books about imprisonment, prisons allow deep self-examination and self-discipline. At that time, I also tried to find peace and tranquility in a place of surveillance and punishment by residing in my own imaginary space through writing, reading, meditating, and dreaming. Solitary Confinement, which was a traumatic experience, now only remains in past memories and is a place that can no longer be visited. I chose VR as a medium to summon the space that had lost its physical entity in the present. Because the time in solitary confinement became a state of non-existence, it became a virtual space to me. In addition, because one experiences VR alone, it was the most suitable medium for revealing the environment of solitary confinement.