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Entertainment

Fiona Lee's Light Play Sparks Minimalist Music

This Hong Kong-based artist magnifies the sound of light.

Young Hong Kong artist Fiona Lee's work delivers a wide range of emotional experiences. After confronting her award-winning Table Obscura project, it’s clear that Lee, who is just 24 years old, is still in touch with her romantic teenage sensibilities, though she contrasts her youthful eye with a physical directness, which becomes apparent in her audiovisual performance “Delight.”

In "Delight," embedded above, Lee presents an orchestra of high-wattage light bulbs whose relays are wired and programed with Max/MSP. During the performance, Lee simply switches each light on and off, dimming the bulbs at various moments. These simple gestures create a series of patterns that are not only perceived visually, but sonically, too, as the bulbs’ flickering produces subtle sounds that are magnified by Lee. The hushed buzzing conveys a delicateness and electric energy throughout the synchronized performance.

Lee’s use of conventional lightbulbs reminds us of the minimalist light sculptures of Dan Flavin, and “Optron” by Atsuhiro Ito. Her sounds also draw strong comparisons to the 21st-century glitch and granular noises of Alva Noto and Ryoji Ikeda. But what’s unique about “Delight” is that the piece reveals a series of direct and raw physical connections in a more artistically refined way.