KIN Online is a machinima video that delivers the stories of three virtual refugee avatars—Hyeji, Minji and Jihae—in an omnibus style in VRChat, a metaverse platform. The artists enter the online platform and play the characters, but maladjusted to their in-game bodies, hoping to form an alliance with the oppressed in the virtual world. Hyeji spends a long time building her avatar only to have it stolen by another player after mistakenly changing the game setting. Minji plans to fulfill her dream in the virtual world that she could not continue in the real world, however, fails to adapt to the fast-changing technology and becomes an invisible person in the game. In rage after finding out her avatar is a victim of sexual harassment and exploitation in the online world, Jihae becomes a cyborg troller through body augmentation. The alienated and hurt in the blind zone of technology take care of each other in the online refuge, KIN Shelter, and create “Virtual Tutorials for Artists” where they contemplate ethics and rules in the online world.
Gayoung AN（안가영） is interested in multimedia work with a focus on the coexistence of humans and nonhumans in virtual worlds, such as online and offline cultures and games. An creates alternative narratives using character hacking and SF simulation, and she reconnects virtual bodies that have been made obsolete to current discourses on techno-culture and gender issues. Some of An’s solo exhibitions are Cosmic Sense: XR Simulation for Humankind of the Future (2022, Coreana Museum of Art, Seoul), Iridium Age: Making New Kin (2021, Seongbuk Children’s Museum, Seoul), and KIN Online (2019, Art Lounge of Artist Residency TEMI, Daejeon). She participated in several exhibitions, including So-Called Normal Family (2023, Suwon Museum of Art, Suwon), The Most Brilliant Moments for You (2022, Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art, Ansan), Playing Society (2022, Onsu Gonggan, Seoul), and Set Up Your Profiles (2021, Coreana Museum of Art, Seoul).
