Ayoung Kim's Technophilia: AI, CGI, and the Gig Economy
Ayoung Kim, winner of the 2024 LG Guggenheim Award and 2023 ACC Future Prize, creates speculative narratives using AI, CGI, and gaming technologies. Her latest work, 'Delivery Dancer’s Arc: Inverse' (2024), a three-channel video installation, follows delivery drivers Ernst Mo and En Storm in a dystopian future land of Novaria, constructed with generative AI. Kim's practice, which began with earlier works like 'Zepheth, Whale Oil from the Hanging Gardens to You' (2014–15) and 'Porosity Valley, Portable Holes' (2017), uses technology as a tool to realize visions rather than as an end in itself. She resists techno-orientalist readings and emphasizes human input in AI processes. Her work is currently on view at Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (through July 20), the 11th Asia Pacific Triennial at Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane (through April 27), and will be at MoMA PS1, New York (November 6 – March 16).
Key facts
- Ayoung Kim won the 2024 LG Guggenheim Award and the 2023 ACC Future Prize.
- Her work 'Delivery Dancer’s Arc: Inverse' (2024) uses AI, CGI, and gaming technologies.
- The video installation traces two female delivery drivers, Ernst Mo and En Storm.
- The narrative unfolds in a fictional land of Novaria built with generative AI.
- Kim's earlier series 'Zepheth, Whale Oil from the Hanging Gardens to You' (2014–15) reconstructed petroleum's impact on postwar Korea.
- Her single-channel video 'Porosity Valley, Portable Holes' (2017) features a sentient crystalline entity.
- Kim's work is on view at Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin through July 20, 2025.
- Her work is also at the 11th Asia Pacific Triennial, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane through April 27, 2025.
- All three Delivery Dancer works will be at MoMA PS1, New York from November 6, 2025 to March 16, 2026.
- Kim uses technology as a tool to construct futures, not as a threat.
Entities
Artists
- Ayoung Kim
- Hito Steyerl
- Marshall McLuhan
- Harry C. H. Choi
Institutions
- LG Guggenheim Award
- ACC Future Prize
- National Asian Culture Center
- Gallery Hyundai
- Hamburger Bahnhof
- Queensland Art Gallery
- MoMA PS1
- ArtReview Asia
- Stanford University
Locations
- Seoul
- South Korea
- Gwangju
- Berlin
- Germany
- Brisbane
- Australia
- New York
- United States
- Saudi Arabia
- Kuwait
- Novaria