Canadian-Korean artist Krista Kim was a very creative child, but her parents wanted her to pursue a “steadier career”. So he studied Political Science and Government at the University of Toronto, hoping to become a journalist, specifically as a television anchor. While living in Seoul he wrote for a newspaper, but when he lived in Japan between 2005 and 2008, he returned to his art. “When I was in the Ryōan-ji temple garden in Kyoto, I realized that Zen gardens are an immersive experience of well-being; were created [over] 500 years ago clever monks learned that the environment can become a mirror of the mind. I embarked on a journey to create art that becomes a service to humanity, that instills the same silence in people, through digital language.’
Kim, who received her Master of Fine Arts from Singapore’s Lasalle College of the Arts in 2014, is the kind of Renaissance woman whose work keeps an eye on the future. He is the metaverse editor of Vogue Singapore, one of UNESCO’s ’50 Minds for the next 50′, and a cultural leader at the World Economic Forum since 2022. Continuum, Kim’s large-scale immersive work of light and sound, was featured in the New York Times. square Run by Times Square Arts as a reminder to decompress during the pandemic, Continuum was designed to transform Kim’s audience into a “state of positive digital awareness.”
While Continuum was part of Kim’s manifesto to create Zen for the digital age, it was Mars House that really caught the attention of the art world. The NFT (non-fungible token, a type of cryptocurrency) became the first digital home and, according to Sotheby’s, “included interactive 3D files that can be integrated into the owner’s metaverse to entertain guests or hold meetings in virtual reality. metaverse using VR headsets, and augmented reality.” While Sotheby’s concluded that Mars House is “undoubtedly a gem of metaverse architecture designed for the future,” Forbes described Kim as “like a new digital Rothko.”
Times Square digital installation by Krista Kim Continuum (2022) Krista Kim
His digital art modernizes Rothko’s floating color spaces, using a vivid color palette that would be difficult to replicate with ancient painting. Kim is firmly outward looking in her practice; He founded the Techism movement in 2014 to combine “technological innovation and artistic creation” and is determined to use it to preserve “a free-thinking society that is empathetic and humane”.
Kim says that if we don’t adapt to the modern age, we risk losing ourselves. We’re still Neanderthals, but our brains are bombarded with millions of messages every day. We’re addicted to the dopamine hits we get every time a social media post generates a ‘like’. We’re using them all, he says. We are the product. When he talks about the world in such brutal terms, it is shocking, but his words are true. “AI must move from a shareholder first mandate to a Humanity First mandate. AI is accelerating. It will become omnipotent. So it must be ethical and serve humanity as a public good. Too much power in the hands of a few is treacherous.”
For Kim, our response to AI is to protect data privacy as a universal human right. With data protection, AI can be used as a tool for good; personalizing education for every child on the planet; encouraging people around the world to collaborate creatively after AI eases the job market, or in the future we can be blindfolded, allowing companies to access our data and use them to control us with AI tools that wipe out democracy and free thought in one fell swoop. the generation We can be so easily exploited, a concept that Heart Space explores in its creative biometric AI artwork. “This is a great turning point in human history. Yuval Harari says it beautifully when he says that history is not written by humans for the first time.’ Is Kim feeling positive about the future? “I think we have an opportunity to create a safe and humane foundation for the next phase of human civilization, but if we’re not paying attention, and we’re apathetic, and we’re not taking the right steps to protect our data privacy, then we’re setting up future generations for technology dominance, technology AI dominance, and that’s dangerous.” He interrupts. “But I will always root for humanity.”
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