Lucid Dream is a projection mapping work installed in a 25-metre-long tunnel. This piece will create a dynamic entrance to the 8th Gwangju Design Biennale’s main entrance by enveloping visitors’ bodies in an immersive audio-visual environment. 

To design a future that moves beyond anthropocentric viewpoints, we must acknowledge that humankind is only one of the species that has to coexist with other beings, including a myriad of living organisms and new digital entities. The reconstruction and extent of kinship needs to be informed by the fact that all earthlings are kin in the deepest sense. In this multiverse of perception, there can never be just a single authoritative conception of the world. Current studies such as object-oriented ontology (OOO) underline that we need to reconfigure the existing human-centric, dualist ontology and make sense of artificial intelligence, IoT algorithms and bioengineering. Only then will we be able to weave them into a new, inclusive and coherent historical narrative.

A 'lucid dream' is by definition a dream during which the dreamer is aware that he or she is dreaming. It can refer to the state of being either half-awake or half-asleep or experiencing a brief wakefulness—a micro-awakening. It is regarded as conscious access to the unconscious mind and as a potential method to discover and enhance creativity. This notion can be connected to both Zhuangzi’s (莊子) ancient parable “The Butterfly Dream” and a VR experience. 

    I named my work Lucid Dream to question whether we are fully awake at this very moment. To develop an all-encompassing and inclusive future, what we urgently need to learn might be the mode of the lucid dreamer, who navigates between diverse dimensions so that we can transcend the limits of outmoded, dualistic thought and expand our creativity.  “Lucid Dream” combines a video I have produced and a machine learning video. A machine learning creation is not just the result of computation but is a sophisticated system with intentions we can barely fathom. We never know whether the algorithms may end up knowing us better than we know ourselves. Can the existing humanity’s ideas, concepts and values can survive this new transformation? My wish is that through experiencing the phantasmal “Lucid Dream”, visitors will have time to ponder our current and future life as lucid dreamers.