1. Do you remember the first online community, fandom, channel, or platform where you felt less alone? When did that comfort begin to feel complicated?
I think the first online platforms that made me feel that something was happening were Myspace and blogging platforms. In the 2000s, everyone was so excited about talking online, updating their pages, selecting playlists, collecting photos, and so on.
During the pandemic, I started watching a lot of K-pop content and became deeply immersed in it. Even though I was not very active in the fandom, I consumed a lot of its content: edits, analyses, discussions, and shared knowledge. It felt really nice to see all these people connected and organised because they loved the same music or the same band.
K-pop fandoms, especially ARMY—the BTS fandom—also have a reputation for being kind to one another. Fans offer gifts at concerts and create forums where people can talk about mental health. These fandoms are organised worldwide, and they also use their networks for political actions, such as participating in protests or organising online campaigns.
When we consider the reputation of the “fangirl” in our society—as a hysterical or stupid teenage girl—I find it beautiful that they do not care about this judgement and continue doing what they feel is right.
Over the last few years, however, I have started to feel less comfortable online and more bored by it. As the ways of earning money online changed, people began doing more product placements and working with brands. Because online income is often unstable or limited, people lose some of their independence and begin following the expectations of the platforms.
They also use parasocial relationships to gain more followers and secure more brand deals. Today, creating online content is seen as an attractive career, and it has also become almost the only way to promote music, handicrafts, and other creative work. As a result, everyone tries to attract attention, follow whatever the algorithm is likely to promote, and create the same kind of content. The internet is becoming one gigantic advertisement for small businesses.
I think the reason I still enjoy consuming fandom content is that fans are often simply sharing funny moments involving their idols because they genuinely love them.
2. Your work criticises systems of digital intimacy, but your practice is also driven by a deep love of fan culture. How do affection and criticism coexist in your work?
For me, being a fan is the best position from which to criticise something because you can accept its contradictions. You can love something while also knowing its flaws very well. That is why fans can be the perfect people to criticise something: they care about it deeply. When we do not like something, we usually just do not care about it.
Being a fan can also encourage people to learn new skills because they want to expand the universe surrounding the thing they love.
For me, digital intimacy is not necessarily a bad thing. In many ways, I think it is amazing. Sometimes, when I feel really sad, I watch a “BTS funny moments compilation,” and I feel a little better. It gives me the feeling that other people are there for me.
What I criticise is the way intimacy is becoming a hidden method of selling products, manipulating audiences, and turning viewers’ data into a commodity.
Digital intimacy often begins as a way of solving a problem but is later captured by the logic and language of late capitalism. For example, the practice of mukbang—which means “eating broadcast” or “eating online”—originated in South Korea. It began with people eating during livestreams because many people lived alone and did not have anyone to eat with.
Sharing dinner with other people is culturally and emotionally important. Livestreaming became a way for people to share a meal, chat with others, and reduce some of the loneliness of daily life. Over time, however, the practice became increasingly focused on who could eat the largest quantity of food, creating an escalation of consumption.
3. You use vocal AI, glitch, sampling, and montage to expose the fragility of algorithmic perfection. What kind of imperfection feels most human to you?
All of them. For me, every digital imperfection reveals the fragility of the machine.
When a machine or a piece of software does something wrong, it is as though it does not understand or does not know what it is supposed to do. The information may be unclear, or the machine may not have the capacity to process it, and then a bug appears.
I imagine the bug as a moment when the machine cannot cope anymore. It is tired; everything has become too much. When a machine makes a mistake—whether through a glitch or something else—it begins to seem human. It also makes mistakes and cannot do everything perfectly.
It starts to look as though it has emotions, limitations, and the possibility of failure, just like a human being.
4. In Don’t Be Shy.sub, self-care becomes a softer voice for late capitalism. At what moment does comfort become a product, and intimacy become customer retention?
It happens when the internet becomes a way of making money. People begin producing content for financial gain, following trends and designing their work around audience retention rather than focusing on the content itself.
ASMR culture began as a niche community on online forums, where people shared links to videos that triggered ASMR sensations. Later, people began intentionally producing ASMR videos.
At that time, YouTube was struggling with users uploading copyrighted material. The platform saw original formats such as ASMR as a valuable opportunity and began adopting and promoting its aesthetic.
Today, ASMR is used in advertising. It has even been used by the Trump administration to promote its anti-immigration policies. which stands in opposition to the values of ASMR, which promotes relaxation, caring for others, and gently and slowly listening to our own needs.
5. Inside an exhibition built from physical neighbours and collective constellations, does your work about mediated loneliness begin to mean something different?
I think every work takes on a different meaning depending on the context in which it is viewed. My work is generally driven by emotions, and I often combine many paradoxical feelings.
The video talks about loneliness, but it is more broadly concerned with how we find our place in the world, how we relate to other people, and how certain places or roles are assigned to us.
It is a melting pot of different questions, brought into confrontation with online solutions for taking care of ourselves through digital content and parasocial relationships. I think these questions can resonate with the other works in the exhibition and with the different emotions expressed through them.
Talking about loneliness is always also a way of talking about how to be with others. I am therefore sure that all the artworks will speak to one another, almost like people in a group chat.
This artwork is also a combination of video and sculpture, so its light and physical volume can enter into dialogue with the other pieces in the room and help create a shared atmosphere.
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