THIRST/For Knowledge will premiere in exhibition at the National Asia Culture Centre (ACC) in Gwangju, Republic of Korea, in November 2025.
THIRST/For Knowledge is an immersive sonic exploration of the existential issues, collaborations and tensions between waters, AI and humans. Accompanied by a book publication exploring these issues in print, THIRST/For Knowledge links concepts around watery ecologies, advances in AI resource use and sociotechnical structures with the lens of humans, landscapes and physical AI infrastructures as bodies of water. THIRST/For Knowledge pivots around the central essential character of water as a medium of communication of knowledge, and its exploitation and preservation by human, artificial and more-than-human agents.
The artwork takes as its point of departure Korea’s position at the forefront of AI datacentre advances. The Solaseado site in Jeollanam-do Province has recently been proposed as the site for Asia’s largest AI datacentre, and now Korea’s National AI Data Centre for the development of a Korean sovereign AI. The new datacentre will employ cutting edge advances in smart resource use, addressing one of the largest challenges of AI – its demand for water as a coolant. Taking the life of water as a medium of communication, building upon the idea of water having a “memory”, THIRST/For Knowledge explores the movement of water and the knowledge it can convey between the physical manifestations or “bodies” of AI, humans and more-than-humans.
THIRST/For Knowledge has at its heart rare field recordings of the lakes and river ways at the Solaseado site that will soon disappear to make way for this forthcoming development. The artwork includes global perspectives through text and audio contributions from leading scholars, artists and activists from around the world, including Astrida Neimanis, Dasom Lee, Tu Nube Seca Mi Río and Samantha Ndiwalana.
The team behind the realisation of THIRST/For Knowledge are:
Artist and Editor: Kat Austen
Publication Editor: Paul O’Neill
Production and Research Assistant: Mina Kim
Video Ethnographer: Dongjoo Seo
Technological Coordination: Daniel Hengst
Graphic Design: Fara Peluso
THIRST/For Knowledge project creation and production supported by ACC.
Image: Fara Peluso / Kat Austen