Travel Across Boundaries: Swiss research and Korean curation connecting digital transformation and society
The rapidly growing digital transformation has an immense impact on our planet. Our contemporary life is challenged by constant dynamic adaptation to new technologies revolutioning the way we live and interact. This concept, at the center of a cooperative project orchestrated by our team in Seoul, resulted in an ex novo interactive exhibition for Korean audience. In the spotlight the blurring boundaries between the real and virtual worlds, proposed by ETH Zurich in the human centered “Meta-Tourism” experience and the threat that our very existence poses to biodiversity, in the human-less video installation “Triggered by Motion” by University of Zurich. Under the name of “Travel Across Boundaries”, the two works merged in one concept under Korean curation in occasion of the Swiss-Korean Innovation Week on May 2023. Space design played a fundamental role guiding the visitors through the main questions behind the exhibition; what might the implications for society be as the boundaries between physical and digital world blur? How could technologies soon become powerful instruments for researchers and policymakers to preserve biodiversity and fight climate change?
The original concept, also sponsored by Meta Korea, made the exhibition the most visited since the opening of gallery Mun in the most central exhibition complex in Seoul, the Dongdaemun Design Plaza. “Travel Across Boundaries” catalyzed the attention towards cutting-edge Swiss research and contributed to position Switzerland in Korea as an ideal partner at the convergence of digital technologies, human centered-experience and ecology. These scientific and cultural dimensions of the Swiss-Korean cooperation were also instrumental to advance the relations at political level. Indeed, in the same framework of the Swiss-Korean Innovation Week and in occasion of the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations, Federal Councillor Guy Parmelin, who also visited the exhibition, signed a joint statement for research cooperation with the Korean Minister of Science Jong-Ho Lee. Digital transformation was the main focus along with quantum S&T and biotech.
