Nam June Paik Art Center participates in Aerosen Seoul,a public program of Leeum Museum of Art’s ‘Idea Museum’. The Aerocene Backpack is a portable flight kit enclosing an aerosolar sculpture that floats only with the heat of the sun, without the use of helium, hydrogen, solar panels, batteries or burners, free from fossil fuels. Fully open-source its users are invited to appropriate and improve its functionalities of mechanical, digital and electronic technologies, strengthening a DIT (Do-It-Together) ethos fostered by the Aerocene Community.

Providing a message of simplicity, community members are also invited to write messages towards change and hope on the sculpture, making it a poetic tool for imagining a new era without fossil fuels and new ways of decarbonizing the atmosphere. The Backpack has been borrowed around the world for hundreds of flights.

This workshop invites participants to become pilots and make connections, coming together to decide on and write messages of care and eco-social justice on the solar sculptures prior to floating together. Collaborating with prominent regional museums in Seoul, as well as those in Gwangju, Gyeonggi, Daegu, Daejeon, Busan, Suwon, and Jeju, the workshop will explore eco-social themes.

The workshop aims to establish flexible connectivity with locals and Seoul beyond unequal eco-capital conditions, creating a loose communal field mediated by air. Through the creation of an Aerocene floatingsculpture, participants are encouraged to understand the cyclical relationship between water, air, and energy amid the global climate crisis, envisioning an alternative world free from fossil fuels, helium, hydrogen, and batteries.