AI / Data / XR · Media Art
BENEATH SEOUL
The other side of Seoul — public mental health data rendered as stars and teardrops beneath the city's glossy skyline.
Year
2025
Format
Data-driven art · immersive data storytelling · speculative policy proposal
Location / Institution
Seoul, South Korea · Seoul Data Hub Visualization Competition
Role
Lead Conceptual Planner & Designer (Team Cloudwalker)
Collaborators
Jaehoon Choi (AI/Big Data Engineer)
Excellence Award
Recognition
Concept
Decoding the socioeconomic undercurrents hidden beneath Seoul's infrastructure, the work translates cold public data on mental health into an empathetic visual narrative. The statistic '2,163 suicides in 2023' is reframed as '2,163 people became stars' — a particle system where each point of light is one human life. The city skyline's reflection is in fact a bar chart of depression experience rates, conceptualized as teardrops.
Experience Design
A long-scroll immersive digital artwork: viewers descend from the bright skyline into the city's hidden emotional strata. The conclusion is designed not as an end but as an actionable intervention — a one-click help interface linking directly to over ten city-run mental health services.
Technology / Medium
Urban public data from the Seoul Data Hub, particle-system visualization, and a functional data-to-action pipeline architecture.
Process
Data research and curation, design of the two central visual metaphors (stars, teardrop graphs), long-scroll narrative composition, and the formal proposal of a dedicated 'Mental Health Pavilion' for the Seoul Data Hub portal.
Outcome
Excellence Award (Team Leader), Seoul Data Hub Data Visualization Competition 2025.
Reflection
The project's goal was to be a connecting link that moves numbers to hearts, and hearts to systems. Data here is not evidence but setting — world-material from which empathy can be built.
Credits
Team Cloudwalker (구름산책가): Hayeon Shim (Media Art Planner), Jaehoon Choi (AI/Big Data Engineer). Data courtesy of Seoul Data Hub.
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