Image © Jinran Ha, 2026

Jinran Ha
Opaque Interface – Algorithmic Invisibility and Mythological Presence

What happens when AI tries to visualize a non-white, female deity of care that has no fixed image? »Opaque Interface« examines the structural biases of machine vision and the erasure of marginalized narratives by AI technologies.

When AI image-generation systems are prompted to depict Samsin Halmi — the Korean goddess of birth and life, whose presence has been transmitted through oral tradition and practices of care rather than fixed iconography — they consistently produce sexualized or exoticized imagery from a Western perspective. This is not a technical error. It is a symptom of the power structures embedded in the construction of machine vision.

Together with the IUNO team, Jinran Ha is working from May 2026 to January 2027 on an interactive mixed-reality installation in which she mobilizes Édouard Glissant’s »right to opacity« as both artistic methodology and structural argument, constructing an opaque interface — a spatial configuration that refuses optimization and predictable feedback. The aim is to create a speculative space of care that respects the sovereignty of marginalized entities within technological systems.

Artificial intelligence is employed here in digitale media production while at the same time is being subjected to critical reflection in light of the aspects outlined above.