3D Animated Film · 3 min 16 sec · 2026

A body moves through different layers of reality as its fixed image of self begins to break down and re-form. Sinthosis approaches identity not as something stable or complete, but as a state in continuous transformation.

The title Sinthosis combines Lacan’s “sinthome” with “morphosis”, meaning transformation. The film follows a body moving through the Imaginary, Symbolic and Real in Lacanian psychoanalytic theory. Its movement is influenced by Butoh, a Japanese avant-garde performance form that approaches the body as mutable rather than fixed. Smooth digital skin, flesh-like organic forms and metallic structures create tension between controlled appearance and the instability beneath it. Here, distortion and imperfection are treated not as flaws, but as material for another way of existing.

 

I. Control

The gallery is conceived as a controlled image-space, where the body and organic forms are presented almost as exhibited objects. The neutral environment and metallic support structures attempt to hold and organise the body and matter, while the organic forms already begin to sag, distort and escape that order. Control and instability are made to coexist within the same image.

II. Rupture

The curtain acts as a threshold between the controlled image and a more unstable, internal state. Beyond it, the wasteland uses skeletal forms and a desolate landscape to expose vulnerability and discomfort concealed behind a finished exterior. Butoh-influenced slow and unconventional movement allows suppressed inner states to surface through the body. What was contained beneath the exterior begins to emerge physically.

III. Mediation

Chroma key, camera calibration and 3D scanning are used as systems that measure, define and reconstruct the body and reality according to fixed standards. Within this space, the body no longer exists entirely on its own terms, but is interpreted and organised through external rules and codes. The collision between the two bodies marks a direct confrontation between a prescribed image of the self and the body attempting to move beyond it. The body is confronted with the systems that define what it is supposed to be.

IV. Becoming

The film returns to the gallery from the opening, but the space is no longer in the same state. The image of the self, initially fixed and displayed, is now melting and unable to maintain a stable form. The body approaches this collapsed image again, and through the final act of licking, makes direct contact with what is uncomfortable and unfamiliar. Rather than removing or overcoming it, this contact reconfigures it as part of a new self.

Role
Concept & Direction, 3D, Animation, Compositing, Editing & Color, Sound Design — Kisoo Jung

Collaborators
Costume Design — Seho Kim
Narration — Red Hill

Tools
Cinema 4D, Octane, X-Particles, Substance 3D Painter, Photoshop, After Effects, DaVinci Resolve, Ableton Live