Gim Ik Hyun

Technology evolves in a direction in which physically existing or real places transform into visual information. Recent augmented forms of images are created through the ways in which we view the world in the virtual sphere, and through stitching together practices based on algorithms. These technologies combine or erase dislocated or twisted images to fill up all of their rifts, or they make up the sensory crevices through which to distinguish real and virtual worlds. The real is more rapidly folded in with the virtual. The real world is increasingly connected to the virtual world; only density and resolution distinguish the two. Contracted or patchwork images of the world represent the Seoul of 2016—a dense but low-resolution urban space. Pixels that are becoming more and more microcosmic infinitely overlap with one another, and the world’s dimension of imagery proliferates without limit. The world of the pixel constructed by advanced optical technology and algorithms will match the real world in every single point. In that stage, which is the future to come, the real and virtual worlds can hardly be distinguished. What will the future created by people who have only experienced the world over the slick, flat surface of the computer screen be like? The only true fact is that it is ourselves who bring us toward that sphere.