PHONE TAPPING

Single-channel video, 3d compositing, 10min 20s, 2009​
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Within the secretive, private murmurs of urban folktales drifting through a dreamlike night, artificial lights illuminating the hyper-modern city slip back toward their primal source. Long ago, it was said that the night belonged to the dead — their day unfolding in our darkness. _Oh SaRa (Curator)​

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It was subtitled in French. I don’t speak French. Thus, my encounter and focus was solely with the image and not influenced by understanding the dialogues of voices off-screen. The moment of the traffic lights lifting off the night streets is a moment of absolute beauty. It doesn’t pretend to mean anything — but I understood. Like a swarm, these lights float around the skyscrapers of Seoul, as if belonging to another level of reality, very distant indeed. Although I later understood that other layer of the film too — the content of the dialogues on phones — it didn’t fundamentally change my understanding. The film says everything already with only one image. Since we are talking about visual creation, the quality of the moving image is the main carrier of the enigma, the essence of an artistic creation.

This enigma is profoundly apparent in this movie. Obviously, the timing and visual quality is just perfect. I regard “Phone Tapping” as one of the best short movies I have seen._Ulf Langheinrich (Artist)

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Credit

Conceived and Directed by HeeWon Lee
Director of Photography YongHo Lee
3D Composition Jean-Michel Kabemba
Sound Creation Alexandre Del Torchio
Sound Mixing Thomas Rouvillin, Simon Apostolou
Produced by Le Fresnoy – Studio National des Arts Contemporains

© Le Fresnoy – Studio National des Arts Contemporains, 2009

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Special Thanks
Jin, Frédéric Papon, Hee Ok Lee, Sung Cheul Hong, Jai Wan Joo, Taik Sub Lee,
Hee Yong Lee, YongHo Lee, Alexandre Del Torchio, Simon Apostolou, Bertrand Scalabre, Massimiliano Simbula, Jean-Michel Kabemba, Daniel Corniaut, Claire Chevalier, Madeleine Van Doren, Alain Fleischer, Le Fresnoy – Studio National des Arts Contemporains

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