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01229 825085

enquiries@art-gene.co.uk

Art Gene, Bath Street, Barrow-in-Furness,

Cumbria, LA14 5TY England, UK

A view of a computer generated landscape with small mounds of land, and a watery terrain where purple and green leafed plants are growing. The sky is blue but overcast, and a full moon, or planet, is visible. A number of long pink, pipe-like tubes are extending out of the water, towards the sky, with a small figure sat at the top.

 

TO YOU WITH EXCUSES

To You with Excuses is a poetic journey and 3D video by multi-media artist Sohyun Lee, that explores the influence bugs have on our lives. Through experiments in literature, art, and digital technology, Sohyun considers the unavoidable, and often uneasy, symbiosis we experience with insects.

While insects coexist with humans on Earth, in the home they are often considered pests, with encounters arousing uncomfortable feelings or fear. Framed as ‘life’s obstacle’, the silverfish is the focus of To You with Excuses, and draws on the challenges Sohyun had living with them for two years.

 

A looping slideshow of computer generated scenes including a watery landscape, multiple small figures with arms and legs outstretched suspended in the air, a shadowy figure crawling up a pink pipe, a close up of the figure in the pipe, and a bug in a spot light on a laminate floor.

Screenshots from To You with Excuses

 

Through interrogating entomophobia (fear of insects) and the complex emotions of love and hate the bugs inspired, Sohyun explores this tension, and the process of accepting the silverfish as neighbours. 

Initially condensing this experience into poetic language, these metaphorical words were transformed into 3D models through a self-developed coding program.

 

<TO YOU WITH EXCUSES>

An abstract line drawing, that looks somewhat like a distorted cross-section of a tree stump with the internal rings visible and the top veering up. There is small text, marking the page number ‘15’ (left side) and credits “From the poem »May Our Hearts Be Alike«© Sohyun Lee” (below).A section of a page, with text excerpt that is cropped, cutting of text, reading: “insects, transforming what once felt like a and artistic exploration. You bug me and I bug you My repeated encounters with silverfis when I fled my home to find a second or With nowhere left to escape, I turned to journey of healing. Along the way, I faced had killed countless times, and the other presence. To address these spirits, my 3D a virtual shelter as well as an altar for digit front and soothe hardened wounds throu The home, my private space, had alrea ble to silverfish of their own volition was into a digital space, I strived to confront I virtual sanctuary, a boundary between my”

<YOU BUG ME I BUG YOU >

 

This transformation created a virtual shelter, where the negative energies and perceptions of the bug could be driven away through an artistic, digital exorcism. Through this To You with Excuses acts as a healing process, creating a space for a ritual, that both comforts the spirits killed by the silverfish, and honours the memories that took these creatures lives. 

Through a gradually shifting perspective of seeing the bugs as unwelcome guests to pest friends, To You with Excuses shows the potential paths of biodiversity as a confrontation of unyielding fears, or as the acceptance of other species as coexisting beings.  

 


 

For Torn Together To You with Excuses was shown alongside two other video works in an Online Screening.

The whispering narration in To You with Excuses was first published as a poetry book under the pseudonym Stein Moon. Follow the links to buy the E-book or Paper-back version.

Elements from this exhibition, and the rest of our programme, will be shared across our digital platforms. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter to make sure you don’t miss out.

 

SOYHUN LEE

Sohyun Lee is a multi-discipline, media artist based in Cologne. Scrutinizing hospitality andPortrait of the artist Soyhun Lee, with long black hair that becomes wavy at the ends, positioned side on, mouth closed but smiling, with arms folded and head turned towards the camera, wearing a checked/flannel patterned shirt in front of green foliage. exchange between humans and technologies orienting towards art-science collaboration, her practice explores the interplay between physical entities and digital particles. 

By warping time through the wormhole, the past, possible futures, and various dimensions are interwoven together in physical/virtual works. The patterns in these 3D digitisation and physical structure co-exists, resulting in hybrid work, that swims in the waves of reciprocity, time, and memory; amplifying the act of poetic gesture.

Through imagined digital, carbon copies of material, or the physical element of moving images, that flicker in the cybernetic space, Soyhun carves her own flow.

 

A view of a computer generated watery landscape with purple and green plants growing, to the left a narrow pink coil curves up towards the sky, on the right two straight clear tubes shoot up to the overcast sky.

© Art Gene
www.art-gene.co.uk
enquiries@art-gene.co.uk
Tel: +44 (0)1229 825085

Art Gene

Bath Street,

Barrow-in-Furness,

Cumbria, LA14 5TY England, UK

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