Jimin Shim

This two-channel video documents a floor sign made of soap and metal slowly melting in water in front of a police station. It explores the demands of gendered self-management and control through material processes of erosion, transformation and depletion, focusing on the uncontrolled relationship between action and material.

Feeling frustrated by the lack of practical solutions for women despite the seriousness of digital sexual crimes, I visualised this feeling through a tool designed to prevent and destroy hidden cameras. The hammer-shaped tool, decorated with a character symbol from a magical girl anime, is disguised as a keyring, mimicking the way hidden-camera crimes conceal themselves within everyday life.

This performance documentation records an act of resistance through destruction, using Moon Crystal Power, an anti-hdden camera tool. Filmed across different cities and countries, the work follows private and public spaces where hidden-camera footage is produced, tracing the methods and traces of such illicit filming. By mimicking the format of such content while deliberately creating confusion and repeatedly disrupting immersion, the work emphasises a simple fact:

“We are not guilty.”

“Dress neatly, do not go out late at night, always smile, and be kind.”

This series reconstructs familiar public warning signs through contrasting materials such as soap, plaster, silicone, wax and metal. By connecting the language of everyday ‘caution’ and behavioural norms with the form of floor signs, the work explores how the language of safety, which asks women to protect and manage themselves, can function as a mechanism of regulation and responsibility.