Persona-L is a team of three documentary directors who produce a personal documentary originating from their individual stories. All members, Ahrum Nam, Youngmi Lee and Hanna Jo are studying in the Department of Broadcasting from the School of Film, TV&Multimedia at the Korea National University of Arts. Though the team title, Persona-L, was derived from the “Personal” in “Personal Documentary,” it implies the team’s ambition to expand personas into a range of stories, moving beyond the narrow definition of the word “personal.” The team is making new attempts to break away from the established documentary production and practicing various artistic methods that can lead to “personal documentary discourse.” Through the work that combines augmented reality (AR) and media installation, <Persona Processing>, a convergence experiment was carried out to explore new possibilities of “the first-person personal documentary.”

<Persona Processing> 

“Processing” refers to the process of treating the film exposed to light, thereby revealing the latent image that was taken but is not visible, and fixing it permanently. <Persona Processing> is a project, which is 1) <Importing> the facets of an individual who was a member of society, 2) <Editing> from a creative perspective on society, and 3) <Exporting> the autoethnography video works as social discourse.

The three processes are organically linked to each other and show how three female directors build a documentary world with their own stories. This is the artist’s internal and external struggle to protect the meaning and justification of personal works, which are considered “insignificant and worthless,” in an era where anyone can take pictures of themselves. Furthermore, it asks the question of how women’s personal records are created and evaluated as work in a new cultural and technological environment. <Persona Processing> contains a message that encourages the formation of a persona as the courage to bring out various stories inherent in oneself, not being formed by someone else’s standards.

1. <Importing> 

(single channel video / 1920*1080 / sound (stereo) / 2021)

Videos and self-videos from 1995 to 2021, shot by three female directors born in the 1990s. Being born and raised in other regions, they are familiar with videos as the generation that has lived with the development of film, digital cameras, mobile phones, and artificial intelligence. They represent common behavior aspects of the era by capturing, editing, and sharing their images as video files.

2.  <Editing> 

(AR mixed media / variable size / sound (stereo) / 2021)

The three female directors presented their first personal documentaries at a film festival and were recognized as artists. Through AR (augmented reality), viewers can experience the fragments of the documentaries by the three female directors, which were recognized as “movies” and screened in the public space of a theater. AR contents created as significant markers displayed in frames are viewed through smart phones and tablets, which are the most personal media of individuals. This work raises the question of what kind of personal records can be expanded into documentaries and could be called documentary “works.”

3. <Exporting> 

(3 channel video / sound(stereo) / 2021)

In the old days, taking pictures of oneself was not a common thing. Making an appearance on television was also considered to be a power. However, entering the YouTube era, we have a persona that is skillful at filming and revealing ourselves. When one persona on the TV unites with the other persona standing behind the camera, we get to experience transmitting the hidden stories in our hundreds of personas.