Ayoung Kim: ‘Delivery Dancer’s Sphere’
Ayoung Kim, Delivery Dancer’s Sphere, 2022. Single-channel video, 25min. ⓒ Courtesy of the artist
About the Work
Delivery Dancer’s Sphere is a video work featuring Ernst Mo, a female delivery rider for Delivery Dancer, managed by the algorithm Dancemaster. The narrative delves into the gig economy and platform labor, accentuated during the pandemic in South Korea. Ernst Mo, a top delivery rider, encounters her ghostly double, En Storm, symbolizing the human-technology interplay in the AI era. Through their encounter, Delivery Dancer’s Sphere explores not only the on-demand economy, but themes of hypervigilance and the accelerationist urge to optimize body, time and space. Delivery riders embody an accelerated form of invisible labour driven by algorithms that, in turn, require the radical optimization of the rider’s own body, a process unseen by consumers who find no-contact deliveries left at their doorstep.
Watch an interview with the artist on the work from last year’s Frieze London.
About the Artist
Ayoung Kim (b. 1979; based in South Korea) weaves new realities through hybrid narratives, integrating geopolitics, mythology, technology and futuristic iconography in her work. These synthesized narratives result in far-reaching speculation, establishing connections between biopolitics and border controls, the memories of stones and virtual memories, and ancestral origins and imminent futures, presented through video, virtual reality, sonic fiction, and texts. Kim’s works have been presented at MoMA, New York (2024); M+, Hong Kong (2024); Sharjah Biennial 15 (2023); Ars Electronica, Linz (2023); International Film Festival Rotterdam (2023); Berlin International Film Festival (2020); and the Venice Biennale (2015), among others. She has received the ACC Future Prize, National Asian Culture Center, Korea (2024), Golden Nica Award, Prix Ars Electronica, Austria (2023) and Terayama Shuji Prize, Image Forum Festival, Japan (2023) and was a supported artist for the Korea Artist Prize, Korea (2019).
About EMAP x FRIEZE FILM SEOUL
For the third year in a row, Frieze Film returns to Frieze Seoul 2024. This year’s programme is presented in partnership with Ewha Media Art Presentation (EMAP) and on view from 2 – 6 September at Ewha Womans University and online at frieze.com.
Curated by Joowon Park and Valentine Umansky, this year’s programme is titled ‘All that Weaves the Universe: Of Quantum Entanglements’. It brings together time-based media works of 37 international artists, unfolding across eight chapters.
