Warped Speed

The multidisciplinary practice of Ayoung Kim projects possible worlds and queers conceptions of time

-  by Cassie Packard

CALL IT A GLITCH, a leak or a snag: what's clear is that Ernst Mo has a problem. A gig labourer known as a 'delivery dancer', she traverses the pinched alleys and endless expressways of a speculative Seoul by motorbike. Making delivery after delivery, she adroitly executes the punishing choreographies invoked by platform capitalism's algorithmic and logistical flows. Dancemaster, the artificial intelligence behind the chirpy courier app, sets her optimized routes, which range from impractical to impossible. Fortunately, she is a Ghost Dancer, capable of zipping from point A to point B at light speed.

But lately, she keeps running across her doppelganger, a delivery dancer from another possible world. 'Every time you appear, time slows down, En Storm, Ernst Mo says. And it's true: spacetime is out of joint. Ernst Mo's deliveries lag; her rating plummets; her account is suspended. The two spar - fighting, dancing – between boxes at a logistics centre, atop a rainy rooftop, on the asphalt of an open road, in a narrative that runs back over its own grooves. After Ernst Mo kills En Storm in combat, the duo momentarily appears astride a single bike; the plot keeps falling apart, breaking off, glitching.

Seoul-based artist Ayoung Kim created Delivery Dancer's Sphere, a single-channel video combining live-action sequences and game engine simulation, in 2022 as food delivery services ballooned amid the COVID-19 pandemic. (The same year, she also released a game version,