Ambling into a U.S. Army Recruiting office last spring, international student Myung-Soo Kim found himself nervous as he approached a football-wielding officer.
He was nervous not because of the letter he had received from the U.S. military informing him he was registered for service, but because of the hidden camera tucked inside his jacket.
The ASU intermedia art senior decided to turn an administrative error into an expression of his experience in the U.S.
“I know I don’t even have a green card, and I’m sure I don’t have citizenship so it is impossible for me to be enlisted,” Kim said.
The footage he shot of his interaction with the officers is the centerpiece of his short film “The Recruiting Center,” part of a video exhibit showing in Miami through Sunday.
Kim is one of two ASU students featured in “I’m Keeping An Eye On You,” a collection of 10 short films by artists around the country, part of the ASU Art Museum’s Moving Target initiative.
The project was organized by museum curator John Spiak and debuted Wednesday at the Aqua Art Miami art fair, one of the world’s largest international art fairs that boasts more than 200 exhibits each year.
“The fact we are here in Miami is huge for us,” Spiak said. “I think it will open up a lot of international collaborative opportunities for the future.”
Although the videos vary in content, they relate to the museum’s Moving Targets Initiative, which encourages the expansion of new media in the arts, including video.
Spiak said the videos in “I’m Keeping An Eye On You” all portray an overall theme of human observation and how our observations help to form stereotypes of different people and cultures.
He watched more than 1,200 video entries before narrowing it down to the final 10. He said he chose Kim’s work because he felt it was “absolutely perfect” for the project.
“I love to support emerging artists, especially ASU students, so I of course wanted to help [Kim],” Spiak said.
Kim’s five-minute film shows the viewpoints of international students and how they are often misunderstood in the U.S.
“Try to know them,” Kim said. “Try to diverse their knowledge and their understandings of American society.”
Kim, born and raised in Korea, was inspired to make the film when he discovered many other international students had also gotten the same military letter and were confused.
“I was sure it was a kind of error, but if they could give me a chance to get into the U.S. Army, I would be glad,” he said.
Also featured in Aqua Art Miami is freshman Derek Kaufman, who appears in “The Interrogation,” a film directed by Los Angeles-based director Michael Mohan. The bioengineering student plays a troublemaker high school student who is being questioned by school authorities.
“It was interesting because it is pretty much not at all what I am, so I had to act completely different,” he said.
Kaufman acted in the film while he was a junior at a Los Angeles high school. A still shot from the film serves as the entire project’s main promotional image, which shows a young, shaggy-haired Kaufman
“I didn’t really think it would go this far,” he said. “I thought this was just another project. It’s amazing how far something can go when you don’t expect it.”
Spiak chose Mohan’s film for the project without knowing Kaufman was an ASU student.
“It was just a nice, happy coincidence that he was a freshman at ASU,” Spiak said.
After completing its run in Miami, the exhibit will display at the ASU Art Museum in August 2009.
Reach the reporter at wclark4@asu.edu.
