Sanghun Lee: Mr. Lee Experiment

 
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  • ©,

Artist(s):


Collaborators:


Title:


    Mr. Lee Experiment

Exhibition:


Creation Year:


    2009

Medium:


    Bluetooth-enabled micro-controller spuit (syringe)

Category:


Artist Statement:


    Mr. Lee Experiment is an interactive installation that uses a Bluetooth-enabled micro-controller spuit (syringe) to move human experimental subjects between different environments that can then be observed. This is a whimsical installation, in which the viewer is asked to engage in human testing, moving Mr. Lee from his holding facility to one of the digitally projected Petri-dish environments. The viewer is confronted with two testing environments, water and sand. In the water environment, Mr. Lee must literally sink or swim. Adjusting to this environ-ment, Mr. Lee must struggle to stay afloat. Moving Mr. Lee from the water environment and putting him in the sand Petri dish sees Mr. Lee try to use his new-found swimming skills to no avail. Again he is challenged to adapt and overcome or fade away. In this work, humans have been reduced to the same status as other species, that of experimental subjects. Human testing is one of the last remaining scientific taboos—the stuff of nightmarish and cautionary science fiction movies and literature. However, seen from another perspective, it is adherence to this taboo that has propagated and prolonged the use of animals in testing programs. With Mr. Lee Experiment, the viewer is asked to question humanity’s right to subject other species to experimentation without empathy or consequence.

Contributors:


    The collaborative team of Sanghun Lee, Jayoung Kim, Hyomi Mun, Jungmi Kim, and Junghwan Sung from the Media Department at SoongSil University has created Mr. Lee Experiment drawing on their collective skills and interests. These practitioners work across interactive media art, sound art, filmmaking, hardware and software design, and electronics. Junghwan Sung is a professor in the Media Department at SoongSil University and has participated in numerous exhibitions in Korea and Japan.