The talk explores the poetic tension between fragile human memory and digital immortality. Through ethnographic research into her family history, artist Yaloo transforms intimate scans of her grandmother into speculative characters—most notably the 86-year-old K-pop idol pirate Shininho. Together, they examine how motion capture, 3D animation, and immersive media reanimate ancestral stories into hybrid futures.

Exploring Technological Ageing and Digital Immortality

In a captivating session moderated by M+ curator Sunny Cheung, visual artist Yaloo delved into the poetic intersections of human memory, digital immortality, and speculative worldbuilding. The talk, titled “Technological Ageing: Ethnographic Research on Family Histories and Their Digital Art Presentations,” centered on Yaloo’s innovative project that transforms intimate 3D scans of her 86-year-old grandmother into a futuristic K-pop idol and pirate captain named Shininho. Drawing from Korean pop culture, mythology, and generative AI, Yaloo detailed how she weaves fragments of everyday life into immersive, site-responsive installations that seamlessly bridge the gap between reality and fiction.

The Genesis of a Pirate K-Pop Idol

The conceptual foundation for this overarching narrative emerged during the pandemic when Yaloo unexpectedly moved back in with her grandmother. Observing her grandmother’s tendency to skip across decades within a single sentence, Yaloo began to conceptualize the human mind and body as a living data center—albeit one that functions somewhat like a “broken machine”. This realization birthed the character of Shininho, a rebellious digital twin who traverses the globe to “steal” data, serving as a poignant response to a modern world where everything already feels extracted and commodified. Sunny Cheung pointed out that this rapid ideation mirrors South Korea’s accelerated technological culture, where a societal drive toward exports and the shiny and new heavily influences contemporary artistic output.

Subverting Technology Through Social Camouflage

To construct this hybrid future, Yaloo employs a highly collaborative, multi-disciplinary, and deliberately experimental technical workflow. She digitized her grandmother’s favored busy floral garments—which Yaloo thoughtfully interprets as a form of ‘social camouflage’ meant for quiet, everyday survival—using traditional stop-motion animation techniques seamlessly merged with modern AI data set generation. Furthermore, she utilized motion capture by translating hyper-commercial K-pop “ending fairy” poses and everyday gestures through a real actor’s body before mapping them onto the metahuman avatar. Cheung praised Yaloo’s approach for intentionally seeking an imperfect aesthetic, noting that her willingness to break traditional software pipelines and avoid standardized presets creates a uniquely human visual language.

Archiving Memory and the Digital Afterlife

The conversation also navigated the profound ethical and emotional implications of preserving family history through digital ethnography. When Cheung questioned the power dynamics of giving her conservative grandmother a rebellious, virtual second life, Yaloo explained that the ongoing project is a personal mechanism for coping with the realities of aging. Strikingly, Yaloo revealed that she felt the most profound sense of intimacy with her grandmother not through their often awkward verbal communication, but while meticulously zooming in to clean up the digital twin’s 3D UV map on her computer. The session ultimately concluded with thought-provoking audience inquiries regarding the eventual afterlife of these digital avatars, prompting deep reflections on how virtual reincarnations might eventually outlive their human origins.