Originality & Identity

Jooyoung Oh is an artist who consistently engages in a critical investigation of how science and technology interact with human cognitive systems and shape perceptual reality. In her early work Virtual Environment Regulator 1 (2017), presented at 《Art Lab Daejeon 2017》, she focused on how the visual immersion and device usage of VR technology could paradoxically constrain physical freedom and sensory experience. Her work at this stage begins from a perspective that seeks to subvert the fantastical narratives surrounding technology.

In another early work BirthMark: An Artificial Viewer for Appreciation of Digital Surrogates of Art (2017–2020), also presented in her solo exhibition 《Dice Game》 (Nam June Paik Art Center, 2020), she questions whether emotional and intuitive acts such as art appreciation can be substituted by machines, through the use of artificial cognitive models that simulate human visual perception. This work thematizes the conceptual mismatch that occurs when technological advancement intrudes upon the sensory and emotional domain of human experience, and takes the limitations of scientific reductionism as a subject of thought.

In her later works, Oh expands her interest to non-human perspectives mediated by technology. As seen in recent works such as Kestrel Drone (2022, 《ZER01NE DAY 2022》) and Young Bird Care Center (2023, 《2023 Busan MoCA Platform: Ingredients Mining》), she reexamines technology from the viewpoint of animals rather than humans and speculatively explores the possibility of ecological coexistence and care. This approach reflects a critical awareness of whether advanced technologies such as AI and drones can mediate new relationships with non-human entities.

Her recent solo exhibition 《Displaced Impossibility: A View from Out of Place》 (Post Territory Ujeongguk, Seoul, 2024) marks a turning point, presenting the kestrel’s perspective through an AI drone and offering a renewed consideration of the relationship between urban ecosystems and technology. At this stage, Oh seeks a more complex conceptual strategy that repositions technology within ecological imagination and social context, going beyond technological representation.

Style & Contents

Jooyoung Oh’s practice visualizes the gap between scientific technology and sensory experience through interactive games, VR installations, video works based on artificial cognitive models, and robotic drones. Her series Virtual Environment Regulator (2017) utilizes technological devices such as VR headsets, smartphones, and 3D-printed apparatuses as elements of installation to reveal the limitations of immersive experiences offered by technology.

In Blind Landing (2019), presented in her solo exhibition 《Let’s Know What I Don’t Know》 at PlaceMak 2, she uses an EEG device and archive video in an installation format to depict how the quantification of sensory experience can render the human subject passive under technological systems. This work contains a critical message: that blind faith in technology may erode human agency.

Her game-based works—Unexpected Scenery (2020) and Hope For the Rats (2020)—structure themselves so that viewers, through direct manipulation, experience the contradictions of scientific experimentation, failure, and knowledge production. In particular, Unexpected Scenery uses a narrative structure with three stages—physical environments of AI, resources for spatial system implementation, and accidental research outcomes—to interpret the components of technological systems through a game grammar.

Her recent work Young Bird Care Center (2023) has evolved into a complex multimedia piece incorporating kinetic installation, sound art, and robotic drones. For the artist, technology is no longer an object of perception but redefined as a medium for ecological interaction. The reconfiguration of sensory experience expands beyond the visual to include auditory, olfactory, and spatial perception.

Topography & Continuity

Jooyoung Oh, with her dual academic background in visual design and computer engineering, is recognized as one of the most critically and precisely articulate artists in the language of technology within contemporary media art. Her works are rare examples that question the "meaning" rather than the "function" of science and technology, combining theoretical depth with technical refinement.

While her early works primarily addressed the gap between immersive technological environments and human cognitive responses, from the mid-period onward her concepts have expanded to encompass the relationships between technology and life, technology and care, and technology and non-human beings. This evolution can be clearly observed in the trajectory from cognitive model experiments in BirthMark to works like Kestrel Drone and Young Bird Care Center.

A consistent characteristic of her work is the philosophical inquiry: “What can technology make us sense and think?” rather than “What can technology do?” This attitude has also been recognized through her selection as a New Media and Multidisciplinary Artist for the MMCA Residency Goyang in 2024 and her award at Ars Electronica.

Going forward, Jooyoung Oh is likely to expand her work beyond anthropocentric technological discourse toward experimenting with sensory technological environments suited to various non-human beings and ecological conditions around the world. Her practice, which intersects technological ethics with ecological context, will serve as a crucial marker of decentered imagination in contemporary art.