Associate Professor, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)
Affiliate Professor at New York University , USA
Dr Jinjoon Lee is an internationally recognised media artist and scholar whose interdisciplinary practice investigates the convergence of art, technology, nature, and human consciousness. Coining the term data gardenist, Lee develops synesthetic in-between spaces—what he characterises as liminoid experiences—in which perception becomes entangled with data-driven systems. His works integrate light, sound, scent, artificial intelligence, and game-engine environments to probe ontological and ecological questions in the post-digital era.
Working primarily with the moving image, Lee draws on literature, anthropology, history, and political theory to craft works that are at once conceptual and poetic. In his ongoing series Wandering Sun (2022–), he fuses NASA atmospheric data, classical Chinese poetry, and recollections of his childhood in Masan to create immersive digital landscapes. In Good Morning, Mr G‑Dragon (2025), he examines the convergence of celebrity, biometric data, and generative AI, transmitting a media work into outer space as a speculative homage to Nam June Paik’s Good Morning, Mr Orwell (1984).
Born in Masan, South Korea, Lee read Business Administration at Seoul National University before undertaking degrees in Sculpture (BFA, MFA) at the same institution. He subsequently completed postgraduate studies in Moving Image and Design Interaction at the Royal College of Art (MA), and earned his DPhil in Fine Art at the Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford. In recognition of his contributions to the arts, he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA).
He currently serves as Associate Professor at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), where he is the founding Director of the KAIST Art & Technology Center. He is also Artistic Director of the Korea Media Symphony, Visiting Senior Researcher at Tokyo University of the Arts, and Affiliate Professor at New York University.
Lee’s work has been exhibited at major institutions including the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) Korea, Seoul Museum of Art, ZKM | Hertz-Lab (Germany), the Royal College of Music (London), and the Korean Cultural Centre UK. He was selected for Bloomberg New Contemporaries in 2021 and is represented by BB&M Gallery (Seoul). His works are held in the permanent collections of MMCA Korea, Seoul Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art Busan, and the DIB Museum (Bangkok).
His most recent project, Cine-Forest: Awakening Bloom, is a large-scale AI-driven media performance that transformed 200 metres of forest canopy into an immersive synesthetic theatre—featuring AI-generated visuals, a 65-piece orchestra, environmental field recordings, and a 1,000-person citizen choir. The work serves as an expansive meditation on technology, ecological consciousness, and the possibilities of collective imagination.
