BERLIN.- With artificial intelligence, videos, game simulations, sculptures, and references from South Korean webcomics, Ayoung Kim creates a fictional universe at Hamburger Bahnhof governed by its own laws of time and space. The audience is immersed in Kim’s virtual world of "Delivery Dancer," which she transports into the mirrored museum space. Visitors are both spectators and participants, influencing the narrative from their own perspective. The artist’s first solo exhibition in a German museum explores concepts of time and reality, as well as issues of belonging and queerness. "Ayoung Kim.

Many Worlds Over" at Hamburger Bahnhof offers a glimpse into the multidisciplinary artist’s work, featuring pieces from recent years alongside new creations.

Ayoung Kim (born 1979) explores the symbiosis between data, humans, and the planet in her art. Kim’s protagonists include humans, mythological beings, and virtual entities that encounter one another across different times and spaces. "Ayoung Kim. Many Worlds Over" at Hamburger Bahnhof – National Gallery of Contemporary Art delves into the world of the Delivery Dancer. The series, which began in 2022, comprises video installations, game simulations, wallpaper images, and sculptures. At the heart of the story is the fictional Delivery Dancer App, controlled by an artificial intelligence called "Dancemaster." The program serves as an efficient interface for its workers, who race through a futuristic Seoul on motorcycles along algorithmically calculated routes. A smartphone in the exhibition space ("Stipulation", 2022) displays the app’s instructions to visitors.

The single-channel video installation "Delivery Dancer’s Sphere" (2022) marks the beginning of the series and serves as an entry point to the Delivery Dancer world at Hamburger Bahnhof. Visitors follow Kim’s protagonist Ernst Mo—alongside her doppelgänger in a parallel world—through the labyrinth of Dancemaster’s delivery routes in a futuristic city Kim generated using real film footage and 3D animations. In the exhibition’s second video work, the three-channel installation "Delivery Dancer’s Arc: 0º Receiver" (2024), visitors dive into the relationship between Ernst Mo and her doppelgänger, En Storm. They learn that the Delivery Dancer platform is a time machine controlling the timelines of different worlds. The game simulation "Delivery Dancer Simulation" (2022) ultimately invites visitors into the virtual universe, where they can navigate the complex routes in Kim's world themselves.

Kim's Delivery Dancer universe is made up of an infinite number of possible worlds, where time flows cyclically rather than linearly. The mirrored exhibition space enhances the feeling of overlapping worlds, where the viewers are constantly confronted with themselves. The round mirrors, spherical objects, and mobiles from the "Orbit Dance Series" (2022) symbolize clocks and reference the circular topology of planets. The sculpture "Ghost Dancers B" (2022) brings the digital protagonists Ernst Mo and En Storm to life as life-sized sculptures in the exhibition space. In the next room, visitors encounter "Ghost Dancers A" (2022): two motorcycle helmets hang opposite each other from the ceiling. The visors display videos of the endlessly regenerating delivery routes, while wires and cables emerge from the helmets like tentacles.

The large-format wallpaper images "Evening Peak Time Is Back" (2022) run throughout the entire exhibition space. The wallpaper depicts different scenarios in which Ernst Mo and En Storm encounter one another. Kim created the wallpapers in collaboration with the webtoon artist known as 1172. Webtoons are Korean comics published online, appearing in much shorter intervals than printed manga.

Kim’s series refers to gig economy platforms, which have seen rapid growth in the real Seoul since the COVID-19 pandemic. Workers employed by gig companies are typically freelancers in precarious employ- ment conditions. These exploitative models are also found in delivery apps, which exist in Berlin and many other cities around the world.

Through her engagement with modern capitalist logic and a non-linear understanding of time, Kim draws parallels to the literary science fiction works of author Octavia Butler.

A publication in the Hamburger Bahnhof catalogue series, edited by Silvana Editoriale Milano, accompanies the exhibition.

The exhibition is curated by Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath, directors of Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart and Charlotte Knaup, curator at Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart.