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The changing scene in art entails the change in the standards of professionalism. For recent years, we have witnessed new digital terms flooding, such as artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), mixed reality (MR), extended reality (XR), a digital twin (a digital representation of a physical object), and metaverse. There is no big difference in the recent art scene. Artists are utilizing new digital technologies to attempt a new form of art, changing the way to participate in an art exhibition. This change requires a new, unprecedented type of professionalism of many fields.

ACC Professionals: Cultivating new professionals in art fields

The ACC runs various educational programs to cultivate practitioners with professionalism adaptable to the changing art scene. The ACC has been training about 2,800 professionals of diverse arts and culture fields, such as scenographers, convergence culture planners, and sound designers, for 8 years, starting from the exhibition technician training program in 2016. In 2022, the ACC reorganized training programs for art professionals and future professionals under the name of “ACC Professionals” and standardized the curriculum and other details in 2023.

ACC Professionals comprises three courses. Job Exploration is to improve particular professionalism needed for each job, such as exhibition technician, convergence culture planner, and archivist (a professional who preserves, manages, and organizes archive). Content Discovery and Content Execution aim to cultivate future-oriented professionals by engaging in content creating and improving skills by oneself. While the two courses target future professionals, Competency Building for Art Professionals is a training program for current professionals to further advance their creative capacity.

A great advantage of taking ACC Professionals is that it provides training by jobs, capacity, courses, and topics so that participants can approach what they need from various angles. Especially, Content Discovery comprises three stages (parts 1, 2, and 3). Only those who finish all three can apply for Content Execution, making it less easier to take. It’s important to note that actively discovering potential content for arts and executing the discovery in the actual scene of arts rather than just learning through theories will become a huge asset when participants start working as a professional. Bridging “learning” and “doing” based on theory and practice is the core of ACC Professionals.

About ACC Professionals Content Execution 1st Training Program

Content Execution 1st Training Program is for ACC Young Creators, participants who finished 2022 Content Discovery (parts 1, 2, and 3) with excellencies. Content Discovery Part 1 provides a theoretical basis on art and culture; Part 2 delivers training in equipment and software programs; and in Part 3, participants engage in creative activity and presents “virtual content.”

Five young artists who finished the Content Discovery courses over the course of a year are now taking Content Execution. They made a team and working on planning a “virtual exhibition” autonomously while the ACC provides infrastructure they need such as a mentoring program and spaces they can gather.

Their final work will be presented at a virtual space (ACC Creation Space 2) on a metaverse platform, Spatial (spatial.io). The candidates for the theme of the exhibition are “Culture of a Future City” and “Humane Future City” among others. The five young artists are preparing for a demonstration in November. It is about the exhibition planning, which will also be introduced at the ACT Festival.

ACC Creation Space 2 on Spatial (work in progress)

I visited and looked around a virtual space where the artists are preparing for an exhibition.
I was able to control my character to walk around and enjoy the exhibition like a video game.

For future professionals of a new age:
Meeting between past and present ACC professionals

This June, Content Execution opened a special lecture where past and present ACC Professionals participants could meet and have a conversation, which showed participants could further develop their skill by taking ACC’s training programs. Artist Yeom In-wha2), the lecturer of that day, finished 2019 ACC Professionals’ “Computational Thinking (CT) Programmer” and “Convergence Content Planner” courses and is currently participating in the 2023 ACC Residency program.

The lecturer distinguished AR, VR, MR, XR,and digital twin, the terms generally used interchangeably in many cases, and demonstrated how to execute the exhibition on metaverse platform Spatial with examples.

It was also interesting to learn the difference between virtual and physical exhibition and the advantages of the former. One of the advantages of virtual exhibition is higher accessibility for the visually and audibly impaired and easier adaptability to make it barrier-free. Another is that it’s better to evaluate and document the visitors’ experiences at the exhibition. For example, the exhibition manager can numerically measure what artwork visitors click and how long they spend their time on an artwork.

The environment of digital technology is evolving, and so is the art form: we can now enjoy virtual artworks at an exhibition in a virtual space. During the lecture, the participants contemplated on the content that can effectively utilize and present the features of a virtual exhibition, rather than just displaying the works at a virtual space, and different ways to maximize the advantages of a virtual exhibition.

Learning the difference between the role of art planner for virtual exhibition and physical exhibition was helpful for the future planners who are preparing for a virtual exhibition. The lecture offered a space where lecturer Yeom shared her past projects and life experiences and future professionals could talk about their concerns and worries.

Content Discovery and Content Execution are the programs that bridge learning and the field by allowing the participants to have experiences in creating and presenting convergence content. One more important advantage of these programs is that it is building a positive network of past and present participants that past participants become a professional to mentor the present participants.

What is crucial is that more young artists have an opportunity to plan and experiment on new form of art content, discover possibilities from their experiments, and to make it a milestone for their growth. I hope a new type of future professionals will emerge more in the world of art that constantly evolves with the rapid development in digital technology.

Interview with a Content Execution participant

ACC Young Creator - Yoo Hyun-jin

• Please, introduce yourself. Can you tell us what made you sign up for this program?

  Hello. My name is Yoo Hyun-jin. I have a bachelor’s degree in classical music composition and studied electronic music composition at graduate school. I often visit art exhibitions because I like watching art pieces and taking time to think. When I find an interesting piece, I always wonder how the artist created that piece, which naturally led to hoping for working with artists from other fields. I thought knowing other fields would help me to communicate and work well with other artists. I signed up for this training program, thinking that learning about convergence content and media facade would aid in my work.

• In what way did 2022 Content Discovery training program help you and your work?

  2022 Content Discovery consists of parts 1, 2, and 3. It was very helpful because I was able to both learn and work. First, the program provided lectures on media facade in art exhibition overall, activities to use equipment for media art, and further lectures and activities on the understanding of media facade through mapping. These lectures helped me to finally understand how media facade is produced and created. I was also able to experience the overall procedure in exhibition planning through work experience by working at an exhibition opening event and writing an exhibition proposal by myself. I also got feedback about my proposal which helped me better understand the overall procedure.

• What do you want to create ultimately through 2023 Content Execution? Also, tell us more about the exhibition you are planning.

  I’m currently working on planning an exhibition for 2023 Content Execution. The exhibition will be held at ACC Creation Space 2 on Spatial, a metaverse platform. I keep in mind the meaning of spaces on a metaverse platform, the case study we did on virtual exhibition, and the implication of metaverse in our current society, as I’m working on. In addition, I hope the theme of our exhibition can reach out to the visitors through diverse artistic expressions and points of view by different artworks of different artists. I want this exhibition to be the one that the visitors can experience diversity within the same theme that unites different perspectives of each artist (such as the technique, idea, or method they use) and develop their own way of thinking through this experience.

ACC Young Creator - Lee Chae-rin

• Please, introduce yourself. Can you tell us what made you sign up for this program?

  Hello. My name is Lee Chae-rin. I graduated with a degree in visual arts and worked as a designer at a fashion brand after graduation. Before working in the fashion industry, I worked as a floor manager for television shows and, for a short period of time, directed music videos for independent music artists. I did many other things as well, trying to figure out what I truly want. Among them, art was what comforted me the most to the deepest part of my heart. However, I got scared when making a decision for pursuing art. I signed up for this program with a rather bold mind to see if this was right for the last time.

• In what way did 2022 Content Discovery training program help you and your work?

  What I learned and felt throughout a year at the ACC accumulated into a valuable experience as a whole. I found my trust in art through every moment in program where I met content planners, artists, and researchers, visited exhibitions, and contemplated on the space of art. I was able to meet great people working in this field. Training programs in the ACC encourage participants to network with each other within the art scene and facilitate the achievement of what they want. This gives me the stability that there is someone who provides opportunities and help to me and motivates me.

• What do you want to create ultimately through 2023 Content Execution? Also, tell us more about the exhibition you are planning.

  It has been four months since Content Execution course started, so we are almost at the final stage of planning. What I'm trying to figure out now is the boundary between what is exhibition and what is not. What can be called as an exhibition when the form is changing is the most difficult and puzzling agenda to figure out. We are planning a virtual exhibition at a virtual ACC Creation Space 2, and it’s about “non-human,” the latest hot topic in art. We are planning to adopt VR walkthroughs to our virtual space so that the visitors not only see the artworks but also feel as if being in a real environment.