Korea Foundation brings architecture, digital art lectures to US, UK

A poster for "Lectures on Arts and Beyond," hosted by the Korea Foundation / Courtesy of KF

The Korea Foundation, a government-affiliated nonprofit that fosters cultural exchange and public diplomacy, will host a series of lectures exploring the intersections of Korean art and technology across the United States and United Kingdom this month.

Titled “KF LAB Series: Lectures on Arts and Beyond,” the weeklong program is set to run from Nov. 12 to 19 at five institutions, with an aim to deepen global academic engagement with Korean culture.

A talk on Korean architecture will take place in the U.S. at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (Nov. 12), the Korea Society in New York City (Nov. 17) and New York University Institute of Fine Arts (Nov. 18-19).

Led by Pai Hyung-min, professor of architecture at the University of Seoul, the lecture will trace the historical context and major currents of the country’s modern and contemporary architectural landscape. Pai previously curated the Golden Lion-winning Korean Pavilion at the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale and the inaugural edition of the Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism in 2017.

Meanwhile, the program’s art and technology segment is scheduled to make stops at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (Nov. 12) and the University of Sheffield’s Centre for Korean Studies in the U.K (Nov. 13).

Lee Jin-joon, associate professor of culture technology at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, will delve into the current landscape of Korea’s cutting-edge media and digital art, where artificial intelligence (AI) becomes both muse and medium.

A fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Lee made headlines earlier this year with “Good Morning Mr. G-Dragon,” an experimental space project that launched into orbit an AI-generated video crafted from the iris data and music of K-pop icon G-Dragon.