The case for making art in a crisis | Yiyun Kang | Your Body on Tech

**Manoush Zomorodi** (0:03)
You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas and conversations to spark your curiosity every day. I am Manoush Zomorodi, I am a journalist, an author, a two-time TED speaker, and you may recognize my voice from the TED Radio Hour podcast over on NPR. This week, I am taking over for Elise Hu with a series of episodes all about how you can live a healthier life in our high-tech era. So, why am I here? I had the honor of guest curating a session at TED 2026, full of speakers whose work will make you think differently about your body, technology, and what is keeping us human in this digital age. One of the many things that feels so strange and disconcerting about our modern era is that we are surrounded by invisible systems that shape our behavior. Take AI.
It is run by algorithmic black boxes. We see the data coming in, and we see the text or messaging or information that comes out. But we don't know exactly what's going on inside the machine. We can't touch it or see it.
We don't even fully understand it. Yiyun Kang is a mixed media artist whose work is about spanning that gap between us and those invisible forces.

**Yiyun Kang** (1:26)
My mission became clear, to render the invisible visible. I want to translate these wicked problems into physical experiences so that we can truly care.

**Manoush Zomorodi** (1:39)
When I say mixed media, I mean mixed. She is trained as a painter, but now works with data, lasers, graphic design, and of course, AI too. She is as high-tech as the technology she interrogates.
But the beautiful stories she tells feel connecting rather than alienating. Because art, as she says, isn't a nice add-on to science and technology. It's a crucial bridge between information, humanity, and our well-being on this planet.

**Yiyun Kang** (2:12)
Arts is the vital bridge, a missing link that has undeniable power to restore our lost connection. But now, we face even deeper crisis. One that challenges the very definitions of human intelligence, the unfathomable AI.
The technology is advancing in a staggering pace, and we have to accept an uncomfortable truth.

**Manoush Zomorodi** (2:39)
Her talk, as you might expect, is very visual. So, just for you, we asked her to describe each work that she presented on stage, so that you too can feel the emotions she stirred up in the TED theater. Yiyun's talk and our conversation coming up.
Now, our TED Talk and conversation of the day.

**Yiyun Kang** (3:18)
This is a glimpse into one of my artworks, Vanishing. What you see, this is a tribute to the species extinguished by us, humanity. I dedicate my career to translating the invisible crisis of our time as vivid as the images before you. That includes climate change, artificial intelligence, and even the crisis of our own humanity. We're living in an era of wicked problems. The crises are so massive that we cannot grasp them. We can feel a paper cut, but we cannot feel a collapsing planet.
I'm an artist working with a lot of immersive technologies. So what kind of work should start my TED Talk? I thought about the vanishing. Vanishing is originally put in one of the largest LED façade in Seoul. It's like 16 meters wide. It's an art work, but it's outside of gallery or museum. It's a completely public space. And it was happening over the COVID-19.
So, okay, I thought about what kind of story should I tell? What is the vanishing entities of our time because of the human activities? So, I put a huge images of animals that once lived in the earth, but vanished because of our behaviors. The TED projection screen is 30 meters wide. But then the TED stage is quite small. We're such a tiny, tiny entity. So, wanting to show the dramatic difference between the human scale and the massive, mysterious power of nature somehow, I decided to remove any color. It was entirely black and white.
And I decided to start my talk in the darkness. Behind me, there is a massive scale, screens. And out of the darkness, mysterious continents emerge. And inside of the continents, fossilized skeletons swoops across the screen, and then they disappear. And after that, a massive scale wings appears. And with the continents, they started to scatter away and fall apart into tiny little pieces into the darkness. In an endless chase of progress, we have turned our nature and technology into monumental threats. Paradoxically, we have devastated the very habitat we live in and jeopardized the very intelligence that makes us human.
The result is great anxiety. But we must ask ourselves, was this collapse truly unseen? We have more data than any generation in history, yet reality feels further away. We're drowning in information, but starving for meaning. The chain of understanding is broken, leaving our crisis so cold and abstract. We have lost the connection and the ability to care. Living at the intersection of art and technology, our mission became clear, to render the invisible visible. I want to translate these wicked problems into physical experiences so that we can truly care. But how do we translate the intangibles? Let me take you on my journey.