Space Within Space: Behind AAGFF 2026's Key Visuals

Hwang: What is the concept behind this year's festival key visuals?

Lee: It explores the meeting, overlap, and connection of spaces across multiple dimensions. To give form to the abstract and expansive concept of 'space', I focused on the idea that space can be perceived differently depending on the perspective of the subject observing it. Each perspective, shaped by its own context and purpose, divides space into multiple dimensions, so even the same space can contain layered realities.

Based on this thinking, I developed a series of small graphic elements representing different gazes directed at space, composing the overall layout with the vast space they observe set in the background. The symbols at the centre of the screen take on various forms but share a common movement—spinning in circles—to emphasise their role as subjects exploring space. The background visuals transform natural images such as outer space, the ocean, and open fields into flat, surreal planes, layered with elements that evoke trajectories, boundaries, and passages cutting across space, suggesting a non-physical dimension superimposed on the physical world.

Hwang: Were there any elements that influenced or inspired the design?

Lee: When I first heard the theme of 'space', I thought about which spaces felt most familiar to me. The first thing that came to mind was the space within the computer monitor I look at every day. Computer desktop wallpapers often feature vast natural images—magnificent landscapes that exist somewhere in the world. Most of us have never experienced these landscapes in person, yet through a small screen, they gradually become part of our everyday scenery. Thinking about this, I realised that a space that exists somewhere is not defined solely by its physical substance. Space may be three-dimensional yet appear as a two-dimensional plane; something enormous can become very small; and something singular can exist in multiple places at once. These thoughts became central to conceiving the key visuals for this year's AAGFF.

Hwang: What changed between the first draft and the final design? What developed along the way?

Lee: In the first draft, I focused more on expressing a chaotic and virtual space. Inspired by the ideas I described earlier, I wanted to depict not a physical space, but one that exists on a virtual screen—something like the space inside my monitor, with multiple windows open simultaneously. However, we received feedback that this direction felt somewhat distant from the character of AAGFF, which engages more with analogue and artistic moving images, and we agreed. While keeping the overall structure and core ideas, we refined the colours and the arrangement of graphic elements to arrive at the final version.

Hwang: What kind of feeling or impression do you hope audiences take away from this design?

Lee: I don't have a specific sensation in mind that I hope viewers will feel. That said, I would be glad if they could sense and relate to, even vaguely, the thoughts and feelings about space that I had while developing this design. This festival is a place where people come together to experience artistic and experimental films that are not always easy to access and to encounter new sensations. I hope people can feel the mood of a festival—gathering in one space and sharing something together.

Hwang: As a designer, how do you understand 'space', the theme of this year's festival? And what is a special space to you?

Lee: In my everyday life, space was something that simply came to me—an environment I was placed in. In that sense, it is one of the things over which it's hardest to assert your own agency, because creating or even reaching the space you want often comes with significant cost and constraint. But working on this project gave me an opportunity to reflect on what space really is. In the end, I came to think that space can hold infinite layers beyond its physical form, depending on how one looks at and feels it. From that perspective, the space I am sitting in right now is no different from the infinite universe, and in that sense, it may be the most special space of all.