The robots produced and mobilized in the Robotic Sound Workshop each have a name. The robot known as Ahae—a name drawn from Yi Sang’s poem Crow’s Eye View—was first built for the mechanical theater piece On the Bird’s Day (2024). These figures exist as intermediaries between sky and earth and, by extension, the divine and the human. They are translators and inventors of language, carrying the words of gods to humankind and the words of humankind to the gods. Their language is scent; their script, gesture.

The robot GF3 is modeled after the human upper body and bears a strong impression of the artist’s own persona. The use of metal components was minimized through the incorporation of 3D printing techniques, enabling an expansive range of motion that spans two meters while maintaining efficient management of the unit’s weight and power consumption. By layering human memory and nuanced gestures onto a hardware design optimized for mechanical efficiency, GF3 transcends technical achievement to emerge as a presence imbued with artistic vitality.

Handcrafted with a homemade methodology, these robots resist easy categorization. Yet, reinterpreted through mechanical means, this body of work probes the intersections of technology, humanity, labor, and salvation. It carries a reflective gaze and poses a series of questions directed at contemporary technological society. Their segmented movements simultaneously evoke the gestures of human dance and interrogate a distinctly machinic corporeality. Existing as marginalized and othered beings within a community, these robots perform a form of shadow play through movement, sound, and light. Ultimately, they function as mediators that expose the outermost edges of humanity—giving form to the gestures of those who drift along the margins of human society.