Yoon Chung Han Shows Dreaming Babies: illi at Gray Area

Dreaming Babies: illi fills Gray Area's gallery in San Francisco with 23 virtual incubators, each holding a simulated baby grown from the real genetic data of a different human chromosome. Visitors speak to the sleeping babies through a microphone, and the babies answer in real time through a ChatGPT-based system, while live-rendered video shows each one dreaming in space. The show closes Oct. 19, per the gallery's announcement, and is open during events and by appointment.

Gray Area presents the solo exhibition of "speculative simulation" works by the Korean artist Yoon Chung Han. The exhibition text ties the project to Han's own experience of egg retrieval and preimplantation genetic testing, and asks what defines an embryo with "normal" genes: each chromosome is "reborn as a baby character with a name, an alter ego, and an imagined being."

Also on view is Tori Sommerhof's Requiem Aternum, an endlessly scrolling film assembled from found physical media, part of the gallery's Machine Vitrine spotlight series.

Han is an interactive media artist and an associate professor of design at San Jose State University, with installations shown at the ACM SIGGRAPH Art Gallery, ZKM and the Japan Media Arts Festival. Dreaming Babies: illi was built in Unity and premiered at Unfold X in Seoul in 2025.

For more reading, see the exhibition page at Gray Area, an excerpt of the installation on Vimeo and Han's faculty page at San Jose State.