Overview
War Dance is an AI-powered moving-image work that asks how art can address Asian womxn’s realities in empowering ways, and how seemingly “natural” systems complicate their bodies and lives. Inspired by the Korean myth of the Sun and Moon Dogs (Bul-gae)—creatures destined to chase the sun and moon—and the optical phenomena of sundog and moondog, the work examines structures surrounding marriage, childbirth, intimacy, infertility treatment, adoption, and transnational marriage.
The womxn in War Dance are not passive orbiters. They become questioners, reflectors, and hackers of reality, making family dynamics, religious dogmas, economic systems, and even physical laws newly visible. “Trans-parenthood” names a radical mode of loving and parenting beyond biology, tradition, and imposed social norms. Their war dance is not an act of destruction, but one of revealing and actualising possibilities that previously seemed unimaginable.
Why AI?
AI is used here as an artistic and ethical problem rather than a technical spectacle. Its struggle to navigate the intersecting realities of Asian womxn mirrors the artist’s own; the process exposes stereotyped and discriminatory visual patterns and asks what an ethically responsible representation of faces, bodies, and identities might be.
Details
- Artist: Inhwa Yeom / 염인화 / 廉仁和
- Year: 2025
- Media: Single-channel video, color, stereo sound, 8 min. 20 sec.
- Award: Finalist, The 6th VH AWARD
- Commission: VH AWARD, Hyundai Motor Group
Exhibitions
2025 — The 6th VH AWARD, Ars Electronica Festival, Linz
2025 — The 6th VH AWARD, HEK Basel, Basel
2025 — The 6th VH AWARD, Hyundai Motor Studio Beijing, Beijing
2025 — The 6th VH AWARD, Hyundai Motor Group University Mabuk Campus, Yongin
2026 — The 6th VH AWARD, ArtSpace @ HeluTrans, Singapore
2026 — WE Are Becoming, Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab (C-LAB), Taipei
2026 — Queer East Festival, ICA London, London
〈War Dance〉는 아시아 여성의 현실을 어떻게 스스로를 강화하는 방식으로 다룰 수 있는지, 그리고 가장 ‘자연스럽다’고 여겨지는 것조차 어떻게 여성의 몸과 삶을 복잡하게 만드는지 질문하는 AI 기반 영상 작품이다. 해와 달을 끝없이 쫓는 한국의 불개 설화와 환일·환월 현상에서 출발해 결혼, 출산, 친밀성, 난임 치료, 입양, 국제결혼 등을 둘러싼 구조를 비판적으로 바라본다.
작품 속 여성들은 해와 달 주변을 도는 수동적 존재가 아니라 현실을 질문하고 반사하며 해킹하는 존재다. 이들은 생물학과 전통, 강요된 규범을 넘어 사랑하고 돌보는 급진적 방식인 ‘트랜스-부모됨’을 통해 자신을 다시 정의한다. 마지막의 ‘워 댄스’는 파괴를 위한 춤이 아니라 보이지 않던 구조를 드러내고 상상하지 못했던 가능성을 현실화하는 행위다.
Inhwa Yeom 