Manifesto of Mirena Rhee

Thoughts and thinking comes first, forms come second. Our civilization is a product of perfected thoughts - we were able to record and improve on previous thoughts with the invention of the book. We learned how to see better with the improvement and invention of new depiction and visual expression methods. The more perfect thoughts resulted in more perfect ideas and more perfect execution of the ideas with the help of the machine. Now with the help of the machine we can indulge in perfect iterations to arrive at perfect ideas and execute perfect forms.

I have personally experienced the symbiotic relationship with the machine as a video game artist and can attest to the power of the machine to extend and help express the mind. As one of the very few female video game artists I used to operate 7 or 8 machines at a time, I played a machine piano. By a machine in this context I mean a computer.

The machine can do better than provide perfect entertainment and I believe we are a bit lost in the fields of entertainment which is like a very compelling veil. If we use our resources to better our civilization rather than entertain it - we can achieve incredible things as a civilization.

I believe the role of the machine is to help us perfect the material expressions of our thoughts. The machine helps us overcome the limitations of our soft biological selves and helps us with perfect memory, helps us perfect the forms as thoughts and the products of the thoughts.

The reason I have decided to write a Manifesto as opposed to an artist statement is because everything I do is driven by my deeply held beliefs. Which fortunately change and evolve over time as I reflect on my position as a human, as an artist and as a thinker in the 21st century.

After my adventures with the machine, I engaged in very tactile practice - drawing, performance and installation. In performance I employed wearables as 3d sculptural canvases as records from the ever-evolving interactions with the general public.

I also gradually re-incorporated the machine into my more-tactile practices by making animations, simulations, video, photographs and various remixes of these, as a way to extend the life of the work, and do what, in the commercial world, we call rabid prototyping - frantic remix of ideas exhausting further outcomes.

I believe in frugal and simple living and the clarity which comes with being a little bit hungry and having only one meal a day. I believe we have become too reliant on transactional and market thinking when the best things in life like love, kindness, friendship and affection are given freely. I believe possessions take from people’s lives and I live with as few possessions as possible.

I practice logical ecology and use reasoning to figure out how to live better and more ecological life. I reasoned that living simply and frugally is the most direct way of living ecologically. I also reasoned that it is best for the ecology of my own immediate environment and my own body to deal with fewer possessions and fewer meals. Every one of my possessions is taking from my square footage and my valuable time, to acquire, store, care for, move and dispose of. Every meal also takes from my valuable time in terms of having to acquire food, prepare, eat and cleanup, and store afterwards.

I was reading on Larry Page and it struck me that he is building a large ecohouse. A large ecohouse is an oxymoron. Here is how to live an ecological life - live simply. We need a room to sleep in and a room to work in and two meals a day, even better, one meal a day. This is the most ecological way to live.

I believe that art is about ideas and beliefs rather than techniques and forms. A well executed form without ideas is decoration. A decoration can be done by an elephant or AI. A human being creates reflectively - a human looks at the past of the entire human civilization, the present and the future, and thus creates reflectively on the human civilization and addresses other humans with his or her art, an elephant or a machine do not reflect on the entirety of the elephant or machine history and civilization and can only operate as reflected in the human civilization.

I believe art expresses the ideal world into the material world. The highest form of art is the one least burdened by the material. Art is a result of an artist’s seeking of inner truth, a human being reflecting on reality - well executed depiction is not necessarily art as the machine can also depict, and perfectly.

An artist is a person who has devoted a significant amount of time to creating art. An artist is also a person who seeks an inner truth which crystalizes into what I call deeply held beliefs. For the same reason a race car driver must race cars to be called a race car driver, and moreover must be an expert at it, an artist must do art and become an expert at it to be called an artist.

I have been drawing since I was 4 years old, I grew up with a painter and an architect grandfather, I used to draw his paintings in pastel and constantly drew in my notebooks and on my grandparents patio. I went to classical drawing school every weekend throughout high school, drew extensively at university, and after fleeing the communist regime became a commercial artist for some of the biggest entertainment companies on the West coast like Lucasfilm.

Drawing is at the core of my being, at the core of my practice and something I do that gives me extreme pleasure and adrenaline rush. I admire many artists, from antiquity, through surrealism and contemporary art, but I consider Durer, Leonardo and Michelangelo to be my main teachers and mentors in art and the aesthetics of disegno.

Drawing and disegno ( the drawing and the design ) are the most direct and truthful forms of art. The line is a perfect record of the artist laying down the design, the moment of crystallization of the ideal onto the material. The ideal pours through the artist’s hand and forms the line and the line is the most immediate expression of the ideal.

For an art to be art all three must be present - a deeply held belief and an inner truth or a thought, an artist and a process of laying down the disegno must be present.