Seoul is a city in constant transformation, where history and technology, tradition and imagination intersect in complex ways. The landscape of the city is layered with time, stretching between the present and the future. Imaginary City Seoul: Toward the Cosmos adds a speculative dimension to this multifaceted identity by introducing “space” as a metaphor and direction, inviting us to imagine Seoul as a city yet to be fully realized.

The exhibition reinterprets Seoul through key concepts such as future urbanism, hyper-connected metropolises, data-driven landscapes, Neo-Hanyang, AI-integrated Seoul, and mobility odysseys. The participating artists use digital media, including graphics, animation, video, and generative art to imagine future landscapes of Seoul, where reality and virtuality come together.

Seoul’s sense of time unfolds in layers rather than straight lines. Through ever-evolving technologies, imagination and reality are intricately woven into the city’s fabric, continuously expanding it into new dimensions. This exhibition follows those layers of potential and complexity, offering a shift in perception: an opportunity to encounter the familiar city in unfamiliar ways, and to envision new futures rooted in both tradition and transformation.

Munbalchi is an artist collective that explores perception and narrative through various media, navigating the boundaries between physical and virtual space, tradition and the future.

Juho Kim works with installations, video, and sculpture to reconnect fragmented memories, places, and timelines. His practice draws on abandoned buildings and dismantled communities, layering past sensations over the present moment. Rather than capturing isolated moments, his work seeks to restore a sense of continuity to events and spaces that have faded or disappeared. By animating still objects and walking through forgotten sites, he gives form to what has been lost. At the core of his practice is an enduring desire to reconnect what has been broken.

Doeun Kim is a media artist who constructs narratives at the intersection of tradition and the future, reality and virtuality. For her, virtual reality is a means of expressing social repression, marginalized emotions, and hidden questions. In these digital spaces, unspoken feelings find clarity and form, turning the virtual into a philosophical testing ground. Her work blends 3D graphics, Metahuman characters, and traditional imagery, moving fluidly between the real and the virtual.

Vertical Horizon: Seoul presents the flow of Seoul’s time and space, from its past and present to an imagined future: through time-lapse imagery and a dynamic interplay of vertical and horizontal compositions. Coexisting architectures and landscapes across eras reveal the city’s accumulated legacy and envision a speculative future layered upon it: the possibility of a “Cosmic Seoul.” As the frame shifts from horizontal to vertical, skyscrapers and aerial mobility emerge, evoking both the structural and emotional elevation of a futuristic city. Using Unreal Engine, the work brings to life a multi-layered vision of Seoul, where time and space intersect in a complex, immersive urban landscape.

Byeon Yuyeol explores the multilayered meanings that emerge within today’s complex digital landscape. Employing A.I., computer-graphics techniques, and game-engine technology, he creates media-façade works, audio-visual pieces, interactive installations, and digital paintings. His accolades include the Silver Prize at the 2024 Seoul Light Gwanghwamun – Atelier Gwanghwa Media Façade Competition and Second Prize at the inaugural Walter-Ferrado International Composition Competition in Italy.

Seoul: Open Circuit is a media façade work that reimagines the city of Seoul through complex fractal algorithms based on its advanced networks and data systems. Using real-time urban data—such as architectural structures, transportation routes, and patterns of human movement—the work transforms Seoul into an open, expandable network rather than a closed structure.

The visual composition contrasts the vibrant colors and patterns of traditional dancheong (ornamental painting found in historic palaces) with modern neon aesthetics, highlighting the city’s unique fusion of tradition and innovation. Through this dynamic imagery, the work expresses Seoul’s openness, infinite scalability, and hyperconnectivity—allowing viewers to sensorially experience the city as a futuristic AI-integrated, data-driven metropolis.

Seoul today functions as a massive organic system where physical infrastructure and digital networks are closely intertwined. By visualizing this condition through data and fractal-based algorithms, the work explores the future potential of Seoul as a hyperconnected urban ecosystem.

Introducing the concept of an “open circuit,” the artwork positions the city not as a closed system, but as one that is continually evolving—an open and fluid network. It presents an urban landscape where people, technology, and data constantly interact and expand, forming a living system in continuous transformation. Through this lens, viewers are invited to reflect on the deeper possibilities of Seoul’s future—where the organic coexistence of technology and urban life suggests a new path toward sustainable growth.

*The video is a generative piece created using fractal algorithms developed within Unreal Engine.

Nezy Cheun explores themes of existence, relationships, technology, and perception through a variety of media, including painting, video, interactive works, and installation. Her practice incorporates technology as a sculptural language, focusing on the transitions between perception and sensation, the material and the immaterial, while contemplating the interconnectedness of humans, environments, and technological systems.

X-Seoul is a video work that reimagines the city of Seoul through a futuristic lens. The imagery consists of structural lines reminiscent of X-ray scans, presenting a cityscape that appears both deconstructed and reassembled in stark black-and-white contrast.

Winged entities traverse the space like data streams, while plant-like organisms embody an urban ecosystem subtly embedded in the city’s fabric. These beings cross the boundaries of architecture and technology, memory and life, city and nature—forming an organic network that reveals the ever-evolving sensory experience of the metropolis.

By rendering Seoul both familiar and strange, X-Seoul invites viewers to envision a speculative city where ecology and technology converge. The work was created using 3D modeling and wireframe animation techniques.