Hyundai Motor Company Launches Art Collaboration Linking New York and Ulsan, Turning AI and Industrial Data into Art

[Financial News] Hyundai Motor Company's art partnership is expanding into a joint exhibition linking New York and Ulsan. The immersive exhibition uses a New York elevator, where AI reconstructs video, along with industrial data from Ulsan to connect the technological and cultural contexts of the two cities. Starting with this exhibition, the two museums will continue collaborating through 2028 on the convergence of art and technology.
Hyundai Motor Company said on the 22nd that it will present "Hyundai Translocal Series: Ho Tzu Nyen" successively at New Museum in New York, United States, and Ulsan Art Museum. The New York exhibition will run from the 24th (local time) through January 24 next year, while the Ulsan exhibition will run from the 22nd of next month through February 21 next year.
The Hyundai Translocal Series is a project through which art institutions in Korea and abroad explore themes that transcend regional boundaries through joint research and exhibitions. Hyundai Motor Company supports the entire exchange process, from commissioning new works to exhibitions, related programs and publications.
This is the second exhibition in the series, which began last September, as well as the first joint project between New Museum and Ulsan Art Museum, which have collaborated since 2025. Rather than touring the same works, the two museums will present new works that reflect the architecture and cultural backgrounds of each museum and city.
Participating artist Ho Tzu Nyen was born in Singapore in 1976. Through film, video, sound and multimedia installations, he has explored modernity and cultural identity in Asia. His work examines how history is narrated and passed down by interweaving myths with historical facts.
At New Museum, Ho Tzu Nyen will unveil a new work, "P for Power: Up Down," which uses the screens in the glass elevators of the new building. When visitors press an elevator button, a life-size child protagonist appears on the screen and delivers questions, riddles and meditative phrases about the various ways power operates today.
An AI-based algorithm reconfigures the video each time a button is pressed, adjusting it to the duration of the elevator ride. Through the constantly changing images, the work conveys the artist's view of history not as a set of completed facts, but as a process rewritten through the collision and intersection of multiple forces.
At XR Lab, the media art gallery at Ulsan Art Museum, another new work, "P for Power: Double Life of P," will be presented. It is a multichannel immersive installation that uses 24 projectors and a spatial sound system.
Industrial, technological, material and sound data collected in Ulsan will be used as part of the work's database. Through the exhibition connecting the two cities, the artist highlights power not as something limited to the realms of politics and technology, but as a force that creates new possibilities amid continuity and change.
The exhibition was jointly curated by Massimiliano Gioni, director of New Museum; Gary Carrion-Murayari, chief curator; and Taeyi Kim, curatorial fellow; along with Lim Chang-seop, director of Ulsan Art Museum, and Kwon Kyung-ah, curator.
Massimiliano Gioni, director of New Museum, and Lim Chang-seop, director of Ulsan Art Museum, said, "It is deeply meaningful for the two institutions to begin collaborating through Ho Tzu Nyen's new commissioned works, which explore the meaning of power within the contexts of the two museums and cities."
A Hyundai Motor Company representative said, "We hope this exhibition connecting the two cities will open up possibilities for diverse conversations about the translocal relationship between New York and Ulsan and contemporary narratives."
Starting with this exhibition, the two museums plan to hold three jointly curated exhibitions in total, one each year through 2028. Based on the environmental and cultural contexts of New York and Ulsan, they will explore the relationships among art and technology, cities and people, and locality and globality.
[email protected] Kim Dong-ho Reporter