Kyueun Kim

My research sits at the intersection of theatre and performance studies, media studies, science and technology studies, critical posthumanism, and Inter-Asian cultural studies.

In my dissertation project Technology and Spirituality in Contemporary East Asian Theatre and Performance: Techno-Subjectivity, Virtual Reality, and Superintelligence (expected Spring 2024), I theorize East Asian techno-subjectivity that moves beyond the racial stereotypes of techno-Orientalism, which has been observable in Asian urban centers, including Tokyo, Singapore, and Seoul, since the 1990s. I examine how contemporary artists have repurposed information and communication technologies beyond their current applications to show the porous boundaries and entangled interconnectedness between humans and nonhumans (including ghosts, ancestors, machines, and intelligent systems). By examining contemporary theatre, dance, and participatory virtual reality (VR) performances from Asian urban centers, I demonstrate the importance of spiritual traditions and animist ontology in transforming East Asian techno-subjectivity and imagining the Asian community in the digital era. With interdisciplinary and transnational approaches informed by Inter-Asia cultural studies and “Asia as Method,” my dissertation challenges normative assumptions about the universality of techno-cultures and contributes to the epistemological expansion of posthuman theory in non-western contexts.

In addition to performance analysis and field research, I use interview as a research method and practice to foster and document collaborations and conversations with the artists and cultural producers. In my research project supported by the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, Virtual Reality (VR) for Theatre Research and Archiving, I use VR in two ways. In addition to exploring how artists use VR in their performances, I deploy VR as a method to explore, expand, and examine theoretical questions relating to VR. I use the Oculus Quest 2 VR headset and conduct a series of interviews with VR artists via “social VR” platforms. Through the interviews, I explore what kinds of different experiences are generated in virtual environments and what the implications of this are for my research. For example, is VR a “transparent medium” that disappears as an interface, leaving participants to perceive and sense the virtual as real, as notable media theorists argue (Bolter and Grusin 2000)? How might VR theatre and performance make us experience discrepancy and discord between what we see and what we perceive or feel, rather than provide seamless immersion, as seen in the utopic visions pioneers of immersive entertainment have proposed? How might VR performance help us rework dualistic paradigms of here/there, self/others, and physical/virtual bodies?

The VR interview materials will be archived and included as a digital appendix to my dissertation. The project is also supported by the  Inaugural Theatre and Technology Fellowship at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Art and Science Connect Research Fellowship and New Media Lab at The Graduate Center, City University of New York.