Rhizome of the New Museum and Hyundai Motor Company announce that “World on a Wire,” a global art exhibition for the gallery and the web, will be on view at the Hyundai Motorstudio Seoul beginning May 7, 2021. “World on a Wire” represents the first collaboration in the recently announced partnership between Hyundai Motor and Rhizome to create platforms worthy of innovative, emergent digital art practices.
- Exhibition features Mariia Fedorova, JooYoung Oh, Tabor Robak, Rachel Rossin, Theo Triantafyllidis, ZZYW
- Discursive program anchored by multi-event exploration of the metaverse
- Online hub of worldonawire.net hosts the full set of “World on a Wire” works, as well as all public programming
The Seoul edition of “World on a Wire” features six works by global artists in a variety of analog and digital mediums: augmented reality (AR), digital and practical animation, simulation, gaming, and more. Many of the works in this edition each create their own virtual space and ecosystem such as the evolving simulation of ZZYW’s ThingThingThing (2019-), the speculative lifeforms of Tabor Robak’s Butterfly Room: Special Edition (2014/2021), and even the generative “living” exhibition platform created by designer Yehwan Song at worldonawire.net.
Other works depict bridged spaces between virtual and real: Rachel Rossin’s layering of physical and digital skins in the sculpture series I’m my loving memory (2020-2021), Theo Triantafyllidis’s Studio Visit (2018), comprising a tromp l’oeil artwork brought to life through AR intervention, and Mariia Fedorova’s Pandemic Chronotope (2021) which utilizes early moving image technology to enliven vivid animations related to this pandemic moment. BirthMark (2021) by JooYoung Oh is an AI system that attempts to interpret documentation from the Beijing exhibition of “World on a Wire.” Its interpretations of the imagery and descriptions are technically precise, but often at odds with those of a human viewer.
“We are delighted to be presenting the ‘World on a Wire’ exhibition as we continue to share new and innovative approaches to bring art to people on a global scale,” commented DooEun Choi, Art Director of Hyundai Motor. “Hyundai Motor actively supports artistic initiatives that embrace art and technology through various platforms, such as this exhibition.”
“We are thrilled to bring ‘World on a Wire’ to Seoul together with Hyundai Motor,” said Zachary Kaplan, Rhizome’s Executive Director. “Moreover, we’re excited to use this presentation as a frame to discuss the new virtual spaces being created around digital art, the blockchain, and their online communities and markets.”
Alongside this presentation, the partners will host “Welcome to the Metaverse,” a pair of programs exploring an emerging framework for understanding communal virtual spaces and their nature, uses, and markets. The first event, on May 19, will feature exhibition curator Michael Connor in conversation with designer David Rudnick and artist/curator Aria Dean to discuss ways of understanding the relationship between the physical and the digital at a moment in which cryptocurrency allows “virtual space” to act as a repository of meaning and value. The second event, on June 16, will be a panel addressing the new forms of social practice emerging between “real” and “virtual” space, enabled by cryptocurrency and the blockchain.
©2021 Hyundai, New Museum
Art Plugged is a contemporary platform inspired by a relationship with the broader arts communities. We provide our audience with curated insight into the world of art, from exhibitions to artist interviews and more.
