South Korean filmmaker Lee Hangjun and noise musician Hong Chulki have performed together since 2006 as the audiovisual research project “Expanded Celluloid, Extended Phonograph,” investigating the performativity of the darkroom, the screening room, the private studio and live performance.

Here, in Lee’s U.S. debut, they present two works:

In Film Walk (2012), the film projector’s optical sound head reads Lee’s hand-made perforations as sound, as he draws the film strip while walking around the space. Instead of continuous image movement, the perforations make what the artist calls “a hole a sound,” where sounds mass according to the speed of his step and length of the performance.

Phantom Schoolgirl Army (2013) is based on a collection of military photographic portraits, and elaborates on the story of North Korean spies disguised as high school girls during the Yeosu-Suncheon rebellion of 1948. The South Korean government used this legend as anti-Communist propaganda.

Lee Hangjun (b.1977, Seoul, South Korea) is a filmmaker and independent curator who also works as a programmer at EXiS in Seoul. He also has curated screening and live media programs such as Cinematic Divergence (2013) and Mujanhyang (2014) for the National Museum of Contemporary Arts in Seoul and Embeddedness: Artist Films and Videos from Korea 1960’s to Now (2015) for the Tate Modern in London. His works are based on multi-projection and optical sound, often involving improvisations with a variety of artists. His films have been shown at various venues including the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (Taiwan), 102 (France), South Bank Centre (UK), Café Oto (UK), LUFF (Switzerland), BOZAR (Belgium) and Netmage10 (Italy) and have been distributed by Light Cone in Paris (France).

Hong Chulki (b.1976, Seoul, South Korea) is a noise/improvising musician known for his cartridge-less turntable, and as the founding member of Astronoise, Korea’s first live noise act (with Choi Joonyong). He has focused on free improvisation since the early 2000s, collaborating with Ryu Hankil, Jin Sangtae, Joe Foster, Kevin Parks, Otomo Yoshihide, Sachiko M., Jason Kahn, Takahiro Kawaguchi, Nick Hoffman, Robbie Avenaim and Zbigniew Karkowski. Festival appearances include All Ears, Against, Kitakyushu Biennale and NETMAGE 10, and he has been a musician in residence at Café Oto and STEIM. Hong has composed pieces for several Korean experimental films, especially, Goksa (Kim Gok and Kim Sun). He also has been a long-time collaborator with Korean film artist Lee Hangjun, who works in 16mm multi-projection performance. Hong’s recordings both in solo and collaborative format have been released on his own label, Balloon & Needle, co-founded and co-run with Choi, and by Manual, Celadon, Pilgrim Talk, Hanson Records and Audition Records.

Hong Chulki first appeared at Lampo in February 2013, in performance with Choi Joonyong.

Presented in partnership with the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago; organized in cooperation with the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts

International travel support provided by Center Stage Korea; Korea Arts Management Service; and Ministry of Sports, Culture and Tourism