Kim Yong Hun: We first met each other in 2010 at the Graduate School of Culture Technology, KAIST. I, as an artist, went there with the hope to deepen my understanding of technology. Seung Back, as an engineer, began his studies in the same year with an interest in creative works. Both of us were open to collaboration because we knew it was necessary for what we wanted to do. In 2012, we finished our master’s studies and started to work as a team.

Shin Seung Back: When one sees the individuality of a tool and gives it her heart, it becomes alive. Kim Yong Hun: It depends on how we see it. They could be just tools but they could also be an extension of the human. Now, AI makes us realize that it could even be an entity.

Shin Seung Back: I can see mountains through a window in the cafe where I’m working with my laptop. When I was working on Stone, I was operating a computer program in front of the waves. I still don’t know how we should change ourselves but I think about the scene when machines, humans and nature are all together.
Kim Yong Hun: The project started with a thought of me becoming a stone, with love for nature. I wouldn’t see myself as an environmentalist, but that sort of hope might have been there.

Shin Seung Back: Is there any pure nature now? Nature and humans are closely interwoven through technology. Some nature can exist only with human beings, and others will exist without us.
Kim Yong Hun: It is humans that make the distinction between the two. Nature is natural because there is no human intervention. Technology is artificial because it is made by humans. Now, nature is being altered by humans and technology is getting out of human hands.

Shin Seung Back: Machines do not have their own purpose yet. The problem now is the people trying to profit from mechanized processes. They have too much data. But it is insufficient for machines to really understand humankind.
Kim Yong Hun: It’s more about exploring unique human abilities than hiding from machines. The originality of humanity is often discussed in relation to AI today since it is becoming able to mimic many of our abilities. It could be seen as a threat to humans but it could also be an opportunity for us to find new human values.

Shin Seung Back: When working, I usually carry my computer, pen and paper.
Kim Yong Hun: Paper is good when exploring unorganized thoughts but I spend more time with digital tools. A laptop can do so many things.

Shin Seung Back: Various experiments are meaningful at this stage but I don’t think digitizing humans necessarily means the mechanization of human beings. It is also part of the process of making machines to understand humans more. Personally, rather than becoming one with a machine, I’d like to sit side by side with one and look at the mountains together.
Kim Yong Hun: Humans will change themselves with technology. I don’t know which technology: implanting machines, editing genes, etc. I’m more interested in the fact that the ‘selection’ is done by humans now, not nature.

Shin Seung Back: An important part of a machine’s perception is recognizing humans. Their world is full of human voices.
Kim Yong Hun: They will listen to whatever we listen to and probably much more. But I don’t know if they’ll enjoy it. Human preferences will set their taste for a while but evolution will lead it afterwards.

Shin Seung Back: That’s because it’s made based on rules that are different from the ones we think are natural. A digital file that appears to be one in the local disk is actually physically fragmented. We can use it as one file only through a specific algorithm because it is computationally efficient. The same is true for cloud storage. It is designed to be accessible from anywhere and anytime, like air. It is not surprising that we don’t care about the physical location of information as we do not care about where air comes from.
Kim Yong Hun: Digital is often understood as the opposite of real. That might be a reason.

Shin Seung Back: We’re experimenting with brain signals and AI.