Yelim Ki

“The Cell" is an exploration of divine communication and technological immersion within the framework of contemporary media landscapes. It is a film installation that examines the parallels between how glossolalia forms speech-like fluency and how screen technologies infiltrate our consciousness. The work reveals the uncomfortable similarities in how religious authority and digital capitalism both demand our unconscious submission.

Through the cinematic space design, incorporating sound-reactive lighting and multiple screens, I present my interpretations of divine and systematic absorption within human disciplinary structures. As Crary notes, "being 'spellbound' in front of the cinematograph was both to be subsumed into a collectivity and to be separated from it in an immersive isolation." The installation features an automated montage between actors portraying an Amish carpenter and an angel, and 3D-modeled digital images reconstructing them. Accompanied by programmed lighting synchronized with the video, Morton Feldman's piano piece is performed on six slightly detuned pianos. The exhibition architecture—a claustrophobic chamber with privacy glass windows—invites viewers to contemplate their relationship with immersive technology, given the work as a perceptual tool to remind our bodies and minds structurally engaged in our present moment of losing self.