Artists Statement

Media Performance (LED, Drones). 13’00.

The opening performance Drunken Drone (2019) is a drama based upon a Korean folk story wherein a woman waiting for her husband to come from the workplace, sets aside some food in a bamboo forest and the demons turned it into a drink. It highlights the intimate relationship between humans and machines by giving personality to a drone as a personal medium that enjoys nature and understands other’s feelings.
Highly advanced modern technology reflects the human will and provokes revolution which influences human consciousness and brings about a paradigm shift in our lives. The demons in the form of a drunken drone sympathize with the woman who is experiencing difficult times in life and comfort her by turning the hidden rice into alcohol.
The hidden ‘rice’ symbolizes the sorrow and joy we as human beings experience in a lifelong journey and at the same time the internal conflicts and various social traumas. ‘Rice’ is set as the first cause of all conflicts, and as a means for survival. The digital demon as a drunken drone emerges from the outside and comes as a light which comforts human beings as they confront the limitations which they can never overcome by themselves because they are beyond their limits.
Beyond the characteristics of the existing media, drones exist as a personal medium that understands human beings more than the human themselves and creates a connection between humans and machines that can only be achieved through the drink, which is interpreted as a light, which sublimates the pain and affection felt by humans in light of the modern civilized society.
Credits: Stage Management Jae Man Song, Stage Lighting Jun Kwon Kim, Photography Tae Seung Oh. Music Credits: Music GongMyoung / Sun Il Kang, Seung Won Park, Kyong Keun Song, Young Ju Lim. Gayageum (string instrument) Ji Hyun Lee, Performer Su Ji Jang, Modular Ji Hye Woo, Violin Soo Hyun Jang, Pansori (Korean genre of musical storytelling performed by a singer and a drummer) Eun Hye Jung.

• Born in Damyang of Jeonnam province, Lee Nam Lee graduated from Chosun University in Korea with an undergraduate degree in sculpture and a doctorate degree in Fine Arts. He also completed a PhD program in Media Art at the Graduate School of Communication and Arts of Yonsei University. In his digital reinterpretation of classical masterpieces that reveal nature’s wonders and life’s aura, he attempts to breathe new meaning and vitality into each pixel of an image. He also seeks to communicate with the public in a close manner with his stories in the works and to communicate various messages such as life value and happiness. His work is also famous for “five minutes’ aesthetics,” which stops a piece from being published for more than five minutes. With more than eight hundred exhibitions, both solo and group in countries like Belgium, China, Qatar, New York, Singapore and Paris under his belt, Lee continues to expand his horizons globally. His signature works include “Parkyeon Waterfall,” what Geomjae Jeongseon called “a rhapsody that flows from the heavens” and “Cartoon- folding screen” which shows many faces of modern civilization inside a classical painting through the display of interaction among cartoon characters, seasonal transformations, icons and symbols of art, society and war. At the 2016 Busan Biennale, he was the first Korean artist to present a virtual reality artwork using Google’s Tilth Brush technology. 2018, Lee was put on exhibit at the Inter-Korean Summit folding screen and Gwangju Biennale opening ceremony of the Directing. Among others and his works are included in the collections of Incheon International Airport, National Library of Korea, United Nations headquarters in New York, and numerous prominent museums such as the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, the Suning Art Museum and the Zebrastraat Museum in Belgium.
• Robolink & Pablo Air are South Korean drone companies that sell drone service& products in art, service, and education through indoor and outdoor cluster flight technology. Robolink won the 2019 CES Best Innovation Award and makes robots and drones for education and service, and Pablo Air is Korea No. 1 company in outdoor cluster flights and received investment in SM Entertainment this year. Robolink and Pablo Air are Drone Service Partners.
• GongMyoung is a Korean performing arts group, established in 1997, well-known for its modern reinterpretations of the classical Korean music and is also recognized as one of the most inspiring drumming collective performers of Korea today. The four members, Sun-Il Kang, Seung-Won Park, Kyoung-Keun Song, and Yong-Ju Lim, all come from the background in traditional Korean music and are the very creators of their own bamboo instrument named after the group, GongMyoung. No boundaries exist in between different Genres in the world of GongMyoung, for they have branched out into the worlds of plays, musicals, dance, and as far as the realm of cinema.
• Art Center Nabi is a media art museum aiming to act as an intermediary that fuses up- to-date technology, humanity, and arts. Since its foundation in 2000, Art Center Nabi has been active in generating and supporting interaction between art and technology, also incubating a vital scene in which artists and engineers could both gear up for the development of technology. Working across various technologies such as Blockchain, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, previous exhibitions include ‘Unzipping CODE’ (2004), ‘Media Art Festival, P.Art.y’ (2007), ‘Incheon International Digital Art Festival’ (INDAF) (2010), ‘All Artists’ (2012), ‘Robot Party’ (2015), ‘Why Future Still Needs Us: AI and Humanity’ (2016) and ‘Neotopia: Data and Humanity’ (2017)