The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Alex M. Lee is an artist who utilizes 3D animation, video game engines, virtual/augmented/immersive/mixed reality platforms, and the potential of simulation technologies in order to investigate contemporary modes of representation, artifice, and technical images - culling from concepts within science, science fiction, physics, philosophy, and modernity. He received his BFA (2005) and MFA (2009) from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Lee has exhibited internationally in North America and Asia. Selected exhibitions include: Mio Photo, Osaka, Japan; Daegu Art Factory, Daegu, Korea; The Gene Siskel Film Center, Chicago, Illinois; Eyebeam: Center for Art & Technology, New York, NY; Ann Arbor Film Festival, Elektra Festival, Montreal, Canada; LEV Festival, Madrid, Spain. His work has been published in articles covering art, science, and culture including: Metaverse Creativity, Canadian Art, and Routledge Press.
My work is an investigation on the possibilities of digital imagery in an increasingly technical and automated world. Originally born out of pictures theory, my practice focuses on the creative employ of artifice and immateriality within the digital image. I consider the digital image in relationship to the phrase “technical image” coined by philosopher Vilem Flusser in which photography and mechanical reproduction heralded new forms of perceptual experience and knowledge. We are living in a digital age of the ‘elite technical image’ where increasingly complex technical software and hardware apparatuses are being utilized for the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge. The products of these technical apparatuses often finds their way into my work expressively, culling from sources from science, science fiction, mathematics, physics, philosophy, and modernity.
There is an additional phenomenological layer to some of my time-based works. The work utilizes the loop, slow pacing, and the relatively still to great effect. The temporal disjunction from the natural and endless repetition alludes to an abstraction of time and perception. The works connection to light is derived with algorithms within the computer, which I manipulate to great effect. I play with the possibilities found in data representation and physics simulation in order to arrive at a new formal possibility. Often times the work alludes to notions of the sublime or surreal within the context of the virtual, but playing against notions of simulacra.
Selected Awards & Public Collections
St. Lawrence University Richard F. Brush Gallery Permanent Collection
VTape Video Collection, Toronto, ON, Canada
Canada Arts Council Grant in collaboration with artist Erin Gee as part of Trinity Square Video’s VR themed commission co-sponsored by AMD
MIO Photo, Jurors Award, Osaka Japan
Nippon Steel Permanent Collection
Selected Artist Residencies
2016 The Laboratory, virtual reality themed artist residency, Spokane, WA
2015 Institute for Electronic Arts at Alfred University, support based residency, Alfred, NY
2014 Trinity Square Video, commission-based production residency, Toronto, Canada
Selected Publications and Critical Reviews
Playing with Emotions: Biosignal-based Control in Virtual Reality Game ‘Project H.E.A.R.T.’, co-author with Erin Gee and Sofian Audry, Proceedings in International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA): On Sentience, Montreal, QC, 2020
Chicoine, N., Porga, M., Hall, B., Moran, S., Mays, K., Meyer, S., Lee, A., & Wilke, A., Using Virtual Reality to Study Human Foraging Behavior, Psychonomic Society 60th Annual Meeting, Montreal, QC, 2019
Elektra celebrates art at the intersection of Humanity and Technology, Nora Rosenthal, CULT MONTREAL, 2019
Reflections on Montreal’s Elektra Festival, its twentieth edition, and the exhibition of digital media art, Ger Zielinski, Necsus, 2019
Reach Out and Touch This Virtual Reality Art Installation, by Ben Panko, Smithsonian Magazine, 2017
Changing What Video Art Can Be, Canadian Art, Bryne McLaughlin, 2014
Are Digital Artists Really the 21st Century’s New Romantics?, Paddy Johnson, Artnet News, 2014
19th Century Romanticism Gets an Update at Eyebeam’s Group Show “The New Romantics”, by Zach Sokol, The Creators Project, Vice, 2014