{"id":21245,"date":"2025-06-18T15:14:36","date_gmt":"2025-06-18T20:14:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hexagram.ca\/reportage-isea-2025\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T08:50:33","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T13:50:33","slug":"reportage-isea-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hexagram.ca\/en\/reportage-isea-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Report from ISEA\u00a02025"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\ub3d9\ub3d9 (\u61a7\u61a7, Dong-Dong) The Creators\u2019 Universe<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

By : Paloma Leyton<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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ISEA 2025 took place in Seoul, Korea, from May 23rd<\/sup> to 29th<\/sup>. <\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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ISEA, which stands for International Symposium of Electronic\/Emerging Art, is set to gather together artists, scholars, researchers, curators and other art workers around the subject of Arts and Technology. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amidst a densely packed academic program\u2014featuring over fifteen panels per day, three keynotes, and a rich array of workshops\u2014participants from Quebec stood out, including eight of Hexagram\u2019s co-investigators members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Creators\u2019 Universe<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Throughout the event, creation, research, and teaching seem to be interwoven, promising to spark vibrant discussions in venues that invite awe on the city of Seoul itself. This international gathering is designed as a platform for exchange and collective reflection on how art and technology can deepen our understanding of the world\u2014and how we choose to inhabit it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year\u2019s theme, \u201cThe Creator\u2019s Universe,\u201d as defined by ISEA, seeks to bridge East and West\u2014bringing together Socrates and the I Ching. Aspiring to \u201ctranscend the reality of conflict and division, envisioning a global wave of unity inspired by a newfound allure,\u201d the theme positions the act of creation as a force that elevates humanity, opening pathways to shared emotions and communication among people. It is, indeed, a noble premise\u2014one that ideally emerges from an ethical reflection on digital art and its conventions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Seoul Arts Center<\/sup><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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National University of Seoul (SNU)<\/sup><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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SNU<\/sup> Museum of Art<\/sup><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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In this context, the concept of Dong-Dong comes forward as a proposition for togetherness and \u201creflecting together on the values we pursue amid dazzling technological progress and persistent social crises\u201d. Dong-Dong \u201cis drawn from the phrase Dong-Dong-Wang-Rae, Bung-Jong-E-Sa<\/em> (\u61a7\u61a7\u5f80\u4f86 \u670b\u5f9e\u723e\u601d)\u201d, an ancient verse in the I Ching that means approximately \u201cIn the bright interplay of movement and return, companions are drawn to shared thought”. Following this premise, ISEA 2025 promises an edition focused on togetherness, stating that when the consciousness and the universe of creators\u2019 blossom, we can rise above material and social barriers. Electronic\/emerging art would be a means to this end.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Sang Yong Sim Sim\u2019s keynote at the SNU Museum of Art.<\/sup><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Participation of Co-Investigator Members<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The participation of Hexagram Network Co-Investigators Members included, among others, Louis-Philippe Rondeau, Yan Breuleux, and Laureline Chiapello, all three from NAD-UQAC, who were invited as guest speakers at the symposium, contributing to Elektra\u2019s Artist Talk and the panels Artist Talk 5 and Game Art, respectively.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ricardo Dal Farra [Co-Investigator Member, Concordia], Bart Simon [Co-Iinvestigator Member, Concordia], and Sofian Audry [Hexagram\u2019s Co-Director and Co-Investigator Member, UQAM] also took part in various panel discussions. This last intervention, presented by Alex Lee, featured work created during a 2024 Hexagram residency, focusing on the use of animation techniques, robotics and AI learning models to train the movement of two virtual characters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last but not least, Christopher Salter [Honorary Member] presented both an installation at the Hangaram Design Museum and contributed to two separate panels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Louis-Philippe Rondeau: On the social media abyss<\/strong><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Louis-Philippe Rondeau<\/a> presented an artist talk as part of the ELEKTRA gallery panel. There, he introduced his latest project, which seeks to reinterpret the harmful and pointless imagery flooding social media in order to extract a form of beauty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“L\u2019ab\u00eeme<\/a>” (meaning \u201cthe abyss\u201d) draws inspiration from the endless scroll one can fall into while navigating AI-generated content \u2014 or \u201cAI slop\u201d \u2014 that saturates the digital landscape, especially on platforms like TikTok. Though often perceived as harmless or humoristic, this content reshapes users\u2019 relationship to images and information, contributing to cognitive erosion (\u201cbrain rot\u201d) while reinforcing the very algorithms that spread it. It becomes all too easy to drown in a stream of automated content that quickly turns toxic or hateful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contemplating the installation \u201cL\u2019ab\u00eeme\u201d from a distance, social media images appear as an abstract flow. But as the viewer approaches, a distorted reflection of their own portrait emerges. This mise en abyme<\/em> reveals our own role in feeding the algorithms that may, depending on what we consume, alter our attention and perception.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Louis-Philippe Rondeau\u2019s artist talk at ISEA.<\/sup><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Yan Breuleux: On raw material<\/strong><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Yann Breuleux presented a talk about a recent series of works. \u201cMati\u00e8re Premi\u00e8re<\/a>\u201d began during the pandemic with a technical test: the digitization of his own face. By multiplying and augmenting it, the face was transformed into a virtual environment, which was then turned into images through in-game photography<\/em>, drawing inspiration from the world of minerals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By systematizing this transposition of environment into narrative space, the aesthetic experience was later presented in fulldome format. The result is a series of long-form animations (approximately 10 hours), interpolating various viewpoints within the virtual space. The project explores the remediation of a single content base across multiple formats, starting from the creation of a digital environment where scale and slowness play a fundamental role in the aesthetic experience of each iteration.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Yan Breuleux\u2019s conference at ISEA.<\/sup><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Yan Breuleux\u2019s conference at ISEA.<\/sup><\/sup><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Yan Breuleux\u2019s conference at ISEA.<\/sup><\/sup><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Yan Breuleux\u2019s conference at ISEA.<\/sup><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Laureline Chiapello<\/a> and Florian Glesser (AAA game programming specialist) come together around art games and video game-based research-creation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their joint conference explored how research-creation contributes to video game development, emphasizing that action is not always fully driven by goals. It is rather through action that one discovers new tools and new ways of doing \u2014 a dynamic central to research-creation and gameplay. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Their game \u201cThings Happen\u201d, developed during a 72-hour game jam, involves stacking cubes that appear every ten seconds on a platform. This simple mechanic gradually becomes harder, as cubes keep falling down and the platform shrinks. A reflection on failure, the game that cannot be won \u2014 a metaphor for life, where it\u2019s impossible to manage everything that comes at us \u2013 or falls upon us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Chiapello and Glesser, in game creation, tools do not necessarily define what we can do with them: they can be repurposed or seen as creative partners. This approach highlights the agency of tools themselves, encouraging us to rethink their role in processes where being surprised and following the unexpected matter more than perfectly executing the initial idea. It also opens space for critical reflection on tools and their biases, and for revaluing less visible dimensions \u2014 such as the feminine. Technological tools themselves can lead to divisions \u2014 including gendered ones \u2014 of which we may be more or less aware, as we use them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Laureline Chiapello and Florian Glesser during their conference at ISEA.<\/sup><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Other topics emerging from the symposium<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Throughout the extensive lineup of talks, workshops, and events of the symposium, a few key themes emerged as particularly thought-provoking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First and foremost was the question of AI \u2014its role in extending the history of art into the future, along with some of the ethical considerations surrounding its use. In any case, as Kate Ladenheim (UCLA) ironically articulated between two segments of her talk, \u201cIf you\u2019re not using AI, what are you doing?\u201d. In both talks and exhibitions, AI was prominently featured as a main tool in the creation of artworks\u2014highlighting not only the richness and range of possibilities the medium offers, but also, at times, overemphasizing technical processes. This raises an important, somewhat confusing, question: Is technology a means\u2014like oil paint was for Rembrandt\u2014to achieve a form of Dong-Dong-inspired togetherness? Or is the end goal, a pursuit of technical possibilities for their own sake?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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