GWANGJU — The Asia Culture Center is drawing attention with a multidisciplinary arts festival that revisits the relationship between technology and humanity.
The ACC said it will hold ACT Festival 2026 from the 23rd through Nov. 8 at Halls 3 and 4 of the Culture Creation Center and the Big Door Theater of the Asia Culture Center Theater. Now in its 11th edition, the ACT Festival is the ACC's flagship multidisciplinary arts event. This year's theme is "I, Human: Responding to the Technecene."
Twenty-nine teams from 10 countries are taking part, exploring the place of humanity and art in an era shaped by technology. "Technecene" combines "techne," the Greek word for technology or craft, with the suffix denoting an epoch. It refers to an age in which technology has become the most powerful force driving the world.
The festival focuses on the "glitch" — the malfunctions and misalignments of technology. Dividing these into "cognitive glitches" and "physical glitches," the program examines the moments when people trust technology, doubt it and then sense it anew.
The most anticipated work is "Avatar," a video piece by German artist Anne Imhof, which is being shown in Korea for the first time at this festival. Imhof won the Golden Lion as the artist representing the German Pavilion at the 2017 Venice Biennale. In "Avatar," the background dissolves into abstract light and color while a single human body remains in sharp focus for 32 minutes.
Wu Tien-chang's "Farewell, Spring and Autumn Pavilions" is another highlight. The work appears at first glance to be AI-generated video, but it in fact draws on old theatrical magic and handmade mechanical devices.
Roh Jin-ah's new work, "Nerva Artificia," puts a talking machine front and center. Equipped with AI, the piece converses as naturally as a close friend, while also carrying the potential for plausible fiction and "hallucination."
Placed opposite it is Nam June Paik's "Robot K-456," a 1996 version built to the same design as the original first unveiled in 1964. The scene of a machine from the past that moved with a stagger facing a machine of today that speaks smoothly in the same space
Kim Sang-wook, president of the Asia Culture Center, said the festival offers a chance to encounter works being shown in Korea for the first time up close. "Now that technology has become the environment of our lives, I hope this will be a time to rethink the relationship between humans and technology in the face of those misalignments," he said.
