“Imagining possible world is not an escape from reality. Rather, it is a way to see the questions we have missed in the present more clearly.”

That idea framed the second UNIST Open Stage event on May 28, where internationally acclaimed media artist and UNIST Collaborating Professor Ayoung Kim explored creativity in the AI era through film, conversation, and audience discussion.

Held at the UNIST Main Auditorium before an audience of about 150 students, faculty members, and guests, the event brought together members of the UNIST community and students from Ulsan High School of Arts and Busan High School of Arts. Titled “Expanding Stories and Possible Worlds: Imagination in the AI Era with Media Artist Ayoung Kim,” the program featured screenings of Professor Kim’s major works, Delivery Dancer’s Sphere (2022) and At the Surisol Underwater Lab (2020), followed by an artist talk and Q&A. 

Across the two works, Professor Kim examined how technology reshapes the conditions of human life, in particular, how people move, work, remember, survive, and make choices.

Delivery Dancer’s Sphere imagines a fictional Seoul governed by platform algorithms, following a top-ranked delivery rider through a city where speed and efficiency define value. At the Surisol Underwater Lab moves to a near-future underwater research facility off Oryukdo Island in Busan, where a migrant woman researcher and an operating AI system discuss climate crisis, diaspora, and survival after the depletion of fossil fuels.

For Professor Kim, technology is not simply a tool. It is part of the environment that forms human perception, movement, and labor. “In my work, technology changes the conditions of perception, mobility, and labor,” she noted. “Imagining possible worlds is not an escape from reality. It is a way to make the questions we have missed in the present more visible.”

Professor Kim also discussed her Artist-at-Sea residency with the Schmidt Ocean Institute, where she lived aboard a research vessel with deep-sea biologists and engineers. The experience, she said, showed how scientific observation can open new paths for artistic narrative.

“Science reads the world with precision,” Professor Kim said. “Art gives form to the possibilities opened by that observation, often from an unexpected angle. When the two meet, new questions emerge.”

The discussion drew questions from students about AI, speculative world-building, and the process of combining video, narrative, performance, and scientific ideas. One student said the event changed how they understood AI. “I had thought of AI mainly as a tool,” the student said. “But the works showed me that technology can become a condition that changes society and human choice.”

Professor Kim is one of Korea’s leading media artists, working across video, installation, and performance. Her work has been shown at major international venues, including The Museum of Modern Art in New York, Tate, the Venice Biennale, and the Berlin International Film Festival. In 2023, she became the first Korean artist to receive the Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica. In 2025, she received the LG Guggenheim Award.

For UNIST, the event reflected the educational direction behind the newly established School of GRIT Convergence Studies, which supports students in designing their own academic paths around original questions. Beginning in the 2027 academic year, UNIST plans to admit around 10 students through the GRIT Talent Track.

“Professor Kim’s work shows how science and technology can become the material for possible worlds — and how creativity begins with the courage to ask new questions within them,” said UNIST President Chong Rae Park. “UNIST will continue to help students build the breadth to think across science, art, and the humanities as they take on new research and real-world challenges.”