On 23 October 2026, the Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA) announced Irini Papadimitriou as artistic director of the 14th Seoul Mediacity Biennale. The opening is scheduled for August 2027. Under the theme “Machines of Repair”, the exhibition will examine whom technological progress serves and how it can be aligned with the common good.
According to the announcement, the focus is on the relationship between technology and power: surveillance, resource extraction and military applications, but also the possibilities offered by communication and medicine. Artificial intelligence will be addressed as an example of these contradictory potentials. For now, this is a curatorial intention, not a finding about an exhibition yet to take place.
A biennale with a museum
Papadimitriou currently heads exhibitions at Diriyah Art Futures in Riyadh. She previously worked at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum and as Creative Director at FutureEverything. According to SeMA, she was selected for Seoul through an international process that received 70 proposals.
The biennale was founded in 2000 at the initiative of the city of Seoul; its predecessor series, “SEOUL in MEDIA”, ran from 1996 to 1999. It is based at SeMA. Since 2022, a preliminary programme has also drawn on the museum’s collection and digital archives. This offers a way to pursue earlier artistic questions beyond the cycle of individual large-scale exhibitions.
Critique needs working conditions
The call for applications for the directorship alone makes clear how many tasks are involved: selecting artists and works, publications and events, but also budget requirements, publicity and sponsorship. Artistic direction here therefore means more than simply setting a theme. It operates within a museum organisation.
A useful comparison showing how such an institutional foundation can be put to use is the collaboration between ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe and MO Museum in Vilnius. “How to Feel Real. Art, Technology and Us” has been running there since 10 October 2026 and continues until 29 August 2027. The exhibition combines works from both institutions’ collections with works from estates and artists’ archives, as well as new productions.
Its historical span extends from artistic engagements with computers and the internet to AI. The works on display include Nam June Paik’s “Internet Dream” from 1994. Technology thus appears not simply as the latest development at any given moment, but as a subject within a longer history of art.
Such retrospectives depend on material resources. ZKM has maintained a Laboratory for Antiquated Video Systems since 2004. It preserves historical playback equipment and digitises video art; analogue holdings are not simply replaced in the process. Without conservation and documentation, access to these works would be at risk.
What remains open in Seoul
The comparison reveals a distinction: an appointment sets the direction; collections, specialist staff and interpretation establish other, longer-term foundations. The commitment to the common good therefore also raises practical questions: who gains access to works and knowledge? How can visitors discuss technological systems rather than merely operate them?
The appointment announcement does not yet name any participating artists or specific works. It offers no basis for judging whether and how “Machines of Repair” will address such questions. SeMA has announced further information on the preliminary programme for November 2026. Only as the plans take shape will it become clear how the stated aim translates into an exhibition.
Original reviewed by the editors · 25 October 2026
