Perfect (2021) is about a young girl taking charge of her education. The artist’s sister uses voice memos as a way of memorising her science test, often reciting them as short plays. Through performance, science facts become something she can conquer or master. However, even when she pretends to play the role of a teacher, she can not help but burst into laughter; maybe at the absurdity of embodying that kind of authority and power.
Stickers that read “Perfect”, “Good Job” or “Nice” are used as markers of intellect and success in the classroom. However, in this film, they are transformed into words of affirmation, where the sister’s sense of self worth does not come from institutional validation, but from her own self-confidence.
Ryan Benjamin Lee (b.1997) is a moving image artist and animator based in Singapore. His practice involves utilising video art, installation, GIFs, sampling and (re)animation to create a range of media assemblages.
Grounded in material investigations, his artworks centre around illusion-making in animation history; ping-ponging between spectacle and demystification, propaganda and cynicism. His playful, tactile use of printed material, particularly found images, photographs, print and books, intertwined with drawn animation illustrate an abstract iconoclastic world refracting in multiple directions.
