Space-out Competition

Every day, we are surrounded by screens, sounds, and endless streams of information. In a world of constant connection and immediate response, simply pausing has become an extraordinary experience. As the first program in the ACC Future Class series, ACC presents Space-out Competition at ACC Hanul Madang, a participatory performance with visual artist Woopsyang. Through this project, the artist invites participants to space out together. For 90 minutes, participants will do nothing—gradually becoming aware of their bodies, their breathing, and the world around them.

Space-out Competition at ACC Hanul Madang transforms the ordinary act of resting into a shared artistic experience. Participants pause, observe, and breathe together, completing a collective performance through stillness. As people gather to pause in the heart of a fast-moving city, Hanul Madang becomes an open site for artistic practice. In a society driven by speed, productivity, and efficiency, the program reconsiders rest as more than a private or passive state. Simply sharing space, observing one another, and being present together become part of the performance. The project invites participants to rediscover the value of rest and stillness in contemporary life, suggesting that moments of doing nothing can open space for creativity, reflection, and renewed attention. The performance is shaped by many elements: still bodies appearing amid the everyday flow of the city, audiences who observe them, the act of voting, the measurement of heart rates, and the rules of the competition itself. When many people stop moving at the same time in a familiar urban space, an ordinary landscape is transformed into something unfamiliar. Through the 2026 ACC Future Class, participants are invited to take part directly in the artistic process, exploring how art can enter everyday life and how everyday experience can become art. In this shared moment of stillness, rest becomes a performance, and time spent together becomes a unique artistic experience.

Space-out Competition is a participatory performance project by visual artist Woopsyang, first launched in Seoul in 2014. In today’s society, where quick responses, constant productivity, and continuous communication are expected, time spent doing nothing is often regarded as meaningless or unproductive. This project challenges that assumption. By framing doing nothing as a competition, Space-out Competition redefines stillness as an intentional act rather than mere inactivity. Through the collective act of pausing in a public space—something rarely permitted in everyday life—the project transforms rest into an artistic practice. Participants from diverse professions and backgrounds gather to create a shared moment of stillness, while audiences observe and vote, making the entire process a live performance. In an image- and information-saturated digital environment, the project focuses on bodily experience with minimal sensory stimulation. It suggests that doing nothing and pausing are not ways of wasting time, but opportunities to rediscover leisure, contemplation, creativity, and personal reflection.

ACC Future Class is a participatory arts and cultural education program that brings together citizens and artists through art and technology. Through shared experiences, questions, and collaborative creative processes, the program creates new forms of artistic encounter. The program encourages participants to become directly involved in artistic creation, expanding the idea that art becomes life and life becomes art. In 2026, under the theme of Wellness, ACC Future Class focuses on “Rest, Breath, and Life,” presenting projects that use art to restore the human senses and bodily experiences that are easily overlooked amid today’s digital environment and information overload.

Woopsyang is a visual artist whose practice spans painting, video, and performance, exploring the possibilities of art in everyday life. Observing ordinary moments and social phenomena that often go unnoticed, the artist reinterprets familiar realities through playful and thought-provoking works. In 2014, Woopsyang first introduced Space-out Competition as part of an urban play project. Since then, the artist has continued to explore stillness and emptiness as artistic responses to a society driven by competition and productivity.