Champagne Supernova — Jinjoon Lee turns biometric data into cosmic abstraction
- Anna Lilli Garai
- Sep 27
- 1 min read
Updated: Sep 30
Location: BB&M Gallery, Seoul
Date: Aug 23 – Oct 18, 2025
Project: Champagne Supernova — solo exhibition by Jinjoon Lee
Why it Matters: Reimagines data, myth, and memory in a post-digital era where intimacy becomes cosmic
At BB&M Gallery in Seoul, Jinjoon Lee’s Champagne Supernova takes biometric iris scans—normally used for surveillance and control—and reworks them into sequences of abstract light and color. The 88-minute video, presented on a monumental LED screen, strips away individuality and turns personal data into a shared, collective image.
The exhibition develops this approach across multiple works. Login Odyssey presses iris imagery onto LP records, which translate brightness and saturation into sound when played on a custom-built turntable. On Some Faraway Shore combines AI-selected fragments of ecological and anatomical imagery with hand painting to create delicate, layered compositions. Other pieces, including Memory Theatre and the VR-based Mnemosyne Theatre for Apple Vision Pro, address how digital technologies shape the way we see and listen.
Earlier in September, Lee staged Cine-Forest: Awakening Bloom in Bundang Central Park, where more than 10,000 visitors experienced an outdoor media performance combining AI, orchestra, choir, and forest. Together, the performance and the exhibition show how Lee uses technology not as spectacle but as a medium for collective imagination and cultural memory.
