me

Running time: 2 min. 30 sec.
A digital experimental film.

Synopsis
Since November 2001, I have been taking a picture of myself every day. Put together in a video the days fly by at roughly a week per second, blending together to make a new image that transforms over time. The resulting portrait creates a tension between continuous film image and individual photos brought to the foreground occasionally by stray cropped edges. Through its flickering instability, Me becomes a meditation on image, identity, and ultimately, mortality. This installment covers three years of a long-term project intended to continue indefinitely.

Credits
Director/subject: Ahree Lee
Music: "Music for Me " by Nathan Melsted

Artist statement

I have always been fascinated by the way photographic images represent people, and what they say about us and our culture. Specifically, in my work I examine how we represent ourselves and others through snapshots, advertising, and news photos. Part of that is an interest in how photos can be used to capture fleeting moments that would otherwise be lost, like changes over time that are so subtle that they usually go unnoticed. I like to use video because of its ability to manipulate time by either slowing it down or speeding it up, making those subtle changes visible.

In “Me” I put together self-portrait snapshots that I have taken every day since November 2001, and created an animated sequence that is the digital equivalent of a photo flip book. Though the subject in the photos is me, it could have been any woman, and the choice of using myself as the subject was due to the fact that I was the only person I could count on to be available for a photo every single day.

For me personally, the photos serve as a mirror in which I can examine my own image and possibly see myself as others see me. The act of taking and looking at my own photo is similar to what women do every day when they look into the mirror and assess their own appearance. In our culture we demand that images of women be youthful and attractive, but implicit in this sequence is that over time the woman in the photos will age. As in the vanitas tradition of still life painting, implicit in “Me” is the ephemerality of physical appearance and the inevitability of aging and mortality.

Awards

Webby Awards
Online Film & Video
2007 official nominee

Audience Award: Second Place
Short Films – Experimental
Film Fest New Haven

Jury Award: Honorable Mention
Short Films – Experimental
Film Fest New Haven

Festivals

International Festival of Video Art of Casablanca
Casablanca, Morocco
April 2009

International Short Film Festival Leuven
Leuven, Belgium
December 2006

Silver Lake Film Festival
Los Angeles, California
September 2004

Film Fest New Haven
New Haven, Connecticut
September 2004

Los Angeles International Short Film Festival
Los Angeles, California
September 2004

Light Plays Tricks 6 Short Film Festival
Kingston, Ontario, Canada
May 2003

Exhibitions/Performances

I Love Your Profile
La Kursala Gallery
University of Cadiz
Cadiz, Spain
30 June-13 September 2010

01SJ Biennial
San Jose, CA
June 2008

Command Z: New Work in Digital
Photography
Torrance Art Museum
Torrance, CA
31 March–26 May 2007

Watch It: When Art and TV Meet
SAC Gallery, Stony Brook University
Stony Brook, NY
30 November–21 December 2006

MULTI–
Arts+Literature Laboratory
New Haven, CT
May–June 2005

Play
Collaboration with Adele Myers and Dancers
Merce Cunningham Studio
New York, NY
April 2005

City-Wide Open Studios
New Haven, CT
October 2002

Broadcasts

Clipmania, August 2008.

"Chasing Life," A CNN special report with Dr. Sanjay Gupta, April 2007.

Inside Edition, 20 September 2006.

Today Show, 18 August 2006.

A 24 Frame Project: One Year
Sundance Channel
Airs January 2005–2008

Collections

Museum of the Moving Image
New York, NY

Selected Media

Sarno, David. “A fast-forward trip through time’s passage.” L. A. Times, 15 April 2007.

Schneider, Keith. “Look at Me, World! Self-Portraits Morph Into Internet Movies.” New York Times, 18 March 2007.

Kirsner, Scott. “All the World’s a Stage (That Includes the Internet).” New York Times, 15 February 2007.

“The Year in Online Video.” Wired News, 26 December 2006.

Q&A by Filmmaker Greg Pak, AsianAmericanFilm.com, 26 September 2006.

Sennhauser, Peter. “Die unglaubliche Geschichte der Lee.” Tages Anzeiger (Switzerland), 4 September 2006.

ABC World News Webcast, 17 August 2006.

BBC News, 17 August 2006.

City News (Toronto, Canada), 12 August 2006.

“Daily Viral Video.” TV Week, 11 August 2006.