Hyun-seok Kim (b. 1988) explores the history of media and technology, examining how their development has shaped society and influenced human visual perception. Rather than adhering to a progressivist view of technological advancement, Kim focuses on its nonlinear genealogies. His work critically situates the relationship between representational characteristics of users and technological mechanisms as observed in contemporary visual culture.

Hyun-seok Kim divides his artistic practice into four conceptual phases: “deterioration,” “illusion,” “interpolation,” and “material.” In the first phase, centered on the concept of “deterioration,” his early series ‘Meaningless Movements towards Perfection’ (2015) visualizes digital deterioration through the repetitive processes of copying, transforming, generating, transmitting, and storing data images.
 
This work begins with a composite lunar image created by NASA from 1,300 mosaicked photographs taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) in 2010. Kim discovered this image on Google in 2015 and recalls that, at the time, it was one of the largest web-based digital images available—an image that seemed to represent digital perfection.

However, the seemingly seamless lunar image—rendered in precise digital pixels—begins to deteriorate as the artist repeatedly alters its size. Through the process of enlarging and reducing the image by a single pixel, algorithmic errors and glitches emerge. The image surface distorts, and its pixels gradually collapse toward the periphery.
 
Kim explains, “The subtle vibrations inflicted on the image led to the gradual disappearance of the digital object, ultimately causing the collapse of the illusion. It felt like a dystopian forecast of an endlessly reproduced and looped image ecosystem.”
 
In this way, the work challenges the presumed perfection of digital objects. By repeatedly inflicting small ruptures on a digital, seemingly immaterial image, Kim demonstrates that even digital images are subject to deterioration and that, over time, they lose their original form just like any physical material.

While the series ‘Meaningless Movements towards Perfection’ explored the “deterioration” of digital images and the plasticity of immaterial data, Kim Hyun-seok’s 2017 solo exhibition 《Ray-Out》 at Soshowroom featured the ‘Wallpaper’ series, in which he materialized—or embodied—the “illusions” of latent images hidden beneath user interfaces (UI).
 
This body of work began with the recovery of anonymous image files salvaged from a broken hard drive. According to the artist, the retrieved files appeared to consist mostly of visual elements used to build an operating system—icons, buttons, shadows, and similar components. Kim reassembled these fragmented image parts, transferring them from screen to paper, and from paper to canvas.

This act of preserving digital data files—salvaged from a defunct hard drive—into a physical form can be seen as a kind of taxidermy of the digital, and it draws on the history of the “image” as rooted in funerary traditions. The word “image” originates from the Latin imago, referring to the wax death masks of deceased individuals in ancient Rome.
 
Later, in the 19th century, Nicéphore Niépce created the first permanent photograph by capturing a camera obscura projection onto a photosensitive surface, marking the moment when an image could be permanently affixed to a physical object.

The artist draws attention to the idea that images were born from a culture of death—such as funerary practices—and that humanity has long sought vitality through objects that hold illusions. In the ‘Wallpaper’ series, Kim explores the medium as a support structure where the illusion of the image operates, positioning this inquiry within the context of art history. He conceptualizes three planes—canvas, paper, and screen—and conducts an experiment in which images are transferred in reverse chronological order of these media’s emergence.
 
The process begins with printing a digital image onto paper, then placing it face-down on wet pigment spread across a canvas so that the image is reversed. Once the pigment dries and adheres to the paper, he peels away the paper layer, leaving behind a ghostly, inverted impression of the image on the canvas. Through this method, the image undergoes fading, peeling, and degradation—leaving only the traces of its decay.

The ‘Reversed Illusionism’ series (2020) began with a critical inquiry into the relationship between the illusionistic image and its physical support. In this body of work, Hyun-seok Kim collaborated with Yunseob Kim, an artist known for his experimental painting practices, to explore the intersection where illusion (as a visual construct) and substance (as material reality) converge.
 
The two artists found their conceptual anchor in the socialist/brutalist architecture that emerged in postwar Britain and later evolved within the Soviet Union. While these buildings formally advocate utilitarianism like other brutalist structures, they also embody a peculiar fusion of ideology and idealism. The artists viewed these architectures as hybrid forms—integrating literal materiality, sculptural image, and immaterial ideology—thus offering a rich site for examining how illusion and substance coalesce.

This became the conceptual foundation for the ‘Reversed Illusionism’ series, where the illusionistic quality of the image was reconnected to the material presence of its support. The resulting sculptural work took the form of an architectural structure symbolizing the framework of the image itself.
 
Kim Hyun-seok and Yunseob Kim livestreamed the installed sculpture on YouTube, further extending the piece into a digital context. Notably, the sculpture—composed of predominantly blue tones—was partially erased in the livestream due to digital chroma keying, a common technique in video editing where blue is rendered transparent. As a result, the sculpture appeared ghostlike online, its physical form vanishing from view, leaving behind only a trace—a spectral presence haunting the web.

Between 2015 and 2016, Hyun-seok Kim’s work centered on the concepts of “deterioration” and “illusion,” while from 2017 to 2020, his focus shifted toward exploring the relationship between “illusion” and “substance.” Since 2021, his artistic inquiries have evolved around the theme of “interpolation.”
 
An example of this is his 2021 project ‘ASSY,’ in which he reinterprets the functional relationship between keyboard and monitor—traditionally used for typing and displaying text—into a process of drawing images. The project’s title, ASSY, is derived from both industrial assembly parts and “assembly language,” a low-level programming language that operates close to machine code.

Hyun-seok Kim explains that he began the ‘ASSY’ project to explore the expressive potential of images through accidental patterns and user literacy generated via image-fonts. To this end, he developed the ASSY font, composed of 2,928 color patterns, allowing users to create images by typing.
 
This font is built upon color palettes derived from two key visual elements in early computer graphics: the “dither algorithm,” a technique used for simulating color depth, and the palette of the CGA (Color Graphics Adapter), the first color graphics card.
 
By substituting the reproduction algorithm of digital images with the methodology of text typing, Kim constructs a coordinate system where language (Langue) and speech (Parole) are intertwined and explores another possibility of expression through an unconventional method of writing/typing an image, rather than drawing it. 

Meanwhile, the ongoing series ‘MEMORIES’ (2025/2023/2021), which began in 2021, consists of eight omnibus-format short stories co-written with the AI language model GPT-3. Each story centers on a distinct memory or act of recording from the history of digital images and is physically presented to viewers in the form of 3.5-inch floppy disks.
 
The work is structured to be read in reverse chronological order, unfolding as an artificial narrative journey that traces the origins of the digital image. Due to the limited storage capacity of the floppy disks (1.44MB), the text files load slowly, compelling viewers to experience the stories at a deliberately reduced pace. This slowness evokes a tactile awareness of a digital literacy from another era—one that sharply contrasts with today’s speed-driven media environment.

This work undergoes periodic formal updates. In 2025, the eight short stories were adapted into audiobooks and presented alongside sculptural mobile phone holders and bean bag chairs. The sculptural forms, reminiscent of cartoon character hands, metaphorically represent today’s human-device interface—where all that is needed is a hand to hold a smartphone. By lying back in the bean bags, viewers are invited to experience the work solely through audiovisual input.

Meanwhile, in the immersive XR work Sword of Damocles (2022), the artist raises questions about the nonlinear genealogy of today’s technology. The work is set in a cyberspace inhabited by an AI-generated virtual character called the “Blind Watcher,” with the audience positioned as observers situated at the boundary between reality and artificial reality.
 
Within the virtual space of the work, viewers can wander and physically grasp black cubes. The moment a cube is held, it transforms into latent objects within, allowing the audience to experience the narratives of those objects. Additionally, viewers can listen to the monologues of the “Blind Watcher,” the narrator within the work, or hear the stories of the objects. Depending on the audience’s choices, the narrative of the work is reconfigured.

The objects placed inside the cubes and the narrative of the work are fabricated based on key figures and significant events in the genealogy of computer graphics. The artist used four types of AI models—GPT-3, DALL·E-2, CLOVA, and JUKEBOX—to (re)generate actual data in the form of text, images, and sound, which were then processed into 3D objects and voice audio.
 
Through this process, the genealogy of computer graphics is restructured into a nonlinear and fragmented form via today’s generative AI programs and is recontextualized within the present time and space in which the audience is situated.

Furthermore, through Octopus is a Screen (2024), Hyun-seok Kim imagined a new vision of humanity in the future shaped by advanced technologies including artificial intelligence. The work likens the human adaptation to technology to the agile camouflage abilities of an octopus and is presented as an interactive installation that evokes the passive mechanisms of early computers.
 
In this piece, the audience experiences a thought experiment on human evolution through physical interaction using patch cables. Viewers are placed in a situation where they imagine how humanity has evolved and, furthermore, how technology and humans might coexist, envisioning an emergent timeline from the past to the future while effectively “programming” the concept of ‘humanity’ itself.

In this way, Hyun-seok Kim retraces the genealogy of technology that has progressed relentlessly up to today’s generative artificial intelligence. Through various media experiments, he explores the status that such technologies have come to hold as technological objects, as well as the usage mechanisms of modern individuals who interact with them.
 
In bringing both tangible and intangible technological legacies into his work, the artist acts like an archaeologist, excavating the many strata embedded within the history of technology. However, Kim goes a step further—building on the diverse and intricate networks he uncovers within this technological genealogy, he envisions future forms of humanity that may emerge.

 “I believe technology and art are, in essence, one and the same. Art can be expressed through technology, and technology can be discovered through artistic sensibility.
 
What I remain cautious about is the use of technology without context—that is, technology used only for the sake of appearance. Especially with recent technologies, their trendiness tends to be emphasized, so I always try to examine the justification and contemporaneity of using such technologies.”    (Hyun-seok Kim, from the interview at Unfold X 2024 《2084: A Space Odyssey》) 

Hyun-seok Kim received his BFA in Animation from the College of Fine Arts at Gongju National University and his MFA in Fine Arts from Korea National University of Arts. His major solo exhibitions include 《POINT AT INFINITY》 (Cheongju Art Studio, Cheongju, 2022), 《ASSY》 (All Time Space, Seoul, 2021), 《RAY-OUT》 (Soshowroom, Seoul, 2017), and 《1448 Illusions》 (Space 291, Seoul, 2015).
 
He has also participated in numerous group exhibitions, including 《Synthetic Fever》 (Coreana Museum of Art, Seoul, 2025), Unfold X 2024 《2084: A Space Odyssey》 (Culture Station Seoul 284, Seoul, 2024), 《Art AI》 (Ulsan Art Museum, Ulsan, 2024), 《The 22nd SONGEUN Art Award Exhibition》 (SONGEUN, Seoul, 2022), and 《NEXT CODE 2022》 (Daejeon Museum of Art, Daejeon, 2022).
 
Kim has been selected for various artist residency programs, including the SeMA Nanji Residency (2024), the K’ARTS Studio (2023), and the Cheongju Art Studio (2022). In 2023, he was selected as the first prize winner of “New Hero” by Public Art magazine.

References

• 김현석, Hyun-seok Kim (Artist Website)
• 서울시립미술관, 난지미술창작스튜디오 입주지원 작가 – 김현석 (Seoul Museum of Art, Nanji Residency Artist – Hyun-seok Kim)
• 안진국, 디지털적 대상의 현시: 열화-환영-보간-물질
• 전시 “고고학: Today Was Today” 인스타그램, 김현석 ‘월페이퍼’ 작품 설명 (Exhibition “Archeology:  Today Was Today” Instagram, Hyun-seok Kim ‘Wallpaper’ Artwork Description)
• 아트바바, 오뉴월 이주헌 – 전사와 법사 WnW: 유령의 구조
• 월간미술, 김현석의 기술 항해기, 인간 표류기 – 조주리
• 언폴드엑스 2024 《2084: 스페이스 오디세이(A Space Odyssey)》 작가 인터뷰 – 김현석 (Unfold X 2024 《2084: A Space Odyssey》 Artist Interview – Hyunseok Kim)