Lee Young Ho
until April 8, 2023
CHAPTER II
마포구 연남동 566-55, 1F 1-1, Seoul, South Korea
Chapter II is pleased to announce Forced Rhythm, a solo exhibition by Lee Young Ho from 13th March to 8th April in Yeonnam-dong, Seoul. It presents not only photography but multi-media works, including film-looping machines, installations with Augmented Reality and film mobiles by Lee Young Ho, who has consistently paid attention to how optical media and its devices visually engage with cinematography.
The mechanical sound of the film machine moving at regular intervals in the space reminds visitors of the metronome’s noise or music performed by an orchestra according to a conductor’s direction; in this context, the title, Forced Rhythm, indicates the sound of a regulated pitch played by force. This constant rhythm interlocks and synchronizes separate works in the exhibition, and ultimately, it transforms them into multi-dimensional parts of massive devices. By exploring atypical expendability and non-metrical velocity conveyed in systematic kinetic films, diffractive light, and rhythmical patterns of a projector, Lee encourages the viewers to seek certain sentiments indwelling machines and to establish a connection between their own selves and these machines.
The exhibition is a metaphor describing the qualities of screening so that the entire space can turn out to be a continually shifting space depending on the movements of the audience inflow instead of maintaining a hazy nostalgia of conventional theatre experiences. Besides the kinetic film installations, the AR piece, Flip Flap Loco (2021), constructing a virtual place of three-dimensional graphics allows the viewers to have their own extended radius by looking for objects hidden in the virtual reality. Accordingly, they play an active part in setting up their dynamics with the machines; in the end, they are able to experience a multi-layered interpretation of the exhibition and their intensified senses. On the other hand, her media practice features the current situation in which highly advanced AR technology has developed night vision on the battlefield; the fact that AR was initially invented as a monitor installed onto a helmet for military purposes. It shows that the artist has carefully observed how the nature of demand for optical media has changed from a source of entertainment in its early stage to military hardware.
Through Mobile (2022), the work displayed in the window gallery, Lee attempts to underline sensitivity over a vulnerable state of equilibrium and gravitational force by dissembling a projector into a roll of film, a roller and a speaker and hanging them with wire. As the entire structure can lose its balance by a subtle disturbance in the weight of its specific element, each part of the installation connected by a grid relies on each other and generates a sense of free-fall; at the same time, the structure also depends on its original fundamental, each object of the projector. The whole design refers to the organic mechanism that a slight separation between the film and the roller can cause a fatal malfunction in the system. Through diverse approaches for such re-contextualization, including recombining the original mechanism of a film projector, breaking up devices, and newly juxtaposing the fragments, Lee suggests that the spectators spontaneously find their appropriate speeds for appreciating the works in response to his films, structures and AR pieces.
Lee Young Ho (b.1979) received an MFA Degree at Hochschule für Bildende Künste Städelschule Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Based on Korea and Germany, she has had her solo exhibitions at Platform-L Contemporary Art Center (2022, 2021), Gallery Damdam (2019), Kuenstlerhaus Bethanien (2019), John Doe Gallery (2018), RU Space (2017) and Alternative Space Loop (2009). She also has participated in numerous group exhibitions at several prestigious art expositions and establishments, such as Cemeti-Institute for Art and Society (2021), Jimei X Arles International Photos Festival (2018), Asia Culture Center (2015) and Daegu Art Museum (2012).