Just by placing a fingertip on a pad, you can create your own virtual city out of the labyrinth of a fingerprint and drive through your “fingerprint city” with a joystick. The interactive work on display at the Museum of Art in Seoul National University, employs the “City Engine” technology by Esri R&D Center-Zurich, a 3-D content developer from Switzerland.

Visitors to the museum can also get a glimpse of the ambitious Human Brain Project by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland, that looks into the structure and functions of a human brain by using information and communication technologies. A team of Korean and Swiss artists visualize human brain cells based on algorithms developed by the project.

The “Hybrid Highlights ― Switzerland and Korea” exhibition invites visitors to a world where art and science meets. The collaborative exhibit between the Museum of Art, Seoul National University and Digital Art Week of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich focuses on the application of digital technology in art and science.

“The exhibition deals with changes that science brings to our lifestyle and technical innovation through collaborations between science and art,” said Arthur Clay, director of Digital Art Week. 

The application of digital technology enhances the experience of art viewing and makes science more understandable and approachable.

Artists created a huge model of the Higgs particle discovered by scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research. The Higgs particle is an elementary particle that explains the existence of all matter. The model hangs in the exhibition hall like an installation piece.

The exhibition not only visualizes science and technology. It goes beyond them.

Visitors can play “art games” designed by Swiss, Korean and international designers.

Tobias Neukom’s “Liquid Sketch” is a puzzle game in which players put together puzzles by moving simulated colored liquid. Each move is based on the flow of water rather than on game scenarios.

In Turtle Cream’s “6180 the moon,” players try to make the moon jump from the bottom to the top of the screen to reach the sun. “The Watcher,” another of the featured games, discourages people from playing it. Players have no choice but to watch as aliens create a UFO from a broken merry-go-round because the game goes back to the beginning every time a player touches it.

The exhibition runs through Dec. 7 at the Museum of Art in Seoul National University. For more information, visit www.snumoa.org.

By Lee Woo-young (wylee@heraldcorp.com)