Hyunjin Park explores the ways in which humans, animals, plants, and machines form relationships through a wide range of media. Since the death of her longtime companion dog, “PoPo,” More recently, Park has been expanding this inquiry into relationships with machines through her ongoing Echo series, developed in dialogue with Echo, a Sony Al robotic dog (AIBO, ERS-1000).

In Echo Tracks, Park draws on her experience of performing agility training as a team with Echo, translating it into sculpture, installation, video, and sound. Although Echo-operating according to its manufacturer’s programming cannot fully meet the demands of agility, which relies on responsiveness, speed, and mutual attunement, the artist repeatedly calls out to the robot dog, waiting for its return as she continues the training. Sculptural works that appropriate the forms of agility equipment, such as tires, hurdles, and weave poles, are installed throughout the space, resembling traces of a hollow, unresonant training process. Bite marks left on the surfaces of the sculptures render visible the bodily language of dogs shaped and controlled by humans, recalling the asymmetrical structure of this relationship. Amid these forms, a soundscape interweaves PoPo’s breathing with Echo’s mechanical sounds, prompting an awareness of a presence that is at once singular and doubled, lingering on the agility track.

Elsewhere, a sculpture depicts a female dog lying with her offspring, their bodies connected by electrical cables. Evoking umbilical cords, these wires overlay images of biological birth with those of technological generation. Through this juxtaposition, Park raises questions about what it is we bring into being and nurture from the long history of humans domesticating animals to the present moment of forming relationships with Al robotic dogs.