Loop Lab Busan, Korea's first media art festival, lights up port city

Tony Oursler's "Lock 2, 4, 6" at F1963 in Busan / Korea Times photo by Park Han-sol

BUSAN — At F1963, a former wire factory turned cultural complex, American media artist Tony Oursler uses a giant digital maze of synchronized projections and otherworldly graphics to create a surreal experience that bends perception and space.

Elsewhere in Korea’s southeastern port city, a virtual forest unfurls across the Busan Museum of Art’s (BMA) outdoor sculpture garden, where visually arresting short-form video works by 45 digital creators from around the world flicker among the trees.

These two presentations are among more than 20 exhibitions launched as part of Loop Lab Busan, the country’s first-ever citywide festival dedicated entirely to media art — from digital photography and moving images to media facades and artificial intelligence (AI).

Installation view of the outdoor exhibition, "Digital Subculture," at the Busan Museum of Art's sculpture garden / Korea Times photo by Park Han-sol

Loop Lab Busan marks the inaugural Asian edition of Loop Barcelona, which began in 2003 as the world’s first platform devoted to exploring the artistic and commercial potential of moving images. The Busan edition aims to capitalize on the port city’s growing cultural reputation, shaped by global events like the Busan International Film Festival and the Busan Biennale.

“From video art to AI, VR [virtual reality] and XR [extended reality], the art world is undergoing a profound transformation, driven by the rapid evolution of emerging technologies. New mediums are surfacing at a remarkable pace, dramatically expanding the boundaries of contemporary art,” said Suh Jin-suk, director of the BMA, during a press tour on Friday.

“With the conviction that digital media will soon stand alongside painting, sculpture and installation as a core genre, Loop Lab Busan was conceived to position the city at the forefront of this movement in Asia.”

The festival itself is uniquely structured as a three-pronged experience: part art fair, part forum and part exhibition.

MAOTIK's work on display at Taex's booth as part of Loop Lab Busan / Korea Times photo by Park Han-sol

Its opening weekend, from April 24 to 26, kicked off both the forum and the fair.

The art fair — the first of its kind to offer digital-only presentations — transformed hotel rooms at the Grand Josun Busan into immersive viewing spaces. Organized by local cultural agency A-Fluxion, it featured 25 participating galleries from home and abroad, including Johyun Gallery, Gallery 2, Esther Schipper, Duarte Sequeira and seven dealers based in Barcelona.

Meanwhile, the conference brought together international creatives and experts to discuss evolving practices in collecting and archiving digital assets in an age of constant technological transformation under the themes “Media Art Collecting” and “Art and Capital.”

Sougwen Chung's "Body Machine (Meridians)" at Loop Lab Busan / Korea Times photo by Park Han-sol

But the heart of the festival for the general public lies in the citywide exhibitions unfolding as late as June 29.

More than 20 museums, galleries and unconventional cultural spaces — such as Domoheon, the former official residence of the Busan mayor — are staging their own interpretations of media art, offering a mosaic of contemporary digital storytelling.

Highlights include a screening focused on Asia-Pacific visionaries like Yang Fudong and Meiro Koizumi at the Busan Cinema Center; a solo show by boundary-pushing artist Philippe Parreno at Johyun Gallery; and a retrospective on Aldo Tambellini, the late Italian-American pioneer of “electromedia,” at Haeundae Platform.