CIRCLING OF LIFE

This fictional narrative video deals with changes in labor through the protagonist, who reincarnates into a human and tree.

The protagonist is a factory worker in South Korea in the 1970s. She suffers from extremely harsh work environments. She struggles against such environments. During the process, she dies. After death, the protagonist became a tree. In 2020, she is born again as a human. The place is above clouds. She works for a platform company Circle Time in 2020. The company works 24 hours a day to create a perfect circle. In Circle Time, 24Hour Service provides 24 hours awake human intelligence rental service. Free-Time Service provides services that lend human attention during free time. When the protagonist works, trees grow on clouds. When she grows the trees all over the clouds, she could be a real tree again.

The video deals with changes in labor from past to present platform labor through the protagonist, who is a factory worker in the 1970s and is a platform worker now. The video asks whether the form of labor has evolved as technology advances. The video also contains the history of South Korean labor that has developed rapidly in the 1970s based on the manual labor of workers and an inexpensive workforce.

The protagonist, who reincarnates as a tree and a human, shows conflicts between different definitions of a human being. In traditional Asian cultures, humans are defined as part of nature, but today humans are used as components of technocratic society. The protagonist who is a tree and a human is portrayed as an existence who is a part of ecology with life, and beyond tools consumed in the labor system. It also explores the potentials of a non-human being.

The video uses material from the musical Light of a Factory created by the South Korean labor movement in the 1970s. The video shows the world above clouds, made in 3D rendering. My previous work, the website Circle Time (2019), is also used as a material.