Shininho Project

In Shininho, South Korean artist Yaloo sends an 86-year-old K-Pop icon on a piratical journey across the Pacific. Inspired by the legendary pirate Zheng Yi Sao, Shin In-ho leads her ship along old trade routes between Korea and the USA – a stage where historical flows of goods and people merge with today’s data streams. Piracy here no longer appears as a hunt for gold, but for memories that are stolen for a data center. In this way, the supposedly immaterial becomes the most coveted treasure of our time. The flickering hologram body of Shin In-ho oscillates between advertising screen and ghostly apparition, her figure based on scans of Yaloo’s grandmother, who were animated using MetaHuman technology. In this way, the installation intertwines personal memory with digital archive and refers to the fragile balance between tradition and transformation. In Yaloo’s collages, Asian and American consumer worlds collide, and the question remains how we negotiate our heritage in a culture shaped by transmission: as a data record, as a story, as a projection.