"Put on a VR Headset and Enter a Virtual World"... "ACT Festival" Is a Wonderland of Curiosity

An AI robot that answers visitors and a performance spanning reality and virtuality, all in one place
Free at ACC Galleries 3 and 4; advance booking for XR experiences

Works are scattered like fragments among crooked exhibition structures. An AI robot with a broken body answers visitors’ questions. When visitors put on VR headsets, the play unfolding before their eyes transforms into a virtual space populated by 3D characters.

The entrance to the exhibition hall at the National Asian Culture Center (ACC) in Gwangju, where “ACT Festival 2026” is being held. This year’s theme, “I, Human: Responding to Techne-se (World),” is displayed. Photo by Kim Wanjung.

This is the scene at the ACT Festival 2026, held in Galleries 3 and 4 of the Cultural Creation Center at the National Asian Culture Center (ACC) in Gwangju. This year’s theme is “I, Human: Responding to the Techne Era.” “Techne Era” refers to a time when technology has become a major force shaping the world. The exhibition asks how people will live in this era.

The word that runs through the exhibition is “glitch.” It refers to errors and disruptions, such as a screen flickering or a machine behaving unexpectedly. The exhibition brings these disruptions into its spaces and artworks, inviting visitors accustomed to fast, seamless technology to examine its imperfections as well.

Lee Gimo, an ACC curator and researcher who organized the exhibition, said its aim is to look back at how far rapidly advancing technology has come and ask what we can do now.

Near the entrance, visitors encounter Nam June Paik’s “Robot K-456,” the first robot artwork Paik created with engineer Shuya Abe in 1964. In 1982, the robot became the subject of a performance in New York in which it was hit by a car.

Alongside the 1996 reconstruction of “Robot K-456,” visitors can watch footage of its past street performances and the car-crash performance. It is a moment in which the robot’s rebirth and death overlap.

A visitor looks at “Nerva Artificia” by Jinah Roh at the ACT Festival 2026 at the Asia Culture Center (ACC) in Gwangju. Photo by Kim Wanjung.

Beside it is a contemporary AI robot: Noh Jina’s “Nerva Artificia.” It recognizes visitors’ voices and responds using AI when they speak to it. Mechanical structures are visible throughout its body, with several wires extending out from it. Its gaze, expressions, and voice resemble a person’s, yet also feel strangely different.

Looking side by side at the robot that appeared more than 60 years ago and today’s AI robot reveals not only how far technology has advanced, but also the imperfections that remain.

The most striking experience at this year’s festival is “BLUR,” an immersive extended-reality (XR) performance. The story begins with a live performance by actors and continues in a virtual space when visitors put on headsets. Passing through a door opens up a new time and space, where flat-screen images and three-dimensional worlds unfold one after another.

In the virtual space, visitors appear as particles. As they follow 3D characters, they soon find themselves in the same space as the live actors. An actor offers a glass, and visitors take part in tilting it and pouring its contents into a glass bowl. They walk through the virtual space, then return to the live performance in the real world.

“BLUR,” co-directed by Craig Quintero and Phoebe Greenberg, was invited to the Immersive section of the Venice International Film Festival last year. Centered on the story of a mother who has lost her son, it explores cloning technology, death, and loss.

Scents and wind draw senses beyond sight and hearing into the performance. Through “BLUR,” visitors experience what feels like moving between the worlds of theater, film, and games.

Visitors wearing VR headsets experience Bali Pugullaeng’s “Trace: A Processor of Mourning, in Gwangju” at ACT Festival 2026 at the National Asian Culture Center (ACC) in Gwangju. Photo by Kim Wanjung.

Bali Pugullaeng’s “Trace: A Processor of Mourning, from Gwangju” is a VR experience in which two to four people participate together in one space.

Participants encounter images connected to their grief and touch virtual objects. They move together with other participants, gathering light, for example, to progress to the next scene. Even while wearing separate headsets, they share the experience with others.

The Gwangju version, created for this exhibition, incorporates scenes of Mudeungsan Mountain and memories of the May 18 Democratization Movement. The artist stayed in Gwangju, filmed Mudeungsan Mountain, and listened to the stories of the May 18 mothers. In one scene, photographs hung on a virtual tree and images representing the participants’ losses are released into the sky, placing personal grief and the city’s memories in the same space.

Alapop’s video “3-LA? Elegy II,” displayed in fragments throughout the exhibition, brings it to a close.

According to the on-site explanation, the AI character in the video could no longer operate after the software company that created it disappeared. The video preserves the character’s words and movements. Following the scene in which Nam June Paik’s robot is struck by a car, it also prompts visitors to consider how to remember an AI whose operation has been discontinued.

The ACT Festival exhibition is open free of charge through November 8. It is closed on Mondays. “BLUR” accommodates up to 10 people per session, which lasts 45 minutes, with the actual experience taking about 35 minutes. Advance reservations for “BLUR” and “Trace” can be made through a Naver Form linked on the ACC website. On-site participation is possible if spaces remain available.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.