As the third research exhibition of the Project Media Narrative Explorers, this exhibition continues an experimental inquiry into the narrative structures of Korean media-culture and media-based cognitive systems.
Throughout the exhibition period, two physically separated exhibition spaces are connected in real time through a 24-hour online live-streaming format, exploring both the simultaneity and asynchronicity of interaction.
Taking the concept of liveness in live broadcasting as its point of departure, the exhibition reinterprets the development of Korean media narratives and media cognition within the context of contemporary media environments.
Theme: Narrative Media
* Linked program begin at 10:00 in Germany and 18:00 in Korea.
* During the exhibition, a one-hour talk session connected to the exhibition’s
theme will be live-streamed online once per day.
Location & Platform : Online Zoom Meeting / Youtube Live Streaming
https://www.youtube.com/@jeon.hyelim
https://www.youtube.com/@hiichbins
Satellite live broadcasting connected physically distant beings and revealed how technology can reconfigure human perception, memory, and modes of existence.
It introduced a new sensibility of real-time connectivity, media convergence, and the cultural value of human–machine relationships on a global scale—forming an important foundation for contemporary Korean digital media culture, particularly live streaming and the formation of relationships with virtual entities.
Taking this context of liveness as its point of departure, the program connects these developments to the media-based cognitive systems experienced today within online environments and narrative media.
Speakers & Timetable
Session 1. Opening /23. January 2026
at 09:00 - 21:00 in Germany and 17:00 - 19:00 in Korea
Live Performance by the Media Narrative Explorers (MNE) Project Team The program opens with a live performance by the Media Narrative Explorers, introducing the project’s core concerns through performative and media-based gestures
Session 2. A laid-back chat - Hyelim Jeon / 24. January 2026
at 10:00 in Germany and 18:00 in Korea
This session examines how humans construct names, narratives, and identities for nonhuman beings. Through the case of the artist’s cat—understood as male for fourteen years but biologically female—it explores how a companion animal’s gender is not simply a biological fact, but something produced through human language, medical intervention, memory, and relational experience. Rather than possessing a gender of its own, the cat functions as a postmodern hybrid that disrupts distinctions between human and animal, nature and technology, and fact and fiction, revealing a cyborg-like form of subjectivity. Through this example, the session reflects on how identity is constructed and made to operate within contemporary cultural frameworks.
Session 3. A laid-back chat - Sijo Choi Kim/ 25. January 2026
at 10:00 in Germany and 18:00 in Korea
In this session, we will screen the artist’s video work 〈Well Integrated (Subtitled)〉 and hold a conversation with the artist. The work separates subtitles—originally a supportive element of film—as an independent layer that unfolds a narrative in contrast to the on-screen images, raising questions about language, translation, and systems of understanding. The discussion will explore how informational layers such as subtitles shape our perception and sensibility, and how moments of error or misalignment can open up new interpretations and narratives.
about Sijo Choi Kim
Diploma Program, Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig (HGB), Germany
BA, in Moving Image and Printmaking at Hong-ik University, Seoul, South Korea
Session 4. A laid-back chat - Sol Heo / 26. January 2026
at 09:00 in Germany and 17:00 in Korea
Centering on social media and digital affect, this session discusses gendered affect that arises through social media influencers’ self-representations and their circulations. Mediating connectivity and feelings of connectedness, social media platforms afford, circulate, and amplify networked affects. In this session, by focusing on the cases of Korean fashion and beauty influencers performing a “happy girl” self, the guest speaker talks about how gendered affects of happiness, brightness, and youthfulness arise and what effects and implications they bring.
sbout Sol Heo
Present Ph.D. in Media Studies, University of Colorado Boulder, USA
M.A. in Gender Studies, Seoul National University,South Korea
B.A.S in Art and Technology & B.A. in Women’s Studies, Sogang University, South Korea
Session 5. A laid-back chat - Hyelim Jeon and Soyoung Yang / 27. January 2026
at 10:00 in Germany and 18:00 in Korea
This session is a casual talk centered around the idea of Internet Cyborgs, exploring how our emotions, memories, and identities are shaped by life online and within technological environments. Using the works of Hyelim Jeon and Soyoung Yang as starting points, the conversation looks at emotional relationships between humans and non-human entities—such as AI, animals, and data—and how processes of copying, translation, and error give rise to new narratives.
Rather than a formal lecture, the session invites an open conversation about how our ways of sensing and thinking are already intertwined with digital systems, and what it means to live and feel as increasingly cyborg-like beings today.
about Soyoung Yang
Diploma Graduate, Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle, Germany
BA, Konkuk University, Living Design, Art&Design, Seoul, South Korea
Session 6. A laid-back chat - Eunji Park and Yunseon Jeong 28. January 2026
at 10:00 in Germany and 18:00 in Korea
This session explores queer representation in K-media, focusing on how queer codes in K-dramas since the late 2010s have often functioned as clickbait, and how queer themes have begun to enter mainstream media through formats such as queer dating shows.
The conversation also looks at queer representation within the idol industry and K-media more broadly, discussing the tension between visibility and commodification in a casual but critical exchange.
about Eunji Park
MA, Interdisciplinary Program in Gender Studies, Seoul National University, South Korea
BA, School of Art, Sung Kyun Kwan University,South Korea
about Yunseon Jeong
Diploma Graduate, Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig(HGB)
BA, Department of Visual & Media Design, Sookmyung woman’s university, Seoul, South Korea
Session 8. Liveness and Streaming - Prof. Dr. Dieter Daniels / 29. January 2026
at 10:00 in Germany and 18:00 in Korea
Today, the condition we describe as being “online” reconfigures separation through technology, expanding the “here and now” into a state of shared simultaneity. This lecture redefines liveness not as mere real-time transmission, but as a perceptual structure and cognitive condition formed in conjunction with media.
Situated within the context of the exhibition marking the 20th anniversary of Nam June Paik’s passing on January 29, 2026, the session examines how simultaneity and asynchronicity coexist within contemporary media environments. As live streaming and multi-platform distribution render liveness habitual while enabling instant recording and repetitive circulation, this session argues that liveness is no longer a “pure present,” but a form of retrospectively constructed presentness. Through dialogue, the session offers a concise exploration of how contemporary modes of existence and media perception are being restructured.
about Prof. Dr. Dieter Daniels
Professor of Art History and Media Theory at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig (HGB), Germany