Agarmon: monster 'born at the moment of orgasm' questions birth, existence
A mysterious translucent object with moss on it occupies the center of the Seoul Box at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea. The object is placed on a 9-meter-tall stainless steel installation with an overhead lamp. The floor of the installation is covered with stones.
The creature, named 'Agarmon 5,' is composed of agar and moss, and the 'Agarmon Incubator' controls water, humidity and lighting, creating an artificial environment to sustain the creature's life.
Korean artist Tzusoo, who chose the life of an artist while deferring pregnancy and childbirth, questions the meaning of existence and life by creating and caring for the creature. After the exhibition ends, the artist will take care of it for as long as she can.
''Agarmon 5 will be taken care of somewhere even after the show. Agarmon 1, 3 and 4 are already being looked after,' the artist said on Thursday. 'But Agarmon 2 died as the environment was not suitable, and my dad, who took care of it, felt so sad and buried it in a mountain behind his house.'
The exhibition 'MMCA×LG OLED Series 2025 — Tzusoo Agarmon Encyclopedia: Leaked Edition' is the inaugural exhibition of the annual MMCA x LG OLED series, a collaborative project supporting digital art. The selected artist's works will be shown at the Seoul Box, the central exhibition space at the state museum.
'Agarmon is a monster born at the moment of orgasm — moments when sexual energy bursts. We are living in a world where childbirth is no longer seen as a necessity, and those beings become nothing if they are not fertilized. So I discovered these entities and felt that I needed to protect them,' she said.
A pair of digital installations, 'The Eight Spirits of Flesh — TAE' and 'The Eight Spirits of Flesh — GAN' — on display reveal the world around the Agarmon. The concept of 'The Eight Spirits of Flesh' was derived from the 'eight trigrams,' the fundamental symbols in Chinese philosophy and cosmology, according to the museum.
'They are spiritual creatures, not necessarily holy,' the artist said, looking at the moving images of creatures in the digital works. 'Those spiritual creatures might appear again in my works in the future. Now there are two screens here, one for each spiritual creature, but it is interesting for me to imagine how they could make different synergy with more screens.'
The exhibition will run through Feb. 1, 2026.
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