Minjung Lee, (April 2013)
Minjung Lee; Für Elise; Bagatelle in A Minor Wo0;
90cm x 30cm x 140cm; 3 minute sound loop, MDF, black gloss paint, speaker; 2011
90cm x 30cm x 140cm; 3 minute sound loop, MDF, black gloss paint, speaker; 2011
Minjung Lee; Für Elise; Bagatelle in A Minor Wo0;
90cm x 30cm x 140cm; 3 minute sound loop, MDF, black gloss paint, speaker; 2011
(Photograph: Minjung Lee)
90cm x 30cm x 140cm; 3 minute sound loop, MDF, black gloss paint, speaker; 2011
(Photograph: Minjung Lee)
Minjung Lee; Für Elise; Bagatelle in A Minor Wo0; (detail)
90cm x 30cm x 140cm; 3 minute sound loop, MDF, black gloss paint, speaker; 2011
(Photograph: Minjung Lee)
90cm x 30cm x 140cm; 3 minute sound loop, MDF, black gloss paint, speaker; 2011
(Photograph: Minjung Lee)
A Submersible: So if I could start by asking you about your piece Für Elise; Bagatelle in A minor WoO 59. Could you give me your personal interpretation of the work?
Minjung Lee: I consider the sound that comes out of the long - about five octaves of piano keyboard in length - speaker as a variation of the original piano piece Für Elise. Although I have eliminated the melody from the original Beethoven piece it still has got notes as every sort of sound does. In my variation, the sound that is created by physical movement when performing on the piano is captured; finger tapping or frictions of keys for instance.
As any music accompanies time as its medium, this piece also holds a significant notion of time, but rather differently. The sound you could physically hear from this piece exists alongside the present time, and there is a further layer of the future tense. The original melody that would have been generated correspondingly by movement of fingers is hovering somewhere behind the dry notes. I instinctively regarded it to be linked to the future tense. I'm not certain if the stream of time and the order or process of things can be made equivalent, they could totally differ from each other. Nevertheless, I think there is still a sense of waiting, which necessarily involves time, unless you are not aware of the dynamic of the piece. Or waiting could be substituted by the word belief here.
About this work, I had a common response from people that their immediate feeling was that it sounded and/or seemed rather scary in a sense. Listening to them, at first, I was somewhat disappointed by the reaction and so by my work, thinking that it went in an unexpected way, due to the difficulty of identifying the sound. However, I got to think that the sentiment the piece generates is actually close to what I feel when I confront a certain reality. The reality of the world which has lost something. I suppose that through my work I always build a structure which indicates something invisible but exists as a belief.
A S: Previously you mentioned a project you were looking at, could you tell me a little bit about that?
M L: The project I mentioned has been cancelled unfortunately due to the unexpected news that the site in which we were planning to exhibit works is going to be demolished soon. It was provisionally called 'Theatre Project'; the project would have explored the relationship between visual art and performance based art such as music, concert and dance. The site included an amphitheatre-like stage and auditorium which were built in the open air, and surrounding area. We chose the site because of the particular feature it has with regard to time. A space like a theatre is especially run by time, creating independent time and space from ordinary life, we were excited to play around with the following questions: has the show already started? Is it in progress? Or will it be on shortly, yet remaining in pause? I thought the tension between physical space formed by theatrical architecture and its potential space would be interesting. But it's a pity that we couldn't carry out and develop this project.
I was going to install a sound work there. A sound of human voices in relay trying to catch 440hz(A) which is the standard concert pitch, and has been spread world wide to be a basis of any kind of music. Although it was meant to be set within the theatre context I'll carry on with this as a single work. I'm not sure though what it would be like when finished.
A S: It's interesting how you're setting up experiences which relate to time in so many different ways in Für Elise; Bagatelle in A minor WoO 59 and in what the project in the theatre might have been.
Your Backdrop piece seems also to have a strong sense of time to it. If I'm right the work consists of a large wall in your studio that imitated a section of your room at the time. And the printed matter taped below the window frame on this wall bore the trace of your everyday life. So here we have sense of time having passed already. Could you talk a little bit about this work?
Minjung Lee: I consider the sound that comes out of the long - about five octaves of piano keyboard in length - speaker as a variation of the original piano piece Für Elise. Although I have eliminated the melody from the original Beethoven piece it still has got notes as every sort of sound does. In my variation, the sound that is created by physical movement when performing on the piano is captured; finger tapping or frictions of keys for instance.
As any music accompanies time as its medium, this piece also holds a significant notion of time, but rather differently. The sound you could physically hear from this piece exists alongside the present time, and there is a further layer of the future tense. The original melody that would have been generated correspondingly by movement of fingers is hovering somewhere behind the dry notes. I instinctively regarded it to be linked to the future tense. I'm not certain if the stream of time and the order or process of things can be made equivalent, they could totally differ from each other. Nevertheless, I think there is still a sense of waiting, which necessarily involves time, unless you are not aware of the dynamic of the piece. Or waiting could be substituted by the word belief here.
About this work, I had a common response from people that their immediate feeling was that it sounded and/or seemed rather scary in a sense. Listening to them, at first, I was somewhat disappointed by the reaction and so by my work, thinking that it went in an unexpected way, due to the difficulty of identifying the sound. However, I got to think that the sentiment the piece generates is actually close to what I feel when I confront a certain reality. The reality of the world which has lost something. I suppose that through my work I always build a structure which indicates something invisible but exists as a belief.
A S: Previously you mentioned a project you were looking at, could you tell me a little bit about that?
M L: The project I mentioned has been cancelled unfortunately due to the unexpected news that the site in which we were planning to exhibit works is going to be demolished soon. It was provisionally called 'Theatre Project'; the project would have explored the relationship between visual art and performance based art such as music, concert and dance. The site included an amphitheatre-like stage and auditorium which were built in the open air, and surrounding area. We chose the site because of the particular feature it has with regard to time. A space like a theatre is especially run by time, creating independent time and space from ordinary life, we were excited to play around with the following questions: has the show already started? Is it in progress? Or will it be on shortly, yet remaining in pause? I thought the tension between physical space formed by theatrical architecture and its potential space would be interesting. But it's a pity that we couldn't carry out and develop this project.
I was going to install a sound work there. A sound of human voices in relay trying to catch 440hz(A) which is the standard concert pitch, and has been spread world wide to be a basis of any kind of music. Although it was meant to be set within the theatre context I'll carry on with this as a single work. I'm not sure though what it would be like when finished.
A S: It's interesting how you're setting up experiences which relate to time in so many different ways in Für Elise; Bagatelle in A minor WoO 59 and in what the project in the theatre might have been.
Your Backdrop piece seems also to have a strong sense of time to it. If I'm right the work consists of a large wall in your studio that imitated a section of your room at the time. And the printed matter taped below the window frame on this wall bore the trace of your everyday life. So here we have sense of time having passed already. Could you talk a little bit about this work?
Minjung Lee; Backdrop 328cm x 170cm x 10cm; timber, plywood, wallpaper, venetian blind, nail, paper; 2009
(Photograph: Minjung Lee)
(Photograph: Minjung Lee)
M L: Yes, you’re right. I suppose the principle of this work is borrowed from that of photography although the piece is still three-dimensional and quite heavy. When you see any kind of photo you always face a different time and different space; your body is always separated from the space and the time that are appeared on the photo paper. I often see the present space that surrounds myself from this point of view.
Backdrop is sort of transplanted wall that has lost its original context. Its time and space are suspended, and yet its physical components coexist with the wall it is hung against. I think, as the title suggests, this piece also has a sense of a setting in a play. I’ve been always intrigued by theatrical devices in regard how they construct a certain frame in which time and space are regulated in a particular way. And likewise I’ve been also drawn to the stage that is out of control; when it is not in operation, you may walk around the set arbitrarily, exploring blind spots of the stage which are not meant to be seen from the right angle of auditorium when the stage is on. I think photography and directed stage have something in common.
And to elaborate on the specific experience I had for this work, by the time I came up with this piece, for a certain period of time I had travelled back and forth everyday merely between my studio and home, with my head full of thoughts of works. One day, when I walked into my room at midnight, returning from the studio, a question flickered like a flash, like switching on a light: where am I? Standing under the florescent light, which is steady and constant as opposed to daylight, I looked at the window covered by venetian blind; the room was totally disconnected from outside. The time seemed to be paused in the room. To be precise, the time seemed to be waiting for me to operate. I felt that I was in a situation where I should follow a kind of an instruction in the given space. It seemed almost like the relationship between an actor and a stage. The space that is constructed by recursive movement of everyday life forced me to move in line with the bodily memory. However, I came out of the inertia all of sudden, and started to see the room from a different angle in the same manner of walking along the blind spot of stage. I suppose as I spent longer in studio, the real life outside the studio per se became a huge object.
A S: I feel like I’m beginning to see a thread that seems to run through a lot of what you’ve been saying. There's this the idea of space being created, for instance the alternate space created by a photograph that is distinct from your own space as a viewer. Or the sense of space that emerges from a performance that is distinct from your personal space as a viewer of that performance. It seems that for you there is interest in doing something which highlights these emergences of space throughout our lives perhaps?
Particularly it seems like your work, and the work of others you’ve spoken about here and in your critical studies paper you sent me, often functions to highlight these spaces via attacking their borders.
So for instance when viewing photography, the photographic space is separate. But in your Backdrop piece we have this other space which is associated with the blinds, a space which as you say is akin to photographic space. Only in your work it’s actually invading the viewers space given its presence in the gallery.
Similarly you were talking about your experience of feeling like an actor in your own bedroom, feeling like you were on a stage. But then you said how that sense of space was suddenly shattered when you started viewing from different angles. Again there’s a destruction there.
And you said how this is the case when we watch theatre, we have this sense of a space on stage being created but then upon walking onto the stage and seeing it from different angles that space is destroyed.
Backdrop is sort of transplanted wall that has lost its original context. Its time and space are suspended, and yet its physical components coexist with the wall it is hung against. I think, as the title suggests, this piece also has a sense of a setting in a play. I’ve been always intrigued by theatrical devices in regard how they construct a certain frame in which time and space are regulated in a particular way. And likewise I’ve been also drawn to the stage that is out of control; when it is not in operation, you may walk around the set arbitrarily, exploring blind spots of the stage which are not meant to be seen from the right angle of auditorium when the stage is on. I think photography and directed stage have something in common.
And to elaborate on the specific experience I had for this work, by the time I came up with this piece, for a certain period of time I had travelled back and forth everyday merely between my studio and home, with my head full of thoughts of works. One day, when I walked into my room at midnight, returning from the studio, a question flickered like a flash, like switching on a light: where am I? Standing under the florescent light, which is steady and constant as opposed to daylight, I looked at the window covered by venetian blind; the room was totally disconnected from outside. The time seemed to be paused in the room. To be precise, the time seemed to be waiting for me to operate. I felt that I was in a situation where I should follow a kind of an instruction in the given space. It seemed almost like the relationship between an actor and a stage. The space that is constructed by recursive movement of everyday life forced me to move in line with the bodily memory. However, I came out of the inertia all of sudden, and started to see the room from a different angle in the same manner of walking along the blind spot of stage. I suppose as I spent longer in studio, the real life outside the studio per se became a huge object.
A S: I feel like I’m beginning to see a thread that seems to run through a lot of what you’ve been saying. There's this the idea of space being created, for instance the alternate space created by a photograph that is distinct from your own space as a viewer. Or the sense of space that emerges from a performance that is distinct from your personal space as a viewer of that performance. It seems that for you there is interest in doing something which highlights these emergences of space throughout our lives perhaps?
Particularly it seems like your work, and the work of others you’ve spoken about here and in your critical studies paper you sent me, often functions to highlight these spaces via attacking their borders.
So for instance when viewing photography, the photographic space is separate. But in your Backdrop piece we have this other space which is associated with the blinds, a space which as you say is akin to photographic space. Only in your work it’s actually invading the viewers space given its presence in the gallery.
Similarly you were talking about your experience of feeling like an actor in your own bedroom, feeling like you were on a stage. But then you said how that sense of space was suddenly shattered when you started viewing from different angles. Again there’s a destruction there.
And you said how this is the case when we watch theatre, we have this sense of a space on stage being created but then upon walking onto the stage and seeing it from different angles that space is destroyed.
Rebecca Horn; El Rio de la Luna: Room of the Circle, 1992
And I don’t know if you’ll agree but this seems to also be the case in Rebecca Horn’s El rio d la luna: Room of the Circle that you spoke about in your critical studies paper. As you’ve said in your paper the work involves a spinning knife installed in a hotel room, cutting through its surroundings. When talking about this work you said how it forms a circular tension between the spinning knife - which is of a bodily scale - against the outside world. Here again there’s sense of our personal space and external space attacking each other.
M L: I agree with all you said above. I think you are penetrating the overall context of my works and thoughts. As you pointed out, I’ve been making works that touch the border between the two disparate spaces; it could be about the relationship between psychological and physical space, personal and external space as you said, or crossed viewpoint of subject and object.
Although most of my works are converged on that point of friction, I think they are twofold in fact. One is about the collision between illusionary space and dry reality, and the other is about the dry reality and an invisible space formed behind.
The work, backdrop and other works that were created in 2009 or earlier are closer to the former, while recent works tend to move towards the latter. But it’s been really hard for me to make a clear distinction although it seems I should. I suppose following works to be made in the near future will answer for this.
Links:
www.minjunglee.net
M L: I agree with all you said above. I think you are penetrating the overall context of my works and thoughts. As you pointed out, I’ve been making works that touch the border between the two disparate spaces; it could be about the relationship between psychological and physical space, personal and external space as you said, or crossed viewpoint of subject and object.
Although most of my works are converged on that point of friction, I think they are twofold in fact. One is about the collision between illusionary space and dry reality, and the other is about the dry reality and an invisible space formed behind.
The work, backdrop and other works that were created in 2009 or earlier are closer to the former, while recent works tend to move towards the latter. But it’s been really hard for me to make a clear distinction although it seems I should. I suppose following works to be made in the near future will answer for this.
Links:
www.minjunglee.net