국립현대미술관

Meet the Artist

TZUSOO is an artist who has created her own unique mythology while working in the realms of digital graphics, sculpture, video, and installation. Her work always originates in real-world bodies and perceptions, yet what appears on the screen is layered with a gaming imagination and mythical narrative. TZUSOO is the featured presence in the MMCA×LG OLED Series 2025, which debuts this year. She is presenting a large-scale installation exhibition entitled Agarmon Encyclopedia: Leaked Edition, which focuses on the essential themes of life, desire, and endless cycling. It consists of Agarmon 5 (2025), a living sculpture made up of moss and the seaweed component agar; the installation work Agarmon Incubator 5; and the ultra-large-scale two-channel video installations The Eight Spirits of Flesh—TAE (2025) and The Eight Spirits of Flesh—GAN (2025), which feature digital spirits. Rather than simply a setting for viewers to “observe” artwork, TZUSOO has configured the Seoul Box into an experiential setting where they enter as if summoned through a portal. The instant the viewer steps over the carpet and ventures inside, they are seemingly transported into a spirit world. We joined TZUSOO to delve into her artistic world and learn about the concepts and intentions in her latest video and installation work.

The title The Eight Spirits of Flesh refers to the eight spirits that govern the Agarmon universe. Their names are taken from the bagua (Eight Trigrams) in the Eastern tradition: GUN, GON, GAM, LI, JIN, SON, GAN, and TAE. Each of them is a guardian of the eight directions to the north, south, east, and west. For this MMCA exhibition, two of those spirits appear in “unlocked” form.

Structurally, I found the Seoul Box to be a difficult venue to concentrate in. Whenever I visited in the past, I came away with the sense that it would be a very difficult place to hold an exhibition. So in doing the actual exhibition design, I wanted to give the sense that the viewer was being summoned into a portal the moment they set foot over the carpet. It’s an idea that originates in the gaming imagination. The screens are actually positioned on the south and northeast sides of the Seoul Box, and I worked with a concept where the spirits in all directions were awakened through the portals. The ones awakened this time are “GAN” and “TAE,” and each of the eight spirits has its own sexual characteristics.

Yes. Ultimately, this work is quite erotic and sexual. The reasons for that have to do with themes that I have consistently addressed, including motherhood, pregnancy, and childhood. I didn’t want to just deal with those themes in a way where I was treating them as “sacred.” Historically, motherhood has often been excessively sanctified in iconography, such as images of the Virgin Mary. I wanted to place more emphasis on the sexual and carnal aspect, while also presenting the intersection between sacredness and life force. I have observed how women have always been separated along binary lines in artistic and cultural expression. As Freud identified with the “Madonna–whore complex,” women have been divided into the venerated mother image or consumed simply as sexual objects. You find a similar approach repeating itself in the digital world and the fields of gaming and graphics. In my eyes, those things are all connected, and it’s ultimately about our lives and my own story. So rather than separating the theme of “maternity” or “the mother” from sexual issues, I wanted to approach them together. I’ve done a lot of drawings in the past, and this work represents a continuation of that current. There is a narrative in the work about the birth of the Agarmon, but it also reflects my own personal wish to bear a child.

The video starts by showing the eight islands, and in this exhibition, there are scenes showing the 'unlock' of “GAN” and “TAE” on two of the islands. There are also scenes showing them when they first discover each other and become curious. The spirits each have different personalities and values. For instance, GAN is a character in whose body normality clashes with queerness and femininity. I originally designed it as a character with three heads, but when it emerged into society, only the normative head was kept while the others were cut off. They did not die; they are still alive and even left mouthlike organs on its neck. TAE is a character with a developed chest and nipples—a spirit bearing connections with scars and disease. When we are talking about sex, it isn’t just the positive aspects. Things like sexually transmitted diseases and wounds are also a big part of it, but that doesn’t really get expressed. TAE is a figure with grainy bumps and scars, and it simply lets them show. It is a timid character because of its frailty and history of being wounded, but it is also very curious. GAN and TAE meet in an unconscious world connected by a pit. They change sizes at will and exhibit sensual movements that relate to sexual acts. I saw it as a challenge to present these kinds of risky images at MMCA.

As an artist, I’m fundamentally based in painting. For that reason, I do quite a lot of drawing by hand in the beginning. I then use that as a basis for modeling, which I build entirely from scratch in the 3D graphic program Blender. I add the bones and design everything from the movements of the muscles and skin to the character’s transparency and details like hair. Since beings like GAN and TAE are not actual animals, I also had to conceive all their movements by drawing them. I would hand-draw motions like jumping and flying and share those with the team to produce them. For things like water and the reaction of light, I went through hundreds of simulations to adjust them. What you see on the screen now is the result of all those hours.

The Agarmon series began when I started suffering from severe pain in my shoulders, back, and pelvis, after years of excessive computer work. It was at that point that I tried to transfer the aesthetics I had been building in the digital realm into physical sculpture. As always, I start with drawings. Independent Garden, a moss specialist, then shapes the form in clay, takes a plaster mold, and casts it in agar-agar, following a traditional sculptural process. We also plant the moss and tend to it so that it can grow. Materials like silicone or acrylic proved harmful to the moss, which is why I turned to agar-agar, a seaweed-based substance. Over time, the sculptures age and decay—but the moss continues to thrive even on the collapsed bodies of the Agarmons.
Yet, in translating a drawing into three dimensions, too much interpretation was required. For the fifth Agarmon, which appears in this exhibition, I chose a different approach: creating the drawing first as a 3D graphic, which Independent Garden could then directly transform into sculpture. By complementing digital and analog methods, we brought the Agarmon to life—with its frail skin, the hairs that grow upon it, and its moss body, whose winsome yet grotesque qualities reflect both material research and the collaborative process.

The spirits in my world belong to the digital realm and are summoned into the human world via a portal. In that sense, the incubator is a device that physically shows where that summoning occurs. Its design is above all guided by a practical purpose: since moss cannot survive without water and light, it incorporates a pipeline that releases one droplet of water every two seconds, along with another pipeline dedicated to plant lighting. The pipeline that I wanted was not something that could be made industrially, so my father bought a machine that bends piping and personally created it. The heart piercings were produced through a process involving dozens of samples. This was a device where practical needs and the aesthetic effect within the gallery came together. It has an appealing quality even for viewers who aren’t really aware of the concepts or themes in my work, and I wanted them to be able to enjoy it purely at an aesthetic level.

There was a lot of arguing and a lot of laughing when we worked together. When the music completely saturates the space, it clashes with the image and installation, so I wanted to include some breathing space—something where it’s empty when the island is being presented, builds up as it approaches the climax, and then diminishes again at the end. We finished the composition and production in Berlin, and once in Seoul, Maarten spent every night in the museum, listening to the sounds directly while mixing. The setup involved four speakers, each carrying a different sound. I thought it was important not to impose too much of a “cinematic music” sense, leaving some room for the viewers to interpret it their own ways.

The spirits will continue waking, through the portals of art museums around the world. As those spirits appear, they will respect the things I physically experience at that time, much like GAN and TAE. Those could be experiences like pregnancy and childbirth. Since I was holding an exhibition in the public setting of an art museum, I had to make some adjustments to the tenor of it. I’m hoping to do more radical work in underground venues going forward. I’m also planning to expand the sound and performance to show my worldview in multiple contexts.