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Layered Medium: We ARE IN Open Circuits
Contemporary Art From Korea 1960s - Today
Layered Medium: We Are in Open Circuits presents media-based practices from Korea spanning the 1960s to the present, bringing together 48 works by 29 artists. Borrowing its title from a 1965 statement by visionary artist Nam June Paik – who foresaw the emergence of today’s interconnected world, the exhibition explore show Korean artists have used evolving technologies to respond to social transformation. From avant-garde experiments in video and performance to contemporary explorations in VR, robotics, and embroidery, these works reveal art’s mediating role amid rapid urbanisation and globalisation. As these pieces, including works from the collection of the Seoul Museum of Art, travel from Korea to the UAE, they enter new circuits of meaning, carrying traces of their origins while opening new perspectives in our present time and place.
The exhibition opens with pioneering works from the 1960s and 1970s, when Korean artists first began experimenting with new technologies amid dramatic social change. It then unfolds across three thematic sections, each exploring different dimensions of “medium” – understood both as physical materials and as modes of communication. The first considers the body as our most immediate point of contact with the world. The second explores society as a network of stories, memories, and inherited knowledge. The final section turns to space – urban, natural, and digital – examining how environments are shaped by globalisation and layered histories.
Across decades and disciplines, these works reveal how Korean artists have used technology to interpret, record, and reimagine their world.