Accidental Survivor, FHD video, sound, mike, speaker, platform, prompter, 2016/2018
Accidental Survivor presents the video documentation of performing a script culled from a number of Post-it notes that memorialize a female murder victim in response to the incident commonly known as 'Gangnam murder case' occurred near to Gangnam Station, Seoul, in 2016.*
Focusing mostly on the messages that speak of the participants' own experiences of having 'survived' in relation to another woman's death, the performance is delivered through the voice of a performer who has recently migrated to Korea. In the video documentation, as the source material of the recitation is revealed to be from the scrolling text of a teleprompter, the perceivable differences and awkwardness in the speaker's delivery reveals a process of one's relation to the text — as one that identifies with and yet distances oneself from the original authors of the Post-it notes. Through this relational structure the work expands beyond the subject of the collective identity and authorial voice of Korean women and speaks for survivors in other power structures and relations.
Along with the video, a platform set up with a prompter synchronized with the video, mike, and speaker invites audience members to speak up.
*After the incident, the wall of exit 10 at Gangnam Station was covered with Post-it notes expressing mourning and sympathy and has become a symbolic site for South Korean feminism.
Production Credit
Artist: Jeong Ahram
Performer: Li Shu
Source material: individual post-it notes documented in the book, “1004 post-it Notes, Gangam Station Exit 10” (Seoul: Wood Pencil Books, 2016) by The Kyunghyang Daily News.