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Birds Eye View

UB

Presented in Season 1 2022

Presented by Arts House and Flash Forward

Mon 14 Feb – Sat 31 Dec, 2022
24hours

Free

Arts House
North Melbourne Town Hall
521 Queensberry St,
North Melbourne

Read our COVID-19 Safety Plan here.

Wheelchair Accessible

Three divine altars devoted to the contemporary mythology of hybrid human-bird gods make up ‘Bird’s Eye View’, an enchanting and immersive installation from Melbourne artist UB presented in partnership between Arts House and City of Melbourne’s Flash Forward program. 

The new installation features a series of handcrafted, cyber-punk shadow puppets situated within three luminous LED boxes, each surrounded by vibrant, hand-painted walls directly inspired by Korean Buddhist temples.  

A work heightened through audience participation, ‘Birds Eye View’ allows you free reign to conceive your own stories and ignite your imagination by operating each puppet using magnet sticks.  

A QR activated audio soundtrack featuring the poetry of Ye Sang completes the installation, offering a deeper sensory leap directly into the heart of UB’s work.  

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Artist Statement

Located in George Johnson Ln next of the Arts House, this installation consists of three altars dedicated to the contemporary mythology of the hybrid human-bird gods. They are turned in to a series of puppets with a cyber-punk aesthetic, which placed in three LED boxes that allow the public to operate with magnet sticks and create their own movements. These LED boxes are surrounded by colorful patterned wall inspired of Korean Buddhist temples. There is also a soundtrack to be activated by users via QR code. In the sounds track and on the mural painting, there is the inspirational poetry of this project called ‘Crow's eye view poem’ (오감도 시 제1호), written by Ye Sang (이상,1910-1937), who is the most famous avant-garde writer of the colonial era.

The characters of this project- hybrid images of the bird and human can be found in many ancient cultures, the has been inspiring people’s imagination. Either that is a form of a human faced birds or a Avian humanoid, they have been commonly symbolised the connection between earth and sky, human and the gods or- body and the sprits. As the animal bird themselves have availability of flying sky and cross the space, it was natural to symbolise them as some spiritual creatures above us.

However, in the city of current world, the existence of the birds themselves has ecologically and symbolically changed. As they lost the forest as their old home and had to adapt themselves into the city environment, they turned into a pests. They are often seen as dirty, stupid, and fearful creatures for many people. So, I played the idea of the mythological birds-human gods also had to change their form in the city.
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About the Artist

UB is a visual artist working in printmaking, installation, video, puppetry, performance, and community engagement – skills learned at the Chugye University of Arts, Korea, from which she graduated as dux. Working as a multimedia artist and project coordinator, UB continues to refine an arts practice that engages and draws commonality between people and places.
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Credits

Artist: UB (Youbi Lee)
LED box: Joe Blanck
Puppet help: Tim Andrews
Poem: Sang Lee
Music: Dale Gorfinkel
Voice: Sol Lee

This project has been supported by the City of Melbourne through Arts House and the Flash Forward program.

Presented by Arts House and Flash Forward

Mon 14 Feb – Sat 31 Dec, 2022
24hours

Free

Arts House
North Melbourne Town Hall
521 Queensberry St,
North Melbourne

Read our COVID-19 Safety Plan here.

Wheelchair Accessible