The light becomes memory
An exhibition in EINSTELLUNGSRAUM to the subject SCHEIN (appearance)
Jeoneun Lee 19.07.-10.08.07
Introduction: STEFAN WEISSFLOG

The onlooker comes into a room which has been separated from natural light by  opaque black foil, the natural light which makes the natural appearances visible for us.
This darkening has been done by the artist  Jeoneun Lee to enable a concentration on the light which has become memory: so the title and the theme of the installation you can see here The light becomes memory. The video pictures that lighten up the room are saved light from the past into our present, light which has become memory, digitally saved first on magnet tape and now on CD in order to now represent for us a past light which can become memory in our brains.

Light is the part of the electromagnetical rays that can be perceived by us thanks to our light-sense-organs - hence our eyes. A necessary ability for survival. That light becomes memory is also necessary for survival for us. Memory is after all the sole necessary and sufficiant criteria for the identity of a person. So the title hints to something that directly concerns our existence and our being.
It is said: "The eye is the window to the soul" - translated to a house one could say very much commonplace: "The windows are the eyes of the house". When one walks along a street like for instance on Wandsbeker Chaussee one could think thousand eyes look onto that street - look at oneself. One could imagine that especially at night when the dark brick fasades with the black shadows and the black sky run into one another thousands of bright eyes look at you. This district here but maybe even more the district Hamm, where the artist  Jeon-Eun Lee - who was born 1969 in Seoul in South Korea - has been living since a few years now, is marked by a wide, drafty gateway street and unfriendly monotone house fasades with black window holes (like eye-less hence soul-less eye sockets) - framed in white by brick walls.


This impression may have played a role in the conception of this exhibition: in the far end part of the room a window dummy was installed made of a frame which normally is used for covering with canvases but was covered here with transparent parchment paper and is made 'alive' by beamer from behind - there are video recordings from Seoul, alternating between views out of windows with views into windows. For example we are looking outside onto an area below an entanglement of highways, we are looking into a forest of pillars which could
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