poster, Her, 2003; courtesy of Artist

Her is a fictional video-essay by a Korean male (him), in an imaginary relationship with an American female (her), under a pre-traumatic stress before a war that has not taken place. Her, a video-roman on war that does not talk about war, hollows out the subject by focusing on places and events outside of war that exist simultaneously with war. The question of inter-subjectivity and co-existence is explored by casting two video-makers (a male and a female) in a real relationship to be the characters, actors, narrators, cameramen, interviewers, interviewed, and editors. Through this device, the boundaries are blurred between fiction and non-fiction; male and female perspectives; subject and the objects around it. Visiting Seoul, Hawaii, and Boston, they are subjects when they confess to the camera, objects when they shoot each other, and fictional bodies when they perform for the camera. The multiplicity embodied by the interaction between these two characters attests to their task of understanding two words that are equally incommensurable: war and love.