Two Korean Media Art Teams Win at Ars Electronica 2026
Creatrip Team
a month ago
Two Korean teams, Wooju+Lim Hee-young and Lee Jung-woo, received Honorary Mentions at the prestigious Prix Ars Electronica 2026, chosen from 4,329 works across 106 countries. Wooju+Lim won in the Interactive Art Plus category for their kinetic piece “There Are No Birds,” featuring a bird-shaped machine tracing circles on white sand. Lee Jung-woo won in New Animation Art for “The Written Film, The History to Be,” which restored scenes from Korea’s first independent narrative film "Long Live Freedom" (1946) using AI to reconstruct politically censored footage, while also critiquing algorithmic bias. Both works were first presented at UNFOLD X 2025, a Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture (Seoul Foundation) platform that discovers, funds, and presents interdisciplinary art—a program credited with 17 years of fostering K-media art. The piece notes earlier successes like Kim A-young’s 2023 Golden Nica win and ongoing growth of UNFOLD X, which will return as UNFOLD X 2026 in November at Culture Station Seoul 284. The two awardees will be officially invited to the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz in September. (UNFOLD X: a Seoul Foundation platform for discovering, funding, and presenting interdisciplinary art)
