Artist's Note
The corridor of the prisoner section of the former Gwangju Prison was recreated in a 3D VR image. The traces of those who once occupied the space were reconstructed in a sound script as a medium, using objects left behind there, such as calendars, desks, and old audio machines.
'Any-Space-Whatever' does not simply refer to a physical place, but a conceptual and transcendental space where emotional influence is achieved through the events that took place there, the experiences and feelings of the people who were there, and the messages they convey.
The characteristics of the VR medium make the time in the work, which is experienced through a head mounted display. This creates the sense of presence: the audience can feel as if they were directly in the space, always in the present tense. There is a calendar from October 2015, when the prison was relocated, permanently freezing time there to the moment when the last people left.
I hope the audience will walk into the corridor, where the prisoners themselves have long since gone, but traces of them and the time remain. Visitors should enjoy the displayed work in the medium of the sound flowing in the space, and freely imagine the stories of those who once stayed there, to thus have the complete experience of the work.
The entire 360-degree space is captured in VR. The only things that cannot be recreated are the people who were there. Through their perspective, we would like to share our concerns about how to protect individual autonomy in today’s surveillance society where we are defined more by data than physical bodies and invisible surveillance surrounds us.