Portfolio – MENDEL LEE

Bee Kind (2024) for digital media, video, and live dancers

Mendel Lee — Fri, 04 Oct 2024 16:42:59 +0000

I wrote Bee Kind as a means to reshape the false narrative that bees are dangerous pests when in fact they are our allies that are essential to the health of our global ecosystem.

With the exception of Africanized honey bees, bees are not aggressive unless they are provoked or perceive a threat, and they are generally harmless to humans who are not allergic to them. This track aims to transform any reflexive or instinctual fear associated with the distinctive buzz sound of bees into a reflex of joy and celebration.

Bee Kind is the second movement of a multi-movement project, titled Through the Sonic Glass, that explores various sonic phenomena that would be perceived as dangerous in real life made safe by putting it into a virtual and musical context. It was written as a part of my fellowship with the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.

All samples used were obtained from freesound.org under a Creative Commons license. Full attributions (“sample title” – username):

“Footsteps” – crooner
“Bees” – eartrumpet
“Bee01” – iainmccurdy
“Bee02” – iainmccurdy
“calm forest April NL Kampina 03 200401_0141” – klankbeeld
“Bee” – w0lfgang1

This track is available for digital download purchase on Bandcamp.

Fast-Paced World (2022) for digital media, video, and live dancers

Mendel Lee — Fri, 03 Feb 2023 07:44:39 +0000

Years ago I found myself wondering what it would sound and feel like to be standing or walking in the middle of a road with fast and loud vehicles speeding by me on all sides. I imagined closing my eyes, feeling the slipstream air whip my hair around as vehicles of all shapes and sizes passed by me.

Because this would be hazardous to experience in real life, I set my sights on creating a digital audio work that could represent this phenomenon. Fast-Paced World is the result, an atmospheric work aimed at transporting the listener into what would be a dangerous sonic environment made safe and meditative by transforming the sounds into a peaceful virtual soundscape.

Since its completion, Fast-Paced World has also served as a launching point for a larger collaborative project of audio, video, and live dancers currently in development. The project, titled Through the Sonic Glass, will explore other sonic phenomena recontextualized in an artful space.

The full production of Fast-Paced World was world premiered on May 25-26th, 2023 with Versipel New Music.

Audio and Video by Mendel Lee – choreography by Jakki Kalogridis

All audio samples used were obtained from freesound.org under a Creative Commons license. Full attributions (“sample title” – username):

“Passing cars 2” – yngwiem
“Full Take – Car Approach and Pass By” – Wikusv
“Footsteps” – crooner
“London Car Bys – 04 – Feb 2013” – Carivus
“passing cars” – saphe

All video samples used were obtained from YouTube under a Creative Commons license. Full attributions (“Video Title” by username):

The audio track for Fast-Paced World is purchasable on my BandCamp site.

Here Comes the TUMB (2015 edition) – video

Mendel Lee — Fri, 14 May 2021 04:58:23 +0000

Here Comes the TUMB is the revised and updated promotional video for the Tulane University Marching Band that plays prior to our pregame performance in Yulman Stadium. Â Audio was created by Andrew Szypula, video was created by me.

Variations of Reich and Tetris (2012) – video

Mendel Lee — Mon, 10 May 2021 05:02:55 +0000

Variations of Reich and Tetris is a motion graphics project that I created because at that time, no YouTube video existed that featured Steve Reich’s Variations for Winds, Strings, and Keyboards”. The video is eight different runs of me playing First Person Tetris in Dark Mode displayed simultaneously in a circular pattern with some basic minimalistic video-compositional ideas that I thought mimicked the minimalist nature of Reich’s piece.

As Energy Decays, Beauty Remains (2010) for solo digital media

Mendel Lee — Fri, 07 May 2021 04:49:38 +0000

As Energy Decays, Beauty Remains is a solo digital media that was written in honor of one of my good friends who informed me that her parents had collectively committed suicide.

Chain Factor Chaos (2009)

Mendel Lee — Wed, 05 May 2021 05:06:10 +0000

Chain Factor Chaos is a video composition of a personal run of the game Chain Factor with heavy visual manipulation. Originally the video was just supposed to be a gameplay run to show my personal gameplay style and strategy, but for various reasons it evolved into a full fledged creative project that involved heavy manipulation influenced and driven by the music used for the video. Read about my creative process.

Habits of Man (2002) for solo digital media

Mendel Lee — Mon, 03 May 2021 04:51:46 +0000

Habits of Man is a solo audio work for the Future Music Oregon concert series at the University of Oregon.

One late evening, a house party next to where I was living at the time got out of control and turned into a massive shouting fest, bottle throwing, and fight between various attendees of the party and also some passersby. As soon as the chaos began, I grabbed my digital audio recorder and started recording the entire incident. I then took segments of the source audio and heavily manipulated it with the programs Kyma and ProTools to create a work meant to capture and amplify the uninhibited negative energy of the confrontations.

Almost allÂ ofÂ the audio in the piece is digital manipulationÂ ofÂ various human voices.Â The one exception is one small segmentÂ ofÂ audio which is digital manipulationÂ ofÂ a person clapping.