From Seoul Vision to TickerArt: A Journey Across Media, Markets, and Meaning

At the intersection of light and shadow, a seeker emerged. From an early age, when he first held a camera, Young Kim began recording the world—capturing fleeting moments of human emotion and the traces of time itself. What began as curiosity soon became a creative habit, evolving into artistic intuition and experimentation.

In 1986, he founded Seoul Vision in Korea, a pioneering post-production studio that went on to define much of the country’s advertising and commercial film industry throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. Over the years, the studio produced more than 28,000 commercials, music videos, and film projects, each infused with his explorations of color, rhythm, and imagery. These early experiments would later form the foundation of his media art practice and color-field-inspired abstractions.

Yet his journey did not stop with moving images. After relocating to the United States, he entered the very different world of finance. Working within the securities industry of Silicon Valley, he came to a profound realization: numbers were not merely economic indicators but mirrors of collective psychology and human desire. Within the relentless flow of the market ticker pulsed fear, greed, and hope—an emotional rhythm that could be transformed into the language of art.

This realization became the seed of TickerArt. In TickerArt, financial data, climate shifts, and even the rhythms of the human body—heartbeats, breaths—are transformed into pigments. Algorithms and generative AI serve as his brushes, continuously translating data into ever-evolving fields of abstraction. The result is not a static image but a living field, an immersive environment where the audience becomes part of the work itself.

From dome projections in Las Vegas to immersive gallery installations and digital platforms such as NFTs, TickerArt envisions a global sanctuary of contemporary art. It is not merely an aesthetic experiment, but a space where society confronts its collective emotions and desires—and finds the possibility of healing.

Young Kim’s artistic philosophy is clear. He seeks to transform financial data—the language of our age—into art, allowing the abstract numbers that define our world to become vivid fields of color and rhythm. Through this process, he visualizes collective psychology, capturing the intertwined forces of greed, fear, and desire as they flow through markets and societies. At the same time, he is committed to building new arenas of media art that connect technology, industry, and the human spirit, creating works that both document and transcend the era in which we live.

Today, he continues to ask:
“In an age governed by measurement and prediction, what allows humans to remain truly human?”

His journey—from Seoul Vision to the financial markets, and ultimately to TickerArt—is an ongoing exploration of this question through the language of art.

Artistic Philosophy

Young Kim’s artistic philosophy is clear. He seeks to transform financial data—the language of our age—into art, allowing the abstract systems that govern our world to become tangible fields of color and rhythm. Through this process, he visualizes collective psychology, revealing the interplay of greed, fear, and desire that animates modern life. At the same time, he is devoted to building new arenas of media art that unite technology, industry, and the human spirit—creating works that both document and transcend the era we inhabit.