Every copy becomes an original.
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If you ever played the same CD on repeat, remember rows of jewel cases in record stores, or fell asleep listening to an album late at night, this publication may bring a dormant memory back to light.
Continuing his long-standing engagement with obsolete media, Lee Kan Kyo turns his attention from DVDs to CDs. Through labor-intensive, deliberately imperfect hand-drawn reproductions, he revisits a technology once synonymous with the future.
From Michael Jackson’s Dangerous to Mariah Carey’s holiday classics, from 1990s album covers to CD-burning culture, The Last CD traces a landscape of sounds, images, and objects that once shaped everyday life before gradually disappearing into the seamless flow of streaming.
Situated somewhere between copying, translation, and an aestheticized form of piracy, Lee’s practice transforms the logic of mechanical reproduction into a deeply manual process. What was once infinitely reproducible becomes singular again. Every CD reproduced by hand exists as a unique object.
The title The Last CD carries a double meaning. In Japanese, saigo can signify not only an ending, but also the act of saving something precious for last.
The compact disc once embodied a particular imagination of the future. Today, that future appears strangely distant, returning instead as nostalgia. What Lee excavates is not simply the material remains of CD culture, but a feeling shared by a generation: the experience of believing that the future would arrive through these objects.
The sounds and images never truly disappeared. They are simply waiting to be played again.
📀 💽 💿 Published on the occasion of The Last CD at TheCube Project Space, this book is now available for pre-order and is expected to ship in mid-to-late July.
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Why these CDs? Each one has its own reason, slightly different from the next.
As this book goes to print, I have already made more than 250 pieces. What’s collected here is only the first part of the work so far. Of course, this isn’t something I’m able to finish alone. Every day, I work with studio assistants to slowly build each new CD case.
A mass-produced CD is merely a copy on a production line. When you buy it, you own only one instance of it. The version that is handmade, however, is one of a kind.
Recently, I’ve been working on a model set based on Kylie Minogue’s Come Into My World music video. Directed by Michel Gondry, Kylie walks around a street corner in loops, getting one new Kylie with each loop. I want to recreate that “one becoming many” effect using the reflections of a burnt disc. As I’m writing this, it’s still unfinished—how on earth did Gondry do this?
The years I spent with CDs feel like they were only yesterday… The Last CD is, without a doubt, an all-out, painstaking labor of love in the age of streaming. With another stack of CDs piled on my desk, I guess I’m going to keep going at it.
— Excerpt from the first draft of The Last CD
Size｜143 × 125 mm
Language｜ Chinese / English
Publication Date｜ August 2026
Design｜HOUTH
Published by｜ Pon Ding × TheCube Project Space
