CARTESIAN PINEAL GLAND
by Sangbong Lee
Photos: Studio Bettina Pelz, Jennifer Braun.
Video by Sangbong Lee.
The name “Cartesian pineal gland” means Rene Descartes’s pineal gland.
The pineal gland is a small organ inside of the brain and it produces melatonin which is regulating sleep patterns. Although, in the 17th century when renowned philosopher Rene Descartes lived, nobody knew what this organ is. According to him, the pure mind and material body are completely separable and cannot affect each other. The point in Descartes’s speculation about the pineal gland, in short, is that the immaterial mind and material body combine at the pineal gland. It is basically a medium between mind and body.
However, the contradiction of this assumption is that the very point where the mind meets matter is composed of physical flesh. This contradictory claim on the pineal gland from Descartes, paradoxically, could be used as an argument that immaterial abstraction is realized by mediation through matter. Hence, this apparatus is a speculation which shows the intermingled state of both abstract information and material aspect mixed together. Moreover, the purpose of this project is the visualization of data processing & computing in regards to the co-relationship between the material and information by using real substances to display genuine representation of matter and data inter-connection.
Sangbong Lee is currently based in Germany. After completing his industrial design major at Seoul National University of Science and Technology, he started a design studio. After several years of studio life, he is pursuing a master’s degree in Digital Media at the Hochschule für Künste Bremen, Germany. While attending the Department of Design, he came across a programming class by chance and became aware of the work in the field of computer art. The interest in this field that arose after that led him to quit his major, industrial design, and choose a path as a new media artist.
In his early work, he felt the limits of human interaction with the computer limited to the inside of the screen and tried to expand the scope to the space outside the screen. Afterward, he became attracted to the work of bringing out the results of information processing inside a computer into three-dimensional space and studied hardware as a means to realize it. As part of that, he planned an intermediate-state product that combines digital art and commercial products, and in that attempt, he participated in the Maker movement.
Currently, Sangbong Lee is paying attention to objects that transcend human senses (climate crisis, black hole) recognized by us in the form of huge data. He is researching what types of material, space, and temporality should be applied when bringing data without physical substance into our sensory realm.
Photos by Sangbong Lee.
| EXHIBITIONS | |
| 2022 | Bremen(DE), Galerie NebenFlut, Gedankenexperimente |
| Bremen(DE), HFK Speicher XI, Hochschultage | |
| Bremen(DE), Dauerwelle, DIS/PLAY 22: Eight perms for a digital age | |
| Projects | |
| 2021 | Bremen(DE), R&D for new harmonicas for Hohner musical instruments |
| 2018 | Seoul(KR), Korea Foundation for the Advancement of Science & Creativity, Maker movement sponsoring program |
| 2017 | Seoul(KR), Korea Foundation for the Advancement of Science & Creativity, Maker movement fostering program |
| STUDIES | |
| Since 2020 | Bremen(DE), Hochschule für Künste Bremen, Master in Digital Media |
| 2006 – 2015 | Seoul(KR), Seoul National University of Science and Technology, Bachelor in Industrial Design |
| SCHOLARSHIP | |
| 2021 – 2022 | DAAD Study Scholarship program, Postgraduate Studies in the Fields of Fine Art, Film, Design/Visual Communication and Film, 2021/22 |
| BIO | |
| Since 2020 | Lives in Bremen(DE) |
| 2006 – 2019 | Lived in Seoul(KR) |
| 1986 | Born in Daegu(KR) |