Lizardians (2021) is a 3D computer-animated short set in a bio-capitalist factory owned by the RENEW corporation in a dystopic future. Having harnessed the axolotl salamander’s genetic powers of regeneration, RENEW harvests human body parts—selling a desire for eternal youth while profiting from ableism and trans-humanism.
Inside a parafictional retail-style display complete with RENEW commercials repeating on multiple television screens, Lee presents ceramic iPhone sculptures. Anonymous Worker 1-14 (all 2022) are handheld works that each display an oil painting where a screen might be, featuring portraits of present-day Chinese and Vietnamese factory workers and Congolese conflict minerals miners- the exploited laborers of multinational smartphone conglomerates.
Lizardians is inspired by the 2010 media coverage of two factories: a series of employee suicides at the Foxconn facility in Shenzhen, China and revelations that dozens of employees from a South Korean Samsung computer chip factory had been diagnosed with or died from nonhereditary diseases and rare illnesses due to unsafe working conditions. Drawing from life, Lee exaggerates and fictionalizes the brutal tactics of capitalism, but also finds poetry in the mundane of horror. Creative expression—freedom of the mind—is not a substitute for bodily autonomy and with LIZARDIANS, Lee illustrates the power and precarity of artistic production in the face of the global industrial complex.
LIZARDIANS (2022), Image courtesy of OCHI, by Deen Babakhyi Ochi AUX, Los Angeles