More than a hundred thousand times

Alexander Ugay made this video while working in a factory in Korea—a new and challenging experience for him. This practice enabled him to feel both the alienation and moments of understanding and mastery that come through repetition. In such instances of complete physical and emotional immersion, a person’s consciousness can wander far beyond the confines of the factory. It presents a paradoxical situation of meaninglessness on the one hand and heightened awareness on the other. It feels very much like standing on the edge of an existential abyss, beyond which there is either nothing—or freedom. In the video, migrant workers from post-Soviet countries demonstrate the motions of their work process. Their memorized movements, displaced from the factory setting, evoke the impact of labor on the life and imagination of the Koryoin* community.