Clear Fog

This photographic series uses AI-upscaled CCTV footage from South Korea’s martial law incident to examine how technological and social systems construct 'truth', exposing the collapse of factual perception within technological and social structures.

This photographic series investigates the visibility of hidden social and technological structures through CCTV imagery of the martial law incident that occurred in South Korea. and The images are arranged chronologically.

On December 3, 2024, martial law was declared in South Korea. This work originates from the memory of attempting to understand the truth of information delivered by the government at the time, while being unable to fully verify facts in real time.

To examine the reality of the situation, frames were captured from original CCTV footage of the National Assembly building on December 3, which circulated through links shared on social media. At the time, images and videos distributed online contained a mixture of authentic and fabricated materials, making it difficult to distinguish truth from falsehood. In response, AI upscaling was used in an attempt to reveal and clarify areas of the CCTV images that were visually unclear or unseen.

However, AI upscaling structurally generates details that did not originally exist, extrapolating from the statistical average of the image. This process produces what can be described as an “illusory realism” — images that appear more real while simultaneously becoming more artificial. The increased clarity of the upscaled images paradoxically destabilizes perception itself, creating a visual structure in which viewers are unable to fully comprehend what is actually occurring within the frame.

Furthermore, the structural reasons behind the declaration of martial law, including the relationship between former President Yoon and his close associates, remain unresolved and only partially revealed.

Ultimately, while we attempt to see and understand an unknowable reality, complete truth remains inaccessible within both technological systems and social structures. Through this work, the project exposes how contemporary judgments of factuality collapse under the conditions shaped by AI technologies and mediated social realities.