Michael Lee:<\/strong>\u00a0I find design languages, whether in the context of graphic design, architectural design, or urban planning, very captivating because there is a certain position and exactness to it. Having said that, I also observe how the systematic and scientific way of associating with design potentially gets used or manipulated for purposes that might be at the expense of the individual. Also, the rigidity of design language can potentially pose a problem of development, whether in the context of a project or a person\u2019s growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n CF: Could you tell me a little bit about the significance of \u201cRevision as Exercise,\u201d especially in the context of what you were just saying about design and bringing in different motifs?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n ML:<\/strong>\u00a0A lot of what I do resolves around the value ascribed to different things \u2013 to space, to a person\u2019s status, to the success of failure of a city, for example. Sometimes we think of the spanking new skyscrapers as something to be proud of and conversely a building that looks old or perhaps even haunted or abandoned is associated with failure of some sort. So my interest is in spaces and structures that exist at the margins of human consciousness, because I think somewhere along the same lines as the writer Robert Harbison, who wrote this book\u00a0The Built, the Unbuilt, and Unbuildable<\/em>. He said that we can get a sense of a person\u2019s pride in the way that a city is planned and presented. And so, in fact, in the last few years I have been fascinated with failure \u00a0\u2014\u00a0the notion of failure both in terms of personal status and betterment as well as in terms of architectural and urban practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I started the project \u201cRevision as Exercise\u201d with this idea of the creation of something perfect, but totally chaotic. At first, I was fiddling around trying to create sculptures with a dual view so that from one side, you might see sculptures of human bodies, but from the other side, you would see that they are partially damaged. Eventually, I decided to develop something quite new in the form of a collage that the audience contributes to. I started with key words in terms of the medium \u00a0\u2014\u00a0I just wrote down, \u201cOkay, I want something interactive; I want it in the form of collage; and I want it in the form of an installation rather than a portable, hangable painting or sculpture.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n From then on, I decided it would be really cool to have a work which begins in a perfect manner, and is beautifully and drastically transformed or even ruined by the audience along the way. In the process, I was reminded of these children\u2019s books that open up with an empty landscape \u00a0\u2014 which provides a sheet of figures of humans and objects for the user or player to try put into the landscape. So I started with imagery related to a sense of transformation of space. At the same time I have always been in awe of Ren\u00e9 Magritte. I start with the acknowledgement that it is impossible to do a proper homage, that is, to go beyond him, and I wanted to attempt the impossible anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n by Catherine Freeman On Michael Lee\u2019s in … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/randian-art.s3.ap-east-1.amazonaws.com\/2022\/09\/zh-hans\/RE1003-e1385043627560.jpg\")
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