Phantom Schoolgirl Army
We’re very excited to welcome Hangjun Lee from Seoul to present a series of expanded cinema pieces at Early Monthly Segments. In addition to co-programming the EX-iS Film Festival in Seoul, Lee has been working in film performance for close to a decade, showing his work extensively in Europe in Asia. Tonight’s event is the start of a four-city tour of North America and showcases four of his performance films.
Phantom Schoolgirl Army is a collection of military photographic portraits that elaborate on the legendary story of North Korean spies disguised as high school girls during the Yeosu-Suncheon rebellion of 1948. After Psycho Shower is a deconstruction of Hitchcock’s most infamous scene. Nebula Rising is a gorgeous transformation of the emulsion of film into expressionistic abstraction (what Lee calls “a pursuit of the science of dust”) and Film Walk re-imagines the projector as a manual sound device, as Lee guides the soundtrack through the machine by hand.
Born in 1977, Hangjun Lee is a filmmaker and independent curator who also works as a program director at EXiS in Seoul. He also curated screening & live media program such as Cinematic Divergence(2013) & Mujanhyang(2014) for National Museum of Contemporary Arts (MMCA) in Seoul and Embeddedness: Artist Films and Videos from Korea 1960s to Now(2015) for Tate Modern in London. His works are based on multi-projection and optical sound, often involving improvisations with a variety of artists. Since 2006 he has been working on an audiovisual research project, “Expanded Celluloid, Extended Phonograph” in collaboration with Hong Chulki, a noise improviser. Their collaboration stimulated critical investigations into the performativity of practices in the darkroom, the screening room, the private recording/practicing studio, and the public performance spaces utilised for the improvising musician.
Programme:
Phantom Schoolgirl Army (Triple Projection) 2013, 16mm, B&W, sound, 11 minutes
After Psycho Shower (Triple Projection) 2012, 16mm, B&W with color filter, sound, 12 minutes
Nebula Rising (Dual Projection) 2014, 16mm, color, sound, 9 minutes
Film Walk (multiple projection) 2012, 16mm, sound, 25 minutes
@ Gladstone Hotel, Ballroom | 1214 Queen Street West
Monday January 18, 2016 | 8:00 PM screening | $5-10 suggested donation
Nebula Rising
Phantom Schoolgirl Army
EMS #81 = TBA