Biography
Born in 1986 in Daegu, South Korea, Sangbong Lee based in Bremen, Germany. He studied industrial design at Seoul National University of
Science and Technology and ran a design studio before leaving to work as an artist.
What redirected him was this: He was less interested in virtual results confined to the screen than in making things that physically exist and actually work.
So he taught himself circuits, electronics, fabrication to bring what happens inside a machine into physical space.
That decision still defines his practice: He builds the devices my works require.
He makes installations from obsolete or discarded technologies, materialising the invisible infrastructures that govern daily life.
Recent works include Space Odradek (2025–26), on satellites declared dead that still transmit, and Cartesian Pineal Gland (2022), which stored text in magnetic-core memory.
He holds a Master's in Digital Media from the Hochschule für Künste Bremen. He also work as an electronics engineer for other artists:
for Studio Kimchi and Chips on Reworld (Seoul, 2023), and on e-ink display hardware with Prof. Alexander Roidl for re-coding everyday workshop (2025).
Statement
I work with technological media that have outlived their use: magnetic-core memory, dead satellites that still transmit, radio waves and the antennas that catch them.
They were once limbs of an infrastructure too large to perceive — a monster we live inside and cannot see whole. My material is its shed fragments, pushed outside
the standard of efficiency.
A fragment is not a shape I borrow. It still carries how the monster worked, and I align that mechanism, its purpose and history with the subject of the work.
I gather specifications and archives as evidence of the time it has passed through, and bring old machines back into operation with circuits and software I design myself,
in installations that translate the invisible technological environment into sound, light and movement.
In an ecosystem where novelty and efficiency are the only values, a device at the end of its life falls outside the criteria that judged it
and becomes strangely autonomous. That is where I ask whether the logic that grants or withdraws existence according to function is not being applied, in the same way, to us.
Education
Hochschule für Künste Bremen, Master in Digital Media, 2020 - Current, Bremen, Germany
Seoul National University of Science and Technology, Bachelor of Design, 2006 - 2014, Seoul, South Korea
Exhibitions
2026
Theses Exhibition, 10. Apr - 13. Apr, Halle 1 / Speicher Xi A, Bremen, Title: Space Odradek: Dive into the Spooky Invisible
2025
Zer01ne Day, 17. Sep - 21. Sep, Hyundai Seongsu Hub, Seoul, Title: Space Odradek
2024
Kikk Festival (Group), 24. Oct - 27. Oct, Hospice d'Harscamp, Namur, Title: Hidden dependency
Studies of change (Group), 30. May - 02. June, Alte Pathologie, Bremen, Title: Hidden dependency
Fictions, Speculations & Imaginaries (Group), 18. April - 20. April, Halle 1, Speicher XI A, Bremen, Title: LIMBO Tracker
Water paths (Group), 24. May, Dauerwelle, Bremen, Title: Liquid Prism
2023
Water Light Festival(Lab) (Group), 3. May - 21. May, Neustift, Brixen, Title: Cartesian pineal gland
2022
Gedankenexperimente (Group), 20. Oct - 22. Oct, HFK, Bremen, Title: The Altar for hyperobjects
Hochschultage (Group), 1. July - 3. July, HFK, Bremen, Title: Cartesian pineal gland
DIS/PLAY 22: Eight perms for a digital age (Group), 21. May - 26. May, Dauerwelle, Bremen, Title: Cartesian pineal gland
Projects / Works & Others
E-ink Display board, Medieninformatik in HS Mainz with Prof.Alexander Roidl,
Electronics engineer, Dec. 2024 - Apr. 2025, Bremen
Developing Circuit and PCB pattern [Link]
Type-0《零式》, Chihim Chik, Electronics engineer, 28. Nov. 2024, Bremen
Developing Electronics and battery holder frame [Link]
Reworld project, Studio Kimchi and Chips, Electronics engineer, 15. June. 2023 - 12. Sep. 2023, Seoul
Developing PCB and Power delivering for the installation [Link]
Juicy Workshop at HFK, 26. Feb. 2022, HFK, Bremen
Introduction of Arduino and Pulse width modulation control for RGB LEDs
Hohner MUHA project, Research and Design project with Hohner and HFK, Nov. 2021 - Apr. 2022, Bremen
Development of concepts for new harmonicas for Hohner musical instruments / Research Assistant
DAAD Study Scholarship program, Oct. 2020 - Sep. 2022, Bremen
Postgraduate Studies in the Fields of Fine Art, Film, Design/Visual Communication and Film, 2021/22
Maker movement sponsoring program, Korea Foundation for the Advancement of Science & Creativity, Oct. 2018 - Mar. 2019, Seoul
LED Lighting device: Different types of lighting devices with the implementation of GPU simulation
Maker movement fostering program, Korea Foundation for the Advancement of Science & Creativity, Oct.2017 - Mar. 2018, Seoul
LED Cube application: Interactive LED cube with GPU simulation
