Workshop with
Sung Kyun Kwan University Seoul
and
Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig
Participants
MNE Team,
From HGB : Nicklas Kleemann, Laila Kamil, Anina Göpel,
From SKKU : Nayoeng Kim, Jeonghyeon Shim, Chawechong.
Program Duration : Sep-Dec.2025
Following Exhibition : 12-16. Jan. 2026 at SKKU Gallery & HGB Festsaal
SKKU Gallery - 306 Sungkyunkwan-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul, 03063, South Korea
HGB Festsaal - Wächterstraße 11, 04107 Leipzig
Workshop Framework
The workshop is intended as an experimental ground for rethinking and expanding the concepts of space and existence beyond the constraints of the physical realm. In doing so, it explores the possibilities of interaction within today’s media environments, fostering a collaborative learning process between Korean and German students and facilitating exchange between participants working within Korean and German media-cultural contexts. Furthermore, the program aspires to serve as an experimental model for educational institutions in both countries, encouraging them to actively engage in building international networks.
Participants were invited free to experiment throughout the entire process of content creation and installation, exploring how mediatic cognitive systems operate on individuals within varied media-cultural contexts shaped by different historical and social conditions in Germany and Korea. Together, they will investigate how such modes of perception manifest within artistic practice.
This workshop served as the second phase of our project, focusing on testing an experimental exhibition format through various approaches. The exhibition is grounded in an expanded, spatiotemporal mixed-reality environment, enabling audiences in two venues—one in Korea and one inGermany—to interact in real time and simultaneously experience the works installed in both locations.
by Hyelim Jeon
Main research focuses
1) How is the concept of a mediatic cognitive system interpreted and reflected in each artist’s work?
3) The most important goal is to experiment with and explore exhibition formats that connect physically distant contexts (liveness, simultaneity, connectivity) in multiple ways. Creative and conceptual approaches are emphasized.
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Workshop Program
Session Design and Facilitation: Hyeyun Lee
The workshop was conducted in English, but participants may communicate freely in Korean or German using real-time translation tools. Each session was generally devided into two parts: 'discussion and play' and experimentation. This aimed to encourage cultural exchange between German and Korean media contexts, inspiring participants individually.
Orientation (9/7)
Overview of workshop theme and content,
Brainstorming of workshop ideas
1st Session (9/28)
Korean and German Media: Participants prepare and introduce one medium that best reflects Korean or German media culture—a film, a book, a TV program, ameme, or even a personal anecdote.
What does “media” mean to you?
2nd Session (10/19)
Brainstorming and discussion ideas for the online streaming exhibition.
3rd Session (11/9)
Short presentations of exhibition ideas and progress.
Detailed planing an online streaming (connected time and disconnected time)
4th Session (11/30)
Presentation and feedback on exhibition works.
5th Session (12/21)
Colloquium, Exhibition planning and preparation.
6th Session (1/11)
Exhibition test and final preparation.
Exhibition test and final preparation.
Exhibition “Screen Time”
“Screen Time” is an exhibition that extends the exchanges and research developed through the workshop. Centered on the term ‘screen time’-a key concept reflecting contemporary society-the participating artists visualize their inquiries into media and contemporary cognitive systems through their works. Through its experimental format of live-streaming, the exhibition connects Germany and Korea in real time, unfolding the workshop’s themes on another level.
Building on this exhibition format, eight artists establish a shared conceptual framework across two cities, revealing a dual presence shaped by the physical distance of 8,800 kilometers and an 8-hour time difference. The works generate new interactions among viewers who embody different modes of media perception, and this process transforms the workshop’s accumulated, cross-cultural research into an experiential dimension.
During the workshop, the six participating artists demonstrated distinct perspectives and strong artistic engagement. Through ongoing discussions of diverse media contexts and reflections on their individual artistic practices, the workshop became a meaningful site for deepening research into media cognition. The process fostered a productive exchange and collaborative environment among artists working across different cultural contexts.
by Hyeyun Lee
Artists
Anina Göpel - Playboard, Mobile, Screen Screen Screens
Playboard and Mobile is part of an ongoing art series exploring forms, especially childhood toys. Starting from the 200-year-old Fröbel toys, the project questions the use of simple, idealized shapes in early education. Inspired by glitch feminism, it playfully creates non-binary forms through digital errors. Recent works combine German and Korean toy forms into hybrid, cross-cultural objects.
Mobile
Playboard
Screen Screen Screens attempts to show how digital screens and advertising shape daily life and influence perception, emotions, and behavior. Multiple city shots convey a sense of constant overload. A calm scene with a glowing cross provides a deliberate contrast and points to the digital world as a new, omnipresent “religion.”
Chawechong - Join us!
This work identifies the emergence of BJ (Broadcast Jockey) culture within Korea’s one-person live streaming scene as a representative media phenomenon of contemporary Korean society. Beyond entertainment, it exposes a structure in which individuals are required to monetize their own exposure. Chawechong understands it as a result of Korea’s neoliberal capitalist system and the patriarchal development of its media infrastructure. The work considers humans to be treated as consumable resources. Mainly with fictional character 'BJ Anki', the work follows her struggle to recover 'Human-ness'. The work suggests that digital screens have become conditions that actively reorganize human labor and subjectivity.
Hyeyun Lee - 4LC Coin
4LC Coin explores how “survival” is entangled with economic systems in a society deeply immersed in financial assets. The artist views stocks and cryptocurrencies not merely as investment tools, but as symbols of everyday anxiety and desire. Beginning as a video-based narrative, the work extends into reality through the issuance of an actual token. By participating in the work and earning coins, viewers re-experience the structure between action and reward. This process raises questions about how one survives within today’s economic landscape.
Jeonghyeon Shim - M̴͜͠o̷͠͠s̶͘͟s̴͘͡ B̶̢a̵̡̛b̷͠y̵͟
M̴͜͠o̷͠͠s̶͘͟s̴͘͡ B̶̢a̵̡̛b̷͠y̵͟ emerges from absence—something that should exist but does not. This lack is not emptiness, but a pause before meaning forms. It follows a figure who distrusts the world’s symbols and drifts between belief and delusion. In moments of delay—glitches, errors, buffering—reality briefly cracks open. Fiction turns material, residue becomes consequence, and the boundary between delusion and the real collapses. The artist lingers where the system names “error,” tracing what refuses to disappear.
Nicklas Kleeman - Sandgeist II
Sandgeist II is an ambient music piece and video loop intended as a meditation on the nature of modern technology. Both the music and the visuals are created using fully custom-written algorithms, which are also visible in the work itself. Visitors are invited to scan the QR code to listen to the piece outside of the gallery.
Laila Kamil - save points
AR sculptures, concrete, MDF, acrylic paint / size variable / 2025, 2026
save points is an object series that materializes digital artifacts in physical space. Stone reliefs serve as carriers, which are expanded through augmented reality with digital, three-dimensional fragments, forming a complete shape that is only visible via a mobile device. The objects reference save points in video games, which allow the player to save their current progress and return to it later.
Nayœng Kim-
Wrist Trauma (Repeat), Hardened Wall, Sprint, Ankle Trauma (Repeat), Knee Trauma (Repeat), Stage skip (Repeat)
Nayœng Kim questions the solidity of the concrete ground beneath her feet. Hardened by social norms, this artificial surface disguises itself as real, yet it is a false ground sustained by sanctioned rules. It supports only bodies that conform to approved codes of heterosexuality and normativity.
Excluded from these coordinates, her body hovers in a semi-suspended state—neither grounded nor airborne. On the canvas, She conceals uncertain movements with layers of paint, then scrape and pierce the surface again, disrupting its continuity like a clipping bug in a digital game. This process does not seek completion but repeats failure, collision, and retry. Through these fractures, She attempts to make visible the existence of bodies erased by the system.
Knee Trauma (Repeat)
Stage skip (Repeat)
Hardened Wall
Sprint
