Inhwa Yeom is a media artist and founder of biotech startup Biove, working across AI- and XR-based artmaking and research. She currently lives and works in Seoul, Korea.
Inhwa Yeom (b. 1991) has been
reconstructing the experiences of historical minorities through technology,
devising ways to embrace the actions, reactions, and expressions of diverse
beings. To this end, she has been developing an XR-based “3D Performative
Apparatus–Environment,” leading audiences to experiences of “becoming other
beings” through cognitive, psychological, and physical participation.
Inhwa Yeom’s central concept and medium,
the “3D Performative Apparatus–Environment,” refers to an environment that
brings together digital devices incorporating 3D graphics and interactive
technologies as well as non-digital devices, presenting them like a stage for
the audience. Within this staged environment, viewers take on the role of
becoming beings other than themselves.
To construct such an environment, Yeom
employs extended reality (XR) technologies in which virtual reality (VR) and
augmented reality (AR) are interconnected and operated together. These
apparatuses/environments possess an inherent performativity as technological
systems, while also interweaving another layer of performativity through the
participation of the audience.
In other words, Yeom’s work operates on the
basis of a relationship in which the audience/performer and the
apparatus/environment influence one another according to each other’s presence
and role. Within this network of mutual performativity, the artist enables
viewers—who are at once both a stage and a co-performer with the
apparatus/environment—to critically immerse themselves in the sensations,
experiences, and thinking of beings other than themselves.
For example, Chandra X
(2021), a 3D Performative Apparatus–Environment, allows multiple participants
to traverse heterogeneous realities within a cross-device networked
environment, connecting and intervening in each other’s experiences in real
time while exchanging interactions and feedback on their performative actions.
The title “Chandra” is a gender-neutral
name borrowed from both Chandra, the Hindu lunar deity, and NASA’s Chandra
X-ray Observatory. It refers to a character created by the artist. Within the
interconnected VR/AR apparatus–environment, viewers take on the role of
“Chandra,” traversing and modulating multiple interwoven layers of reality as
if navigating through outer space.
In Chandra’s Signal
(2021), presented in the group exhibition 《Game &
Art: Auguries of Fantasy》 at the Daejeon Museum of Art,
Inhwa Yeom constructs a neo-feudal society based on a planet-scale computing
system. Within this world appear workers who endlessly mine resources for
energy, and a first-person-view gamer—called “Chandra”—who serves as an intermediary
in the class hierarchy overseeing them. In the exhibition, visitors could
directly operate a computer to run the program and play through the narrative
of the work themselves.
Most recently, Inhwa Yeom presented ‘Chandra
Chronicles: In Neuroverse’ (2025), a 3D Performative Apparatus-Environment
series that positions “Chandra” as a being managing a neural-network
environment and expands Chandra’s chronicle into three spatiotemporal
dimensions, which the audience can traverse through their own bodies and
senses.
In this work, visitors become both
performers and “Chandra,” mediating between the three dimensions—A.C.
(After Chandra), B.C. (Before Chandra), and C.C.
(Circa Chandra)—via multiple technological media that cross physical
reality, augmented reality (AR), and virtual reality (VR).
Moving across these three dimensions
through digital technology, the audience experiences everything from Chandra’s
heightened perceptual state during her most dynamic period to her neural aging
after retirement. Every action performed in each dimension is immediately
transmitted throughout the Neuroverse, affecting the other dimensions.
In her solo exhibition 《Imposter Kitchen》 at Space:illi (2022), Yeom
presented the eponymous work, a 3D Performative Apparatus-Environment that also
addresses human aging. Imposter Kitchen speculates on the
networks of interests and their diversity surrounding aging within the format
of a fine-dining open kitchen restaurant.
At each table sit groups of patient
caregivers, researchers and engineers, entrepreneurs and investors, and
animal-rights activists, while in the kitchen a quasi-surgical process for
steak aging is staged as a spectacle.
In the work, visitors move back and forth
between the kitchen and the tables, performing the role of serving courses of
steak dishes prepared with different aging techniques. In the process, they can
transfer or mediate one stakeholder’s “stake” to another party.
Through this performative participation,
the work explores how, under the keyword of aging, seemingly conflicting
interests can be reconnected and coexist, reflecting the dynamics of
contemporary society.
In 2023, Inhwa Yeom participated in the
Residency Program at the Asia Culture Center (ACC) and created the 3D
performative apparatus-environment Innerveauty Spa (2023),
inspired by an interest in neurodiversity. The work begins with an approach
that recognizes what has been considered mental dysfunction or disorder as
simply a difference in neural types.
The spa welcomes clients with diverse
neural profiles and offers various “neural care” services to nurture their
inner beauty. Visitors assume the role of a spa attendant, moving throughout
the spa management spaces depicted within the virtual reality setup to attend
to clients. As each client shares their personal concerns and sensitivities,
their voices flow together like a single song, inviting visitors to listen
attentively and engage empathetically.
Additionally, visitors sit at tables and
use the AR-based “beauty devices” featured in Innerveauty
Spa to carry out client management protocols. The attendant’s primary
responsibilities encompass actions such as “tuning frequencies,” “channeling,”
and “resonating” with each client’s needs. In this process, the attendant also
functions like an opera orchestra, providing accompaniment, harmonies, and
ad-libs to the clients’ song-like voices.
Ultimately, through the spatiotemporal
framework of Innerveauty Spa and the layered performativity
it enables, Inhwa Yeom envisions a near future in which neurodiversity can be
routinely sensed, appreciated, and embraced in everyday life.
In the subsequent work SAUNA
LAB (2024), Inhwa Yeom critically examines the concentration of
scientific and technological capital within certain social class and imagines a
future in which such resources are shared freely with those most vulnerable to
the climate crisis.
SAUNA LAB, a
citizen-participatory climate research institute established by repurposing
scientific research facilities and hot spring amenities in Yuseong-gu, Daejeon,
envisions a fictional community where elderly people and future generations
collaboratively study climate change. In this context, Yeom reframes the term
“climate-vulnerable groups” by designating the elderly as “climate crisis
survivors,” repositioning them as active agents in addressing environmental
challenges.
The artist’s engagement with the
contemporary, global issue of the climate crisis continues in the XR-based,
audience-participatory performance Solarsonic Band (2024). This
performance by Inhwa Yeom is inspired by the hope of “continuing outdoor
performances as long as the sun rises” in the era of climate crisis, aiming to
lead the audience to collective climate action.
The audience is invited to step onto the
“band lead” platform at the center of the stage. From there, they play sheet
music from an augmented reality band stand and conduct a rehearsal for a tour
performance dedicated to the five climate zones—atmosphere, hydrosphere,
lithosphere, cryosphere, and biosphere—recreated in virtual reality. The sheet
music is created based on actual climate data, and as the audience takes on the
lead role and changes the performance in real-time, the climate crisis scenario
changes accordingly.
In this way, Inhwa Yeom explores diverse
forms of corporeality and performativity through biotechnology, cloud
computing, and nonhuman actors, investigating collaborative sensibilities
between humans and nonhumans. Working at the intersections of technology,
performance, and art, Yeom has developed 3D Performative
Apparatus-Environments, creating stages that encompass the behaviors,
responses, and expressions of various (non)humans and provide a platform for
“minorities” historically marginalized within society.
These apparatus-environments, grounded in
the audience’s cognitive, psychological, and bodily participation, become
stages where the existence and narratives of those excluded from mainstream
society can be sensorially transmitted and articulated to participants.
“Through the 3D Performative
Apparatus-Environment, I hope audiences can critically immerse themselves in
the sensations, thoughts, and experiences of beings other than themselves,
alongside a stage that is also a co-performing entity.” (Inhwa Yeom, 2023 ACC Residency interview)
Yom Inhwa is a media artist and founder of
biotech startup Biove, working across AI- and XR-based artmaking and research.
Her solo exhibitions include 《Imposter Kitchen》 (Space:illi, Seoul, 2022-2023), 《Water on
Fire》 (Gallery MeiLan, Seoul, 2022), and 《Chandra X》 (Online, 2021).
She has also participated in numerous group
exhibitions, including 《The City of Nam June Paik: The
Sea Fused with The Sun》 (Nam June Paik Art Center,
Yongin, 2025), 《Whispering, Plating Myth》 (Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab (C-LAB), Taipei, 2024), Unfold X
2024 《2084: Space Odyssey》 (Culture
Station Seoul 284, Seoul, 2024), 《NEXT CODE: The Record
of Six Promising Journeys》 (Daejeon Museum of Art,
Daejeon, 2024), and 《Planetary Pulse》 (Asia Culture Center, Gwangju, 2024).
Yeom has received awards at the 6th VH
Award (2024), organized by the Hyundai Art Lab & Hyundai Motor Company, and
at the Media Artist Award, organized by LG Arts Center & LG Electronics.
Yeom has also participated in residency programs at the Taiwan Contemporary
Culture Lab (Taipei, 2024) and the Asia Culture Center (Gwangju, 2023).
