Gang Se-hwang AI Docent

Gang Se-hwang AI Docent is an interactive media installation that digitally revives Gang Se-hwang as a real-time AI human. Through 3D reconstruction, motion capture, and speech interaction, the project allows visitors to converse, pose, and take photographs with a historically reimagined figure. The work explores how artificial intelligence and real-time rendering reinterpret cultural heritage, transforming history into a living, participatory experience.

Traditional heritage preservation has long focused on static representation — objects, paintings, and archives. Yet memory is performative; it survives through gestures, voice, and behavior. This project investigates how digital embodiment can revive historical identity not as a frozen artifact but as a living, interactive presence. By letting museum visitors encounter a responsive digital scholar, the installation reframes preservation as participation — turning heritage into dialogue and memory into empathy.

Archival Reference

Historical portraits and materials were provided by the Gyeonggi Provincial Museum, serving as references for the digital reconstruction.

Digital Reconstruction

3D facial and body modeling using ZBrush and Maya, Texture mapping, UV unwrapping, and normal map generation, Hair cards and fabric shaders for realistic rendering

Motion Capture

Body motion: recorded using the OptiTrack system

Facial motion: captured through Apple ARKit, synchronizing expression and dialogue

Costume Simulation

Traditional Korean attire — hanbok, gat hat, and layered robes — were modeled and simulated in Blender and Maya, achieving physically accurate fabric movement.

Real-Time Integration in Unity

All assets were imported into Unity 3D, where interactive animation triggers (buttons, speech recognition, and audience proximity) were implemented.

Installation Deployment

All assets were imported into Unity 3D, where interactive animation triggers (buttons, speech recognition, and audience proximity) were implemented.The final AI docent was deployed at the Gyeonggi Provincial Museum, operating in real time as a responsive digital guide for visitors.

Artistic & Theoretical Significance

The project explores how historical identity and cultural heritage can persist through technological translation. By reanimating a historical figure within a real-time digital human framework, it demonstrates how AI can serve as a medium of cultural empathy, rather than mere replication. It proposes a new form of Cyborg Museology — a museum paradigm where memory becomes interactive and heritage evolves through human–machine coexistence.