S-He

LED lighting has been used consistently in Lee's projects, and they are all related to the concept of media technology. With the development of technology and machinery, various media devices have been widely used in art, which is a phenomenon necessary to understand Lee's works. In other words, technology does not govern artworks in a controlling manner but is used to complete them. What is worth noting is how technology and human beings are deeply related. Don Ihde, a philosopher of science and technology, states that people can create "self-experience" through technology, which is a means to experience a world beyond a certain object. Accordingly, a formula of "(human – machine) world" is established. More specifically, machines are classified together with humans, and humans can obtain concrete experiences through machines.

  Jinjoon Lee has been working with mechanical lights and perspective. His work titled S-He that utilize light is another proof to show how Lee deeply contemplated about ways to illuminate human footsteps with media lights and bring them into the world. For example, after climbing a high mountain, many mountain climbers feel relieved when they start to see lights from remote houses on their way down to the village. Lee uses lights in S-He in order to express the sense of relief and comfort provided by traces of humans.

  However, the lights that have been used consistently in Lee's works are not glamorous lights created with advanced technology. Rather, these lights are used with the purpose of illuminating mankind whose existence has been scattered and faded, as in the case of 200 light bulbs used in S-He. As such, the artificial lights used by Lee are a medium through which living creatures encounter the world. While S-He exposes the existence of people with lights, his photographic work titled Where I am 0530 – One day, when they leaved focuses on traces and whereabouts of people. More specifically, S-He shows a landscape of lights coming from a village as seen at midnight from the top of a mountain, but Where I am illustrates ways in which people have left marks and traces on the nature and society. In addition, the road exposed with the lights represents the future directions that people need to take. In this sense, the lights that Lee uses in his creations not only expose the paths of the past but also the future.