-Gravity Effect <Metaverse>2024. 3 pp.96~105

Summary (by Gemini)

Artist Park Hye-soo is developing the "Perfect Family" project, utilizing the "Mixverse" concept that blurs the lines between reality and virtuality. This project is part of a virtual company called 'Fact 7,' which began in 2019 and offers human rental services under the slogan, "We will be by your side, more like family than family".

In 2022, a participatory performance at the Paradise Art Lab in Inchon Paradise City, where audiences could rent people to act in desired roles such as family members or lovers, received a very positive response. Beyond these human rental services, 'Perfect 7' plans to open online stores in 2025 and introduce companion registration services and companion insurance by 2030.
 

The project also includes an online survey titled 'Let's be neighbor?' cite_start, accessible beyond the exhibition venue, which is conducting in-depth research for the formation of non-blood-related family communities until 2030. This survey comprises 25 specific questions, including family types, criteria for selecting members, shared values, and distribution of living expenses. Based on this data, the artist intends to create a virtual community village within a metaverse app.
 

The "Perfect Family" project prompts contemplation on the future of single-person households, what we truly seek from family today, and how families should be structured moving forward. Although Park Hye-soo approaches this topic playfully through virtual settings, her work aims to challenge and re-examine our taken-for-granted realities, guiding us toward the true meaning of family and happiness. Ultimately, these works, which intertwine reality and virtuality, confront us with the contradictions of our present existence, highlighting the role of virtuality as a new tool to aid active and concrete imagination in reclaiming our authentic lives