Jae Hoon Lee

A REAR WINDOW PROJECT

Known for his highly polished and hyper-real aesthetic, many of Jae Hoon Lee’s photographs and moving image works are a composite – images of real objects or locations brought together, multiplied and manipulated to make one cohesive whole. In a series of breakthrough works from the early 2000s for example, Lee used portable scanning technology to document and track across the minute details of his own skin. This footage was then digitally edited, making a small surface area appear much larger and expansive. 

As a self-proclaimed ‘cultural wanderer’, Lee’s nomadic lifestyle allows him to explore different cultural landscapes and collect source material. It is this collecting that ultimately defines and informs his practice. While this source material often looks to the landscape and natural environment, it can also include technology, everyday objects, urban settings and moments from daily life. In Salvation (Keyboard), through the digital manipulation of both object and space, Lee has pieced together a range of keyboards from old and well-used computers. This mode of production anchors the work in a space between fact and fiction – the individual components that make up Salvation (Keyboard) exist in the world, but the form as it is presented to us by Lee cannot be located within our reality.