큐레이터·컨템포러리 미술계를 위한 노트, 〈Living Geometry 2026〉의 매체와 담론
〈Living Geometry 2026 · 생동 기하학〉은 KAIST 산업디자인학과 경험디자인연구실(XD Lab)이 디렉터 강이연(Yiyun Kang)의 기획으로 영등포아트스퀘어에서 진행하는 미디어아트 특별전이다. 4명의 작가, 7개 작품으로 구성되며 단채널 영상, 인터랙티브 설치, 다중 기기 웹 작품이 한 층 안에 함께 놓인다. 이 글은 기획자·큐레이터·미술 비평가의 시선에서 본 전시의 매체적 명제와 담론적 위치를 정리한다. 단체전·비엔날레 출품, 미술관 컬렉션, 학술 프로그램 연계를 검토하는 동료 기획자들을 위한 노트이다.
큐레이토리얼 명제, ‘안트로포스피어 위의 도시’
기획의 출발점은 영등포라는 장소이다. 산업화의 거점, 금융 중심, 문화 실험의 무대가 한 동(洞) 안에 겹쳐 있는 도시. 전시는 이 영등포의 켜켜이 쌓인 시간을 자양분 삼아, 도시를 ‘정지된 콘크리트의 집합물’이 아니라 ‘인간·비인간·기술이 끊임없이 맥동하는 유기체’로 다시 본다. 도시를 안트로포스피어(Anthroposphere)로 통찰하는 큐레이토리얼 프레임은 강이연 디렉터의 일관된 작업선상에서 이어진다.
Anthropocene 담론과의 직접적 접점
강이연의 〈Technosphere〉는 Peter Haff와 Jan Zalasiewicz가 정리한 ‘제6의 권역(technosphere)’ 논의를 시각적 지질층으로 옮긴다. 알고리즘으로 자생하는 도시 구조물의 영상은 인류세 담론의 미디어아트적 응답이다.
강이연의 〈Vanishing 2.0〉은 코엑스 대형 전광판에서 처음 공개된 〈Vanishing〉의 확장판으로, 사라진 종에 대한 추모를 넘어 ‘사라짐 이후의 가능성’을 묻는다. 서민혁의 〈Post-Vanishing〉은 그 마지막 장면의 생명체에서 출발해 인간이 사라진 후 도시의 물질·연결·표면을 세 생명체로 형상화한다. 세 영상이 함께 놓일 때, 인류세 이후의 도시 상상이 한 호흡으로 펼쳐진다.
황인태의 〈Goldilocks〉와 〈Vessel〉은 ‘기후 데이터 + 관람객 신체 입력’이라는 한 쌍의 방법으로, 거대한 위기 담론을 신체 감각의 단위로 옮기는 시도다. 단일 데이터 시각화가 아니라 관람객의 7가지 환경 변수 조작과 맥박이 작품의 일부가 되는 구조다.
Multi-Device Web Artwork이라는 매체 명제
최정윤(Jeanyoon Choi)의 〈Banpo-Xism · 반포자이즘〉은 이번 전시에서 가장 매체적으로 새로운 자리에 있다. 작가는 자신의 매체 형식을 ‘Multi-Device Web Artwork (MDWA)’라고 명명하고, KAIST XD Lab의 박사 연구 단위로 들고 간다. ‘여러 웹 디바이스와 다수의 참여자가 하나의 인터랙티브 경험으로 융합되는 매체’라는 작가의 정의는, 단일 화면 중심의 미디어아트에 대한 매체사적 반응으로 읽을 수 있다.
큐레이션 관점에서 MDWA는 두 가지 새로운 변수를 도입한다. 첫째, 출품 단위가 ‘작품 한 점’이 아니라 ‘디바이스의 합주’가 된다. 둘째, 동시 다수 사용자를 전제하므로 출품 환경(공간, Wi-Fi, iOS 권한, 안내 인력)에 대한 협의가 통상의 영상·설치보다 깊게 들어간다. 출품 검토 시 작가 측과 직접 사양을 협의하는 것이 권장된다.
연구·학술 연계
전시의 기획·제작 주체인 KAIST 경험디자인연구실(XD Lab)은 미디어아트와 학술 연구가 함께 진행되는 단위다. Leonardo Journal(MIT Press), ACM SIGGRAPH, ACM DIS 등의 학술지와 컨퍼런스에 발표 이력을 갖고 있고, Red Dot Award, iF Design Award 등 디자인 공모 수상 이력이 있다. 미술관 학예 프로그램, 비엔날레 학술 섹션, 대학 미술관 강연 시리즈와의 직접 연계가 가능하다.
디렉터 강이연(Yiyun Kang)은 Google, NASA, Max Mara, BTS와 협업했고 Victoria and Albert Museum, COP28에서 개인전, TED 2026 등에서 강연한 작가다. 글로벌 협업 프로그램·미술관 단체전 큐레이션과의 접점이 깊다.
출품·라이선스·커미션 검토
단체전 출품과 미술관 커미션 검토는 작가 본인 사이트와 연구실을 통해 직접 진행 가능하다. 강이연(yiyunkang.com), 최정윤(portfolio-jyc.org), 황인태(hwangintae.com), 그리고 연구실(xdlab.net). 〈Banpo-Xism〉의 단일 디바이스 시연은 banpo-xism.vercel.app 에서 사전 검토할 수 있다.
Curatorial Notes for Living Geometry 2026, Medium Propositions and Discourse for Contemporary Practice
Living Geometry 2026 is a media-art special exhibition curated by Yiyun Kang and produced by the KAIST Experience Design Lab (XD Lab) at YDP Artsquare in Yeongdeungpo, Seoul. Four artists and seven works share a single floor, across single-channel video, interactive installation, and multi-device web art. This note is for fellow curators, gallerists, biennale planners, and critics, who may be considering group-show inclusion, museum collection, commission, or academic programme tie-ins.
A curatorial proposition above the Anthroposphere
The starting point of the curation is Yeongdeungpo itself: a hub of industry, finance, and cultural experiment, layered into a single neighbourhood. The exhibition reads the city not as a stilled aggregate of concrete but as an organism in continual pulse, where the human, the non-human, and technology entangle. The framing of the city as Anthroposphere is consistent with the director's wider line of work.
Direct contact with Anthropocene discourse
Yiyun Kang's Technosphere visualises the sixth sphere of Peter Haff and Jan Zalasiewicz as a geological stratum: an algorithmic visual answer in media-art form to the Anthropocene discussion.
Vanishing 2.0, the sequel to her Vanishing first unveiled on the COEX outdoor screen, moves past elegy and asks what might emerge after disappearance. Minhyeok Seo's Post-Vanishing extends from that closing creature and renders the matter, connection, and surface of a post-human city as three living forms. Read together, the three videos open a single arc on the imagination of the city after the Anthropocene.
Intae Hwang's Goldilocks and Vessel pair climate data with visitor bodily input, translating the scale of crisis into a scale of body. Single-channel data visualization is replaced by a structure where the visitor's seven environmental parameters and pulse become part of the work itself.
Multi-Device Web Artwork as a medium proposition
Jeanyoon Choi's Banpo-Xism occupies the most medium-historically novel position in the show. The artist names his medium Multi-Device Web Artwork (MDWA) and treats it as the unit of his doctoral research at KAIST XD Lab. His own definition (a medium in which several web devices and many participants are fused into a single interactive experience) reads as a medium-historical response to the dominance of single-screen media art.
From a curatorial perspective, MDWA introduces two new variables. The unit of inclusion is no longer one work but an ensemble of devices. Multi-user simultaneity is assumed, so installation requirements (space, Wi-Fi, iOS permissions, on-site staffing) need deeper coordination than for video or static installation. Direct dialogue with the artist about installation specifications is recommended at the review stage.
Research and academic links
The producing entity, KAIST Experience Design Lab (XD Lab), runs media-art practice and academic research as a single unit. Publications include Leonardo Journal (MIT Press), ACM SIGGRAPH, and ACM DIS; design honors include Red Dot and iF Design. Direct ties to museum learning programmes, biennale academic sections, and university-museum lecture series are practical.
Director Yiyun Kang has collaborated with Google, NASA, Max Mara, and BTS, with solo exhibitions at the Victoria and Albert Museum and COP28 and recent talks at venues including TED 2026. Connections to international collaboration programmes and museum group-show curation run deep.
Inclusion, licensing, and commissions
Group-show inclusion and museum commissions can be arranged directly through the artists and the lab. Yiyun Kang (yiyunkang.com), Jeanyoon Choi (portfolio-jyc.org), Intae Hwang (hwangintae.com), and the lab (xdlab.net). A single-device preview of Banpo-Xism is available at banpo-xism.vercel.app for review in advance.
Curatorial Notes for Living Geometry 2026, Medium Propositions and Discourse for Contemporary Practice
Living Geometry 2026 is a media-art special exhibition curated by Yiyun Kang and produced by the KAIST Experience Design Lab (XD Lab) at YDP Artsquare in Yeongdeungpo, Seoul. Four artists and seven works share a single floor, across single-channel video, interactive installation, and multi-device web art. This note is for fellow curators, gallerists, biennale planners, and critics, who may be considering group-show inclusion, museum collection, commission, or academic programme tie-ins.
A curatorial proposition above the Anthroposphere
The starting point of the curation is Yeongdeungpo itself: a hub of industry, finance, and cultural experiment, layered into a single neighbourhood. The exhibition reads the city not as a stilled aggregate of concrete but as an organism in continual pulse, where the human, the non-human, and technology entangle. The framing of the city as Anthroposphere is consistent with the director's wider line of work.
Direct contact with Anthropocene discourse
Yiyun Kang's Technosphere visualises the sixth sphere of Peter Haff and Jan Zalasiewicz as a geological stratum: an algorithmic visual answer in media-art form to the Anthropocene discussion.
Vanishing 2.0, the sequel to her Vanishing first unveiled on the COEX outdoor screen, moves past elegy and asks what might emerge after disappearance. Minhyeok Seo's Post-Vanishing extends from that closing creature and renders the matter, connection, and surface of a post-human city as three living forms. Read together, the three videos open a single arc on the imagination of the city after the Anthropocene.
Intae Hwang's Goldilocks and Vessel pair climate data with visitor bodily input, translating the scale of crisis into a scale of body. Single-channel data visualization is replaced by a structure where the visitor's seven environmental parameters and pulse become part of the work itself.
Multi-Device Web Artwork as a medium proposition
Jeanyoon Choi's Banpo-Xism occupies the most medium-historically novel position in the show. The artist names his medium Multi-Device Web Artwork (MDWA) and treats it as the unit of his doctoral research at KAIST XD Lab. His own definition (a medium in which several web devices and many participants are fused into a single interactive experience) reads as a medium-historical response to the dominance of single-screen media art.
From a curatorial perspective, MDWA introduces two new variables. The unit of inclusion is no longer one work but an ensemble of devices. Multi-user simultaneity is assumed, so installation requirements (space, Wi-Fi, iOS permissions, on-site staffing) need deeper coordination than for video or static installation. Direct dialogue with the artist about installation specifications is recommended at the review stage.
Research and academic links
The producing entity, KAIST Experience Design Lab (XD Lab), runs media-art practice and academic research as a single unit. Publications include Leonardo Journal (MIT Press), ACM SIGGRAPH, and ACM DIS; design honors include Red Dot and iF Design. Direct ties to museum learning programmes, biennale academic sections, and university-museum lecture series are practical.
Director Yiyun Kang has collaborated with Google, NASA, Max Mara, and BTS, with solo exhibitions at the Victoria and Albert Museum and COP28 and recent talks at venues including TED 2026. Connections to international collaboration programmes and museum group-show curation run deep.
Inclusion, licensing, and commissions
Group-show inclusion and museum commissions can be arranged directly through the artists and the lab. Yiyun Kang (yiyunkang.com), Jeanyoon Choi (portfolio-jyc.org), Intae Hwang (hwangintae.com), and the lab (xdlab.net). A single-device preview of Banpo-Xism is available at banpo-xism.vercel.app for review in advance.
Opening reception :: Friday, May 8, 2026 · RSVP required
Curator visits :: Pre-arrange via xdlab.net for installation walkthroughs
About the exhibition
Living Geometry 2026 is a media-art special exhibition curated and developed by the KAIST Experience Design Lab (XD Lab) within KAIST's Department of Industrial Design. It re-threads Yeongdeungpo's visible urban landscape, its invisible data, and the emotional strata behind them in a geometric language — recasting the city, beyond a stilled aggregate of concrete, as an organism in continual pulse. Seven works span single-channel video, interactive installation, and multi-device web art.
Title :: Living Geometry 2026 · 생동 기하학 (Living Geometry)
Dates :: May 1 – Jun 28, 2026
Hours :: Daily 10:00–18:00 (last entry 17:45)
Venue :: YDP Artsquare · Times Square B2F, 15 Yeongjung-ro, Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul
