In Discussion with Seungah Lee
Courtsey of Seungah Lee
Born 1975 in Seoul, Korea. She is a curator, educator and researcher. She received a BA degree in Fine Art at Ewha Womans’s University and an MA degree in Cultural Studies (Interactive Media: Theory and Critical Practice) at Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK. She has also finished her Ph.D coursework in Media Design from Ewha Woman’s University, Korea. She has curated experimental projects and international exhibitions as a guest curator of Space 15th, Hanbit Media Art Gallery and Total Museum of Contemporary Art.
She co-organized and participated as the main operator for the Inter-Art and Open Media Art Festival, which launched in Singapore in 2015 for the 40th anniversary of the diplomatic relationship between Singapore and Korea. This festival was held as an international event in Seoul, Singapore, and Jordan. It was also held as a collaborative program with the Seoul Metropolitan Government and the Oil Tank Culture Park, and the festival was successfully carried out. She and her company, Urban Art Lab in Seoul, hosted and organized six editions of the festival until 2022.
Her major exhibition include: the inaugural exhibition, Digital Resonance (2022) in G.MAP(Gwangju Media Art Platform, one of UNESCO Media Art Creative Cities, Shaping the Future, Seoul Arts & Tech Festival Unfold X (participated as artistic director, hosted by Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture), The Fabulous Stories to Save the Green Planet, The Cultural Olympics Exhibition Program for the Gangwon Youth Winter Olympics 2024 (hosted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, organized by Gangwon Art & Culture Foundation) Future Voyage, the special exhibition for the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relationship between Korea and Canada(2023) in Quebec, Montreal, Breaking the Borders, the special exhibition for the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relationship between Jordan and Korea(2022) in Amman, Jordan.
She is currently working as a director of the Urban Art Lab in Seoul and has performed various projects mainly focused on exhibitions, education, and projects based on research, which are extensions of both major and minor issues occurring in urban society. It is engaged in interdisciplinary research projects at the intersection of "technology-society-art," including issues related to a future-oriented art ecosystem, technology-based digital culture, and digital preservation.
I had the pleasure and honor of asking Seungah about her direction and creation of research projects as director of the Urban Art Lab, how she interprets the term technology society art, what some things that people coming to the festival might learn that they didn't know before, and so much more.
UZOMAH: As the director of the Urban Art Lab in Seoul, your role in creating interdisciplinary research projects that engage the intersection of issues related to a future-oriented art ecosystem, technology-based digital culture, and digital preservation is crucial. Could you elaborate on how you approach this task?
SEUNGAH: The first step in any interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary arts project, including exhibitions, is research. In the case of an exhibition, I start by researching the artist, analyzing the project's main target audience, the spatial characteristics of the venue, and if it is urban or regional, and what are the main issues in the area. I also try to anticipate how to archive and preserve the exhibition materials and how to disseminate and document them after the exhibition, especially if the exhibition or project is based on digital art. I think this is critical in the case of digital art, and even more so because the work is not tangible or installed in a physical space.
U: From your unique perspective as a curator, how do you interpret the term 'technology-society-art '? How does this interpretation influence your work in the context of the art industry?
S: As technology is rapidly developing and changing, we need to take a closer look at the relationship between art and technology, and more broadly, I believe that the information age has brought new ways of communication and ways of thinking about art to society. Digital tools that allow artists to communicate and create easily from anywhere are building a genre of art, and the audience for art is wider and more diverse than in the past, and people can easily communicate with artists and enjoy art from anywhere. In other words, I believe that the technological advancements are creating a new kind of cultural ecosystem in the production and consumption of art. Through various interactions between art and technology, new industries are emerging at the intersection, and artists are increasingly changing the way they create, including collaboration, data sharing, and working with non-humans.
U: As the curator of special exhibitions at KIAF, this year's on-site exhibition, 'Invisible Transitions,' is a testament to your keen eye for examining the relationship between human nature and technology. Could you share the inspiration behind this exhibition and how the theme came about?
S: ‘Kiaf onSITE: Invisible Turning Points’ is composed of seven artists (teams) who are active in the field, and the theme of the exhibition is to take a fresh look at the relationship between technology and art, which is still unfamiliar and difficult in some ways due to the rapid development of technology. At the same time, through the works of these creative artists, we can explore how individual ‘differences’ and ‘changes’ in the way we view and experience technology can be seen differently. In particular, this special exhibition sought to effectively utilize previously unused corridors, emergency spaces, and dead spaces within the Kiaf exhibition space. By connecting these spaces, we created an organic connection between the special exhibition and the exhibition as a whole, allowing visitors to naturally move around and experience the entire exhibition space. The most distinctive feature of this exhibition is that it introduces new experiments that combine art and technology, including collaborations between genres such as media art, performance, installation, and virtual reality (VR), the fusion of art and technology, and the co-creation of human and non-human (artificial intelligence) works. Through this, I propose new perspectives and ways of coexistence that break away from anthropocentric thinking and approaches. I also hope that it will be a space where we can share and empathize with artists' visions of the future based on their imagination.
U: What are some things that someone who comes to the festival will learn about art that will be possibly new to them and spark their interest in learning more about art than they already know?
S: Most of the audience comes to buy the artworks through Kiaf, and one of the important reasons for organizing the special exhibition during this period was to propose and remember ‘new ventilation and special moments’ in enjoying and experiencing art. In addition to Choi Wonjung's work, which will allow you to experience the installation from multiple angles through a giant mass work, Yang Minha's work, which embodies a new birth based on artificial intelligence, the afterglow of Jin & Park's performance, which will be experienced and disappear within a short time of 10 minutes, and Kat Austin's sound performance with wearable-based interaction, the virtual reality ‘The Wonder’ proposes a new experience of digital art that goes beyond the physical space. This new experience of interacting with, empathizing with, and learning about intangible works, rather than standing in one place and looking at tangible works, is expected to deliver a thrilling sense of excitement to the audience and will naturally foster media literacy in the digital age.
U: Is there anything AI and other technology can not do to make art by an actual human being?
S: AI is taking over many tasks from humans, and AI creation, especially in the arts, is rapidly evolving and becoming more prevalent in many creative processes. However, AI still raises a number of questions about the nature of art, including its various fallacies, and the mixing of creativity and originality, including copyright issues for artistic creations. AI as a tool is not yet able to stand alone without the creativity and originality of an artist. However, just as ‘photography’ has gone through various processes to become a genre of art in the past, we believe that AI may soon be able to translate thoughts into art faster and more accurately than humans in the near future.
U: How would you suggest an artist looking to use AI in their artistic practice to further their creative and artistic statement?
S: Recently, AI works tend to look too pattern-like according to the tendency of the programme (software), so I personally don't feel much attraction to such works. Rather than AI that is faithful to the process of ‘text input’ and ‘image generation’ without originality as a tool, I propose works that stand out from other AI works in the creative process of artists, such as fresh inspiration from ‘specific ideas’ and ‘unintended outcomes’, or specific instructions from ChatGPT or prompts, and works that show traces of experimentation and creative thought in the process. The collaborative process of creating artworks with AI is not an easy one, but we suggest that artists‘ ingenuity and creativity, as well as the artists’ critical view of new AI tools, should not limit the infinite possibilities of AI. We expect to see works that can rethink the art ecosystem in a new way and show the direction of future art that can expand the boundaries of art in a rapid technological environment.
U: What are some of the advances you have participated in in combining technology and traditional visual arts to show different ways to explore, explain, and express humanity?
S: As an example of the advances you asked about, I would like to introduce a work that combines technology and traditional visual arts as an answer to your question. Wonjung Choi's work in this exhibition takes the form of a traditional sculpture and is a large-scale mass installation in a physical space (about 3m x 3m x 3.5m (h)). The artist, who specializes in sculpture within the visual arts, is primarily concerned with the evolving and changing nature of her identity through her move to the United States and the hybridity that emerges from increasingly blurred boundaries and new relationships. In order to capture this narrative, the artist used a ‘digital genetic test’ as the basis of her research, and to materialize her hybrid identity, she used 3D printing technology to transform the results of the digital data into an installation. This is an extraordinary work that takes the form of a collaboration between a visual artist and a technologist and is an intriguing journey that involves a series of transfers and retransfers between countries without borders.
U: Reflecting on your career, could you share a past project that you have worked on or curated that you hold in high regard? What exhibition you have curated reminds you of why you became a curator? What aspects of this exhibition do you believe still hold potential for future exploration through the arts?
S: I once co-organized and curated an open media art festival in Singapore. I was approached by an art institution in Singapore to collaborate on a night festival, and since then, I have organized seven festivals in various locations, including Singapore, Korea, and Jordan. Instead of a white cube in a museum or gallery, the festival was organized in a park at night, where visitors could encounter diverse genres of media artworks (video, installation, interactive, animation, laser, media performance, immersive art, etc.) along a promenade. The most interesting thing was that we could get immediate feedback from the audience, and the reflection on various topics and technologies that artists raised after the enjoyable experience was reflected in the idea and planning of the next festival, and the festival has continued to invite international curators and artists every year to continue the discourse and experimentation on art x technology. The collaborations and synergies created through media art exhibitions and festivals held in public spaces created an opportunity for me to take a new direction as a curator, and I have been organizing media art festivals with large and small publics, including exhibitions, ever since. In doing so, I strive to find ‘new turning points and potentials in the perception of media art’ and to create projects that respond to and resonate with the public. This special exhibition in Kiaf can be described in the same way, with the participating artists' works exploring how art and technology coexist together and how they are discovering new ways of relationships.
Below is information on the exhibition Seungah is curating. For more information about the fair and Seungah's curatorial work, please visit Kiaf’s site here. Kiaf can also be found on Instagram and Facebook.
<Kiaf onSITE> is a special exhibition showcasing this year's most noteworthy and innovative works. Influential emerging and established artists from both Korea and abroad, who are actively engaged in the contemporary art scene, participate in this exhibition. This year's special exhibition theme, Invisible Transitions, focuses on examining the relationship between human nature and technology, and the new turning points that arise as we confront still unfamiliar and uncomfortable technologies. In our rapidly changing world, where traditional values including the existence of humanity are being questioned, and as technological changes accelerate, there is a growing need for new perspectives. This exhibition aims to explore future alternatives through the artistic individuality and creativity of artists, examining how we should relate to each other and seek new ways of living.
The key issues addressed in this exhibition are centered around the alternative narratives emerging from the multi-layered changes and differences brought about by technology, such as decentralization, transboundary interactions, and hyper-connectivity. A diverse array of artworks from various fields—including media art, installations, performances, and virtual reality—will be showcased. By examining small changes and movements resulting from various activities on Earth, the emergence of new life forms, and the situations faced by society and individuals, this exhibition prompts a reconsideration of the role and essence of humanity in the rapidly growing digital culture, calling for critical reflection and new perspectives in the technological era.
The exhibition is divided into three sections: Changes in Technology, Changes in Experience, and Changes in Space. Seven artists (teams) are participating, demonstrating artistic exploration and creative practice based on fluid relationships through media art, installations, performances, and virtual reality.
