Do You Miss the Future?

Hyundai Motorstudio Busan has launched an exhibition titled Do You Miss the Future? that encourages new inquiries about the “value of time,” featuring creative design works curated by the grand winner of the inaugural Hyundai Blue Prize Design award.

15 artworks by 14 teams, covering a number of diverse genres are on display until March 31, 2022, at Hyundai Motorstudio Busan, an interactive space launched in April 2021 to showcase Hyundai Motor Company’s increasing commitment to design and maximize customer engagement.

Somi Sim, a Seoul- and Paris-based independent curator specializing in fields of urbanism, architecture, design and contemporary art, curated the exhibition. Sim won the Hyundai Blue Prize Design 2021 award organized by Hyundai Motor Company to foster and support a new generation of design curators.

The exhibition is organized into four sub-themes and their associated sections at the venue: city (section “Post City”), labor (section “Ghost Work and The Human”), object (section “Hyper Object”) and future (section “2050”). The “Post City” section deals with the present and future of the urban space; “Ghost Work and The Human” explores the relationships between technology, labor and mankind; “Hyper Object” searches for alternative possibilities and coexistence that would help humanity overcome the current anthropocentric thinking as people experience crises; and “2050” invites participants to an uncertain future that necessitates change in people’s perceptions and practices and thus redesign of their way of life.

In particular, the work, titled Cabinet of Curiosities by Beijing-based Drawing Architecture Studio is a site-specific architectural drawing installation. It recreated the surrounding landscape of Hyundai Motorstudio Busan and the city of Busan with a unique perspective inspired by the traditional Korean still-life genre of chaekgeori. Installed before Hyundai Motorstudio Busan’s glass façade, it can be seen from both inside and outside as an attractive visage before the public.

Ideal Disruption by visual artist Manuel Rossner, who is based in Berlin, offers a virtual-reality tour of a Hyundai Motorstudio exhibition space through a downloadable smartphone application. The artist challenges the boundary between real and virtual spaces, borrowing the contemporary smooth, sleek design aesthetics. Digital visitors can also experience the exhibition through an avatar from anywhere and at any time.

Liminal City by People’s Architecture Office is a large-scale site-specific installation piece spanning three floors, shaped like a twisted and knotted metallic pipeline. Paying close attention to these networks of tubes, the architects present an architectural structure that connects fragments of time and space. Through the tube structure reminiscent of a periscope system, the audience will be able to see each other from different areas around the installation.

Breath by artist Minsu Oh is an installation piece that fabricates the mechanical machinery of a pipe organ, sprouting musical scales and water vapor out of circular holes on the ground similar to a fountain. According to the artist, the artwork is inspired by the air pressure and moisture generated by a steam locomotive, symbolizing the breath and vitality of living organisms.

Apart from the aforementioned four artists and teams, the rest of the 10 artists (individuals and teams) whose works are displayed at Hyundai Motorstudio Busan include Re-tracing Buro, Vladan Joler, Studio Hik, Sungseok Ahn, the team of Alex Rickett and John Brumley, Ordinary People, the team of Yeseul Oh and Wooseok Jang, Everyday Practice, Julien Prévieux and Florian Goldmann.

The Hyundai Blue Prize started in 2017 with its inaugural “Art+Tech” event at Hyundai Motorstudio Beijing with the objective of fostering emerging curators by providing mentoring programs and supporting their curatorial works. The winner of the Hyundai Blue Prize Design is given the opportunity to curate an exhibition at Hyundai Motorstudio Busan and participate in the Boisbuchet design workshop in France, while the winner of the Hyundai Blue Prize Art+Tech is given the opportunity to curate an exhibition at Hyundai Motorstudio Beijing and tour Hyundai Motor Company’s partnering art institutions in Europe and the US.