An ellipsis, marked with a set of three periods side by side, and the exhibition <251_Ellipsis> that combines 251 days of a year while excluding all the holidays confront the ordinary working hours with the rest of hours that are spent on art practice. The 251 days of Younghee Lee who has been teaching as a profession would be distant from an ellipsis. This is because an education transmits from words to words. While education is developing the indirect method of confrontation in today’s information-oriented society, it still puts its focus on the matter of direct communication between human beings. In this context, the words that are filled with confidence should be logically unfolded, following one after another. A clear command of a language is the basis of all of representational activities. However, society regards these activities as the only production. In order to become the main agent working as a producer, humans need to absorb the dominant words and make them into theirs. Those who are in silence within such a hierarchical relationship are usually faced with predicaments. Nature is the most classic example. The process of making a biological being into a social agent is only possible through experiencing the dominant language of a symbolic universe that preexisted before the main agent.

          Education stands in the center. Words are regarded as the competitive edges in a society where it is made up of words. Moreover, the competitive words are decided within the relation of power. In the wave of globalization which promotes a few dominant languages to rule over the world, the languages of ethnic minorities are disappearing one by one. There is also a reason behind the fact that the previous careers of politicians tend to be greatly related to talking. Since the silence in the public realm represents the damaged logic caused by awkwardness, unfamiliarity and oblivion, it should be controlled and eliminated. In a logocentric society, words take possession of the public realm. However, most of my working hours are filled with shadow works, which represent the lonely time where social feedbacks mostly do not come along. Not a few side effects have occurred when the arts imitated the wording of the public realm while thinking that it should be no problem for it as well. Such a division divides the time of an individual into two different parts: a useful but hollow part and full but lonely part. The artist uses such time to talk to herself. The works of Younghee Lee are distant from collaborative works; however, they are not monologues and, moreover, she adheres to a method of conducting a conversation.

          The artist attempts to make a conversation with herself in the practice, although the conversation with her may be filled with ellipses. An artist who tries to start a conversation with her is actually herself and simultaneously she is you while at the same time she has to be ‘youngheelee’. The works of Younghee Lee such as croquis and films have latent qualities and realistic flows that reenact the time she talked to herself. Films hope to be read instead of simply be seen by using the proportion of A4 paper rather than the regular proportion. However, since the signs in the works of Younghee Lee have been materialized and encarnalized, they cannot be read clearly. Instead, they feel much more intense. An ellipsis is a sign that makes us to encounter such unclearness. A gap between words represents silence. The concept of a gap had already been presented in the solo exhibitions in 2011 and 2013. At the moment, more focus is put on a gap between words rather than a gap between nature. In the films, the sound is hidden behind the moving images. However, the artist eliminates the sound and makes the best use of the visual effects to let the audiences hear the sound through them. Although the drawings, not to mention the films, do not make any sound, the roaring sound of conversations between the second and third hypothetical agents can be heard.

          A conversation between other individual who exists within oneself during the time of ellipsis, enables the formation of new words. This is because silence represents the time to recharge the depleted words rather than incompetence or hopelessness. Those 251 days of Younghee Lee and other individuals whose duties involve public services inevitably encounter hollowness that causes words to exist only for words. In today’s society, it seems that communication is functioning automatically under the Information Technology; however, in reality, words are not getting properly recharged or renewed but rather they are just mechanically circulating. Within such a revolution of words, it is difficult to even gain simple information, not to mention the definitions of the words. It is sad to admit the fact that even the arts are open to such idleness even though it attempts to come up with other alternatives for communication. The conversation of Younghee Lee starts by vitalizing the depleted words. For instance, there is a scene in one of the films which shows how the patterns of the edges in an official document get vitalized, their process of growth and how they bloom. Surely, they die since they have gained life. They are not dead nor alive but rather they are generated and later, they become extinct. There is a close relation between Younghee Lee’s work where the image of death coexists with the image of life, and the incident that shocked our society few years ago.

          Although, the reenactment of such a ridiculous incident was not possible since the whole story of it has not been revealed yet, it was presented through the concept of <Finally Ellipsis> and <Ellipsis> at the Museum of Joongup Kim in 2014. The film, exhibited on the first floor of the museum, was inserted in a frame to imply the relation with the framed work in front of it. The works that mutually share a delicate connection become clarified regardless of their implications. The film does not only consist of characters or sentences but also drawings. It looks as if it was an original animation of the drawing in the frame. The film assigns the movements into the stationary images and such movements accompany a series of description. Since there is a time lag between a series of three films that are played repeatedly, the audiences could see all the works of more than 40 minutes from one spot or while passing by. The film has been made into a limited edition book, which is stocked in the same room of the museum in order to let the audiences experience different versions of the work that is connected with the relationship between repetition and distinction.

          There is no clincher made at a time in Younghee Lee’s method of conversation where she talks to other individuals as if she is talking to herself. Like the deconstruction theory, there is only a substitute and endless supplements towards the empty center. On the first basement level, the works that have been painted on the grafted cotton cloths are exhibited and, moreover, the ascending image matches with the underground space. The patterns of a plant in the work have roots underneath. The exposed parts are these roots, which represent the parts of a female body. The ascension image of a plant that looks like a launched rocket but not a regular pattern of a plant represents the image of an ascending earth together with its roots. While there are many works that are repeatedly showing the vision of movements, the interior and exterior lines of a plant-motif that are expressing its curves also give the feelings of movements of every single work. The work in the background of the color of apricot has a stronger feeling of the warm skin. The nude croquis concentrates on expressing the vitality of a human body. The added green colors locate the body into the real world, which resembles the earth and cloud. The growing hairs on the body seem like plants. The energy that comes out of the body gleams like the summer haze. Sometimes the body overlaps with the stained black nets as if the death has entered in.

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          Although the surface of the work is only a printed paper with letters on it, it gives the feeling of different kinds of skins from milky-pink types to the ones that are covered with age spots. Within the structure of circulation where the beginning and end; the life and death are connected, folding will lead to unfolding of another stories. The patterns of a flower in the middle of an official document move out of their place and wander around in different directions while the words escape from the center as well. The work that involves the whole screen, filled with the word ‘blank’, does not seem odd in a paradoxical place where the center and peripheries constantly move around their places with one another. The painted background is of a cotton cloth without any background processing and it represents the controlling of the birth and death of Koreans. The small stains on natural fibers that seem like moles on a skin look as if they are ellipses that have been arranged arbitrarily. The works of Younghee Lee develop by adding slightly more to nature and giving them their own characteristics. The embroidery patterns that seem like they are soaring up and the wriggling nude image are placed above while the film accelerates the passage of time and adds the description.

          The patterns of a plant which attempt to soar up regardless of their inabilities follow the rhythm of a body that beats with desire from the birth to the death or even afterwards. It could be said that the plant that grows within the gaps of a body and soars up from the earth has an animal instinct. Accordingly, plants and animals are compatible with each other in the works of Younghee Lee. They all desire linguistically rather than pursuing their biological appetites. Unlike appetites, desires tend to be infinite. The film that has been produced in the format of an interview of an artist is a kind of movie that puts a drawing, a book or a text together. Although it is quite a long film to be watched in an art museum, the artist has managed to arrange all 12 scenes, which represent the months of a year flexibly enough so that they seem okay when viewed from any part of the film. According to the artist, this is because no one could see the world in order. It is language that offers order to tangled situations. It is not true that language itself has been in good order. It should just be the case that out of many possibilities, some of them may have been structured inevitably. Like the claims of structural linguists, language is arbitrary.
However, the artist comes up with a text that is different from the reality while bearing in mind about the remaining pieces that have been eliminated. The text correlates the arts with the world. Three periods are being stretched out and folded while losing their forms, spreading and or budding. Considering the fact that there are many splendid spectacles just a step away from the museum, the film is simple like a drawing on coarse paper or a cotton cloth. The weaknesses of the works of Younghee Lee that should be concealed are being frankly indicated; and in between the dark gap the image and language occur. Within an ellipsis, many situations from before and after have been compressed into it. The artist tries to reveal all the situations occurred before and after working, known as the time of silence, which tend to be difficult to be reenacted. In such a hopeless context, the summary of sentences that desires an immediate communication of the messages does not tend to work. Information may become summarized; however, the arts can only be repeated. The conversation between oneself in order to express something that cannot be expressed does not flow naturally like the film. The film starts with the phrase ‘slow and heavy footsteps’.  

         
           According to the artist, this interview starts with the saying by Jacob Grimm as a clue who said that ‘thinking is the very conversation with oneself and therefore a thinker can be the second person while being the first person’. ‘Until the hidden words reveal their own identities themselves’ is the saying by Max Piccard. The main agent of the words here disappears and only the words that converge into an unknown agent prosper. Within these increased words that are being reproduced through symbols and images, the artist herself exists but not exists. The sentence saying ‘sinking into oneself, sinking into yourself, while being myself sinking into you, while being you she is sinking into herself, while being myself I am you and while being you she…’ shows that the main agent has been divided into many different beings and such a division leads to the encountering of Younghee Lee, written in different numbers, and many ellipses, written in different numbers. These two types stay well-off, create a series of forms and unite with images. All the scenes from <#1 Until the hidden words reveal their own identities themselves> to #12 Sinking are not just well-organized descriptions that lead to a specific goal or point. They are arranged in a way that the silence without images and messages due to the absence of referent, gets attached endlessly. The reason the scenes seem like they have been arranged randomly although the artist has created through a careful configuration work is that the silence and sinking mood were in the atmosphere. As the letters and symbols overlap and get patterned, it would be difficult for the audiences to clearly read them because the level of readability drops. Like the paper that flutters in the wind, there are times when the side of the background moves. The letters frequently wobble as well. The artist says that she thinks the film as a flag. It would be difficult to read the letters on a fluttering flag. The sentences move around, overlap, reverse and sometimes lose their balance thus sway from side to side. The slanted character string under the horizon loses its strength of stability and sinks. The silence of Younghee Lee does not represent the complete silence but it talks about the state where the words do not make sense yet and also about the moment when the symbols wander around without having any specific position. In the very beginning, the referent, and afterwards, the signifiers wander around an empty space in order to find the exact places of their own like how a chaos seeks for a cosmos. The maximum possibility for the signification could be concluded without any signification at all.

          Different components of the work almost never settle-in stably. Only the three periods situate themselves in a horizontal line to act as an occurring point for words and images. A sentence with a combination of numbers, characters and symbols repeatedly rises and falls. In the work of Younghee Lee, rather than the moments with significations, the moments of seeking for those significant moments take up a larger proportion. Not only the movements between top and down of the screen, but the movements between the surface and in-depth surface show the busy process below the water, under the silence. Like a parchment document from the ancient world that involves repeated writings on the same spot and the flickering of symbols pass through many layers. Those that pass through violates the matter of transparency and economical aspects of the transferring of messages. In the scene where a part of the patterns transforms like a tear drop shows a strong feeling. The flowers that float around the water resemble those children who were buried at sea. The background surface changes into a dark color like the night time and implies that it is another world. At this moment, the periods on a cotton cloth become the stars. The background surface moves side by side as a result of the wind that blows inside and the noise level of the screen gets maximized, which appears as the symbol of basic color correction.

          The scene #8 Stumble gets shaken and disturbed the most. Just like how the dawn comes at the end of the dark night, would it be that the chaos foresees the cosmos? Many images and stories, derived from an ellipsis, show the location of meaninglessness that occurs in the process of making meaning. This exhibition is the connected with <Finally Ellipsis> from 2014 that focuses on concretizing the thoughts about an ellipsis and the silence. The artist thinks that she uses typical etiquette phrases in a very careful manner and also has a tendency to hesitate and frequently talk slowly or stutter. The film that forms the format of an interview puts its focus on the hesitating and stuttering parts to objectify her. This odd interview makes the audiences to understand about the artist with something that is not verbal. The characters that appear in the film are the 251 persons of ‘youngheelee’ and they momentarily appear and disappear within a combination of floating words and images. Like the particles that float around the water, there is no stabilized moment. Like the origin of a cosmos, the origin of certainty equals uncertainty; the origin of significance equals insignificance and the origin of talking is the silence.
 

          What Younghee Lee has chosen for the subject of her exhibition, an ellipsis, implies the absence of the words and symbols. The one that could tie up this is the absence of the main agent. Through this exhibition, Younghee Lee divides herself as 251 individuals and analyze them through observing and having conversations. Surely, it could be said that there is no definite main agent that suggests and carries out such a game; however, we should realize the fact that there is no such thing that clearly states the important information. The artist who has nominated ‘an ellipsis’ as the subtitle of the exhibition observes more about the surroundings that exist around the act of talking. The words, derived from non-verbal backgrounds, tend to be more affluent rather than the words, derived from the actual words. The repetition of the same words should be refused because it tends to fix ourselves in the place where we used to be. The case where B, C or D could result from A is called the artistic communication whereas in regular communication, only A would result from A. The works of exhibition focuses on clearly expressing that the artist Younghee Lee rather than professor Younghee Lee. Such is the desire of all the artists who try an alternative communication method. Why does the artist hide behind an ellipsis rather than clearly stating what she wants to say?

          Does it mean that an individual is abandoning oneself if the linguistic one is being concerned out of all the main agents? Such has been frequently mentioned in contemporary aesthetics. Maurice Blanchot in <The Space of Literature> claims that he gave up saying ‘I’. According to him, we are not writing regarding ourselves in the present moment. We become us in the present moment according to what we write about. The main agent is open to an unknown world. The work is great because it could transform an artist as well as audiences. The 251 persons of ‘yougheelee’ have no individual properties, multi-faceted and, moreover, the mumbling sound of the anonymous speaker causes confusion. For the sake of a bigger number of ‘youngheelee’, she abandons the original Younghee Lee. The reason that an artist risks such absence is not simply the result of self-denial or self-torture. It is to create and meet an unknown self rather than the intrinsic self. Maybe the art is one of the ways to meet an unknown self without getting crazy but through different words that make up of one. An unknown self is also a partner of an unknown piece of work. An ellipsis expresses damages that are inherent in the body, shown in the work and in nature.

          A symbol and a referent do not accord with each other. There is discontinuity between them. Due to this discontinuity, the artist cannot state the significance clearly. Like what Roland Barthes said, an artist should let the significance reveal the place rather than telling the significance himself. The field of significance in the work of Younghee Lee that changes the attention from spoken ones to unspoken ones is filled with a body or nature. Whether it is the result of the fact that it is without a clear outline, the images of pollution, infection and invasion are showing the general appearance of it. These are the images of a referent, relevant to damaged words. They do not seem natural with full of gaps and damages. Although such could mean the true value of nature, the common knowledge and the doctrinarism see them as some entities that exist under the name of nature. This is because it is the way to possess and control while understanding about nature. The minority of people objectify and implement the majority of people for which have caused many tragedies in the history of mankind. What is foregrounding in Younghee Lee’s works is not language but nature. A human body that has appeared as a mass of life also belongs to nature.

          Although nature does not accord with language, the artist constantly tries to make these two meet each other. Even though modern languages that have been reverted into codes are now more distant from nature, a philosopher Rousseau claimed the origin of language as nature through his book called <The origin of language>. According to Rousseau who claimed to go back to nature during the Age of Enlightenment, emotions exceed the reason and it makes human beings to talk. However, under the civilization where nature is contrasted with the reason, nature is pure and at the same time rough like all the origins of life. Naturalized words are regressive. Like it is shown in the sentences where ellipses are overly used, the stuttering tone of Younghee Lee shows the aspects of children who either learnt to speak for the first time or did something wrong. It is a body and unconsciousness that are exposed even more when the words get interrupted and or eliminated. A body that is not a main agent but a target has no words. However, the psychoanalysis that has been violating since its creation releases a body rather than mentality regarding the origin of languages.

          Peter Brooks claims in his book called <Body Work> that according to the psychoanalysis, a body itself is a place where mental conflicts are imprinted and at the same time it is the source of a human symbol. Similarly, Roland Barthes claimed that a symbolic field has been filled only with one object and that it assigns unity within such a symbolic field. This object is a human body. The work of Younghee Lee also overlaps a symbolic field and a human body. In this context, a body is where desires are made and also it is the source of stories. According to Peter Brooks, a body becomes a place where different senses are created, in other words, where stories are imprinted and at the same time it becomes a primary element for the narrative plots and production of meanings. Although language and a body are close to each other, they do not accord with each other. While Peter Brooks emphasizes a human body as one of a social composition where meanings are imprinted, he also claims that a body is beyond just a social composition that is made of intelligence. This is because a body is considered as other individual who can never be included in our efforts to recreate the world through the intelligence and writing.

          Although a body also gets socially constructed, a physical body is culturally and linguistically outdated. Even though a postmodernist aims to virtualize everything, the real existence of a body cannot be denied. Our technology is keep trying; however, it still has not yet revealed the secret behind life. Everything cannot be verbalized. The sense of pleasure, especially the sense of pain is an external sense of language. The incident that encouraged Younghee Lee to work with an ellipsis was so shocking that it could not be expressed with any words. Such an incident causes the sense of pain itself. However, our society tries to cover it up. Through collective oblivion the pain is repeated. The Sewol ferry disaster has hit the artist hard and everyone started to talk about it. However, such is only for oblivion, not memory. In our capitalist society, a rumor plays a greater role than a secret in vanishing stories. But within the stuttered and omitted words, there is positive power that delays communication through consumption. This power will recall the thing that sank inside the silence.