108

Sound video installation, Max/MSP, 2010

​​

The works of the South Korean artist and video maker Hee Won Lee Lee demonstrate a rare power of fascination. Whether it is an installation (such as the piece entitled “108”), the sharp relevance of her aesthetic language and technological means always serves a poetic dimension that makes one forget any production process, allowing the work to stand out both in its obviousness and in its enigma. Seldom among the creations of artists of her generation can one find, as in Hee Won Lee’s works, such an impression of precision and novelty, free from the gratuitousness or decorative aspect that so often weaken the use of contemporary image techniques. In Hee Won Lee’s works, there is both necessity and grace.

_Alain Fleischer(Artist, writer, director of Le Fresnoy — National Studio of Contemporary Arts)

​

The sounds of 108 music boxes linked to each symbol (letter) in the text fracture its readability. The texts, carrying ‘abandoned’ memories, do not seek to be read but to be shared through the body and felt sensorially. _Sara Oh(Curator)

​

​

When I finally saw the installation 108, I was once again captivated by the precise rigor and subtlety of HeeWon Lee’s creation.108 unfolds on multiple levels, but these levels seem strangely disconnected. The purist sculpture of the screen and the box is once again inhabited by a swarm — this time a swarm of sounds and letters drifting across the screen. The movement of the matrix of tiny music boxes, and in turn the flow of letters and sounds through the air, is not the result of any interactivity.
Whatever sets it in motion, it is not the viewer. The absence of interactivity in 108 frees the viewer from always following the same path — trying to grasp the secret of a work by physically or playfully manipulating it. This “secret” is often misunderstood as “figuring out how it works”. But this “how it works” — so popular on media art fair panels — has nothing to do with art. Statements from children living under harsh conditions appear line by line on the screen — sentences formed by letters that rise gently, as if released by toy-like music boxes.

These statements are modest and quiet. They do not scream to shock; instead, they remain poetic, like the work itself.
Yet the beauty and gentleness that draw us into 108 lead us onto thin ice. As we read, watch and listen, we might, for a fleeting moment, glimpse how distant we are — and compared to the world within these lines, how deeply they echo. Some of these sentences may belong to children who may have already vanished by the time we stand here with a glass of red wine, wandering, pondering, evaluating…

HeeWon Lee’s work is sober and meticulous. It is gentle, almost silent. It is pure, profound and enigmatic. _Ulf Langheinrich(Artist)

​

​

Extract text
I HAVE NEVER KNOWN PARENTS. I HAVE NEVER SEEN THEM. I KNOW ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. (G.E)
OFFICIALLY, I AM BORN OF UNKNOWN FATHER AND OF A MOTHER WHO HAD ABANDONED ME. (G.M)
I EXISTED FOR NOBODY. NEITHER FOR THOSE WHO HAD GIVEN ME BIRTH, NOR FOR THE STATE OF VAUD, FOR ANYONE. WHAT IS LEFT FROM THIS PERIOD OF MY LIFE IS A COMPLETE SOLITUDE, A COMPLETE ABANDONMENT. (G.M)
BUT HERE WE ARE, PEOPLE WERE VERY RUDE. WE WERE NOT ONE OF THEM. I REMEMBER WHEN I WAS NOT ADOPTED BY THESE PEOPLE, THEY SAID TO ME; BUT YOU ARE NOT OF MY BLOOD! YOU CANNOT CLAIM THAT! I DID NOT ASK FOR IT. I BELONGED WITH NO ONE. (G.M)
AN ORPHAN, IT IS A FLOWER WHICH INCESSANTLY FADES, THAT CRIES, A FLOWER WITH TEARS. (J.-L.C)

​

​

Credit

Conceived and Directed by HeeWon Lee 

Computer Programming by Baptiste de La Gorce

Technical & Electrical by  François Bras, Interface Z

Text – Interview excerpts from the book “Enfance Sacrifiée”. Témoignages d’enfants placés entre 1930 et 1970” by Geneviève Heller, Peter and Cécile Avvanzino Lacharme, published in 2005 in the Journal of the EESP.“

Enfance Sacrifiée. book. pdf” ​

​

Production Le Fresnoy – Studio National des Arts Contemporains

Co-production Khiasma

© Le Fresnoy – Studio National des Arts Contemporains