“C+C" Media Art Residency

MJ Lee works to break down the materiality of human existence and questions the eternal paradox of conventional ideologies, by creating art that transcends genres, often using the physicality of her own body through performance, video art, sculpture, installation, and any number of physical manifestations. she won the Oriental Foundation Art Award-Honor Award in 2020.

李敏智致力于用作品打破人类存在的物质性，通过创造超越流派的艺术来质疑传统意识形态的永恒悖论，她经常在作品中使用自己身体的物质性——通过行为艺术，录像艺术，雕塑，装置，和任何数量的物理表现形式。2020年获得东方基金会艺术奖 - 荣誉奖。

The Elements ｜元素
Installation: Glass, Tears, Sweat, Body Fluids

While walking around the antique market in Changsha, I found a store selling amber and different crystals.

The moment when the insect is trapped is captured in the amber, and at the same time exists in the present and future. As if time is crystallized, and the sense of eternity makes people desire it?

During the residency program, I have been doing different performances, evoking various emotions. As a result, my body fluids are left as evidence of my immortal body and soul. The complexity and fragility of living, and at the same time dying, and decaying human states are within the perimeter of time

在长沙的古玩市场逛了一圈，发现了一家卖琥珀和各种水晶的店。

昆虫被捕获的瞬间被固定在琥珀中，因而这瞬间同时x存在于现在和未来。仿佛时间结晶凝固，这种“永恒”的感觉使人渴望它。

在驻留期间，我一直在做不同的表演，唤起各种各样的情绪。因此，过程中我的体液被留下作为我身体和灵魂不朽的证据。生命的复杂性和脆弱性，与此同时死亡、衰败的人类状态，都共存在时间的边界之内。

The Firefly Dreams ｜萤火虫在做梦
Installation: Single Channel Video 1’22”, Baijiu Bottles

In the process of translating a confused individual’s experience into text, I felt the gap between real feelings and perceptions.

Can the results of personal emotions through sensory experience be returned to others through language? The link, perhaps, is a universal language born of mutual emotion that transcends the limits of visual or auditory language. The visual or auditory illiteracy that people feel when they are exposed to unfamiliar cultures and emotions expands other human senses, and we tend to communicate through nonverbal means, signing, pointing, gesticulating, and warm encouragement.

At the same time, the experience of verbal illiteracy forces one to acquire new perceptions that are further from the usual limits of the individual's reality. Here, reality can be a sore experience, like the burning of one’s throat when drinking Baijiu, or it can be a solidified memory limited to that experience. Was the bitter love feeling I felt while drinking Baijiu during the residency linked to reality? Or is it a surreal feeling that is too ecstatic to believe is real, and closer to hallucination.

In this process, a memory is reduced again to a common language written as a physical and psychological index.

Can emotions be indicators of reality perception?

What is the indicator of the real and the virtual?

在将一个迷茫的个体的经历翻译成文字的过程中，我感受到了真实感受与认知之间的差距。

感官体验下而产生的个人情感的结果能否通过语言反馈给他人？“连接感”或许是一种由超越视觉或听觉语言局限的相互情感所产生的通用语言。当人们接触到陌生的文化和情感时，感受到的视觉或听觉上的“无知”会扩展到其他人类感官，促使我们倾向于通过非语言方式进行交流，比如手势、指点、比划和热情的鼓励。

与此同时，语言文盲的经历迫使人们获得新的认知，这些认知远离个人现实的通常限制。在这里，现实可能是一种痛苦的经历，就像喝白酒时喉咙发烫一样，也可能是一种局限于那种经历的固化记忆。我在驻留期间喝白酒时所感受到的苦涩的爱情与现实有关吗？或者这是一种超现实的感觉，过于狂喜以至于不相信这是真的，更接近于幻觉。

在这个过程中，记忆又被还原为一种共同的语言，作为生理和心理的指标。

情绪可以作为现实感知的指标吗？

真实与虚拟的指标又是什么？

The Crossing ｜穿越
Video 10’ 04’’

An explorative and experimental collaboration between Korean Artist and performer MJ Lee and English photographer and filmmaker Anthony Reed.

MJ Lee: I use many creative methods of improvisation. At the beginning of this collaboration, without any solid direction, I performed spontaneously at Meixihu Cultural Center with Anthony Reed. It was not easy to perform due to the constructed nature of photography and video, and the repetitive process of making films. Working within this constraint, however, is the aim of our collaboration. At the same time, I enjoy the process of constantly communicating and learning with artists who practice different styles. It was an experience where the photographer perceives space from his point of view, mediated via the camera lens. A symbiosis between opposite characters creates impetus.

To me, space is an immaterial element that has ‘energy.’ Through my performance, I try to engage with and immerse myself in the energy of a given space. Additionally, I was inspired by the energy of the city in historical and geographical terms and added elements of ‘fire’ and ‘water,’ known as antagonistic elements, to reflect this history. While researching Changsha, I was surprised that there is painful trauma behind this luminous city. However, just as fields are burned to make fertile land for farming, Changsha is renewed and perpetually dreams of the future.

Anthony: An abstract and intuitive response of time and place emerges from this collaborative work with MJ, her willingness to engage, grapple and challenge my ideas created a window for me to continually re-imagine and re-formulate the work throughout its production. At times our collaborative process was far more irrational and intuitive than deliberate and intellectual, it was in moments of divergence that our creative process seemed to find its direction. MJ’s performative instincts would often provide these moments of re-interpretation, like a script unfolding live, I would try to take what I saw and re-formulate it into an ever evolving mental storyboard.

The architecture itself would provide another crucial layer of interpretation and experimentation. Enveloped inside a vast empty shell, the building's ethereal interiors exerted its own spell and fed our creative visions.