The eighth seminar of DOOSAN Curator Workshop explored techno-culture research with Professor Kwang-Suk Lee of the Digital & Culture Policy department at the Graduate School of IT Policy, Seoul National University of Science and Technology. The multi-disciplinary Techno-culture research encompasses diverse fields of study and topics including technology media research which delves into the relationship between media and the human, technology system and post-human ideas, cultural research which focuses on the image and representation exposed by media and its affect, and political economics which deals with platforms, power relations, governmentality, and the public land. Techno-culture research examines the ways in which cultural theories can be applied more broadly in contemporary context and performs contemporary mapping work through theoretical proposals. The aim of the research is to cultivate individual’s own independent technical intervention and literacy, covering from low to high technologies.

Based on the major books and research by Professor Lee, the seminar discussed issues such as platforms in the capitalist economic industry, the common-based cooperatives as an alternative economy, and the human mission confronted with “Anthropocene” – a term which emphasizes humanity’s impact on nature. The seminar also examined important issues in contemporary society, such as discourses on the post-human, which embraces the relationship with human and inorganic substance or humanoid, and issues on SNS which played an important role in the Jasmine Revolution in Egypt and the problem of archiving its trends.

The seminar also covered issues in the Internet society in general, reading changes in social relations with the development of the Internet, classified as contact (reality), connection (PC communication), bonding (high-speed internet), acceleration (Wi-Fi internet), and on-off (smart phones). The discussion attempted to identify what the newly demanded social solidarity would be. Lee also presented perspectives on the ruling order of algorithm which has taken a key role of building the Big Data Society. While the state and enterprise predicted customer needs based on structured data in the past, a more precise analysis and prediction is now possible by analyzing structured and unstructured data, named ‘exhaused data’, according to algorithms. As a result, more sophisticated algorithms and metadata have become more important for the state and enterprise. Many discussions took place on the issues of technology developed so far, their future predictions and their consequential side effects. The seminar covered an extensive array of contemporary issues and offered many ideas that can expand the comprehensive aspects of the exhibition.