Without a singular narrator, The Syncretic Agora of The Song or I Became A Portal Before I Burst Apart opens to the possibility of multiple vantage points and perspectives where an ecology of relations resides. As an artist who works with sound and music as their primary language, Lee invites us to think and feel with him as the work moves between resonant dimensions of image, text, and the sonic, and enacts a kind of musical relationship between activator and resonator. He shares, “I wanted to see if I could occupy the space of the moving image as maybe more like a songwriter.” The song is only made possible by the ensemble, where parts of the whole allow for multiple readings, rather than a singular understanding of the work.

We are also asked to bear witness to sympathetic experiences of the human condition as an endurance dirt bike racer, who has hit his limit and is moved to tears by his supporters, is shown in a moment of complete vulnerability. In other instances, the camera lingers on a war monument overlooking still water, a tender moment in the life of the elderly, or slow-motion footage of a man performing a traditional dance—each speak to Lee’s own diasporic consciousness as a Korean Canadian. Time and mortality figure strongly, punctuated by an infinite swirling spiral and a vast star filled sky. Moving between the spiritual and embodied realms, and the transformations that exist in between, further text overlays convey, “every moment a montage of the body…liquid becomes gas…the sensations of known and unknown elements.” Throughout, the spiritual resonance of sound is foregrounded.

Andrew Yong Hoon Lee lives and works in New York. Often working collaboratively, his work culminates in installations where relationships between media generate affective intensities of sensorial experience, examining the poetic, political, and philosophical possibilities of light, space, and sound.

Lee has presented work, texts, lectures, compositions, and performances at the The 13th edition of the Gothenburg International Biennial for Contemporary Art; Center For Performance Research, New York; Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Germany; Emily Carr University of Art + Design, Vancouver; The Stone, New York; Akademie der Bildenden Künste Nürnberg; The Poetry Project & Wendy’s Subway, New York; The Vancouver Art Gallery; The International Symposium On Electronic Arts, Vancouver; The Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, Vancouver; Achtung Cinema, Paris; Kinoskop International Analog Film Festival, Belgrade; Ann Arbor Film Festival, Michigan; Radio Alhara, Bethlehem; and Fridman Gallery, New York, among others.

As a musician, composer, and performer, Lee has released full-length recordings, scored music for feature-length films and documentaries, and toured extensively throughout the United States, Canada, and Western Europe. Lee received a Bachelor of Arts from Simon Fraser University, Vancouver and a Master of Fine Arts from the Milton Avery School of the Arts at Bard College, New York. He teaches fine art, photographic practices, moving image, and visual culture at the New School in New York.