The Circle of Taste — The Temperature of Diversity

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  The Circle of Taste – The Temperature of Diversity | Conceptual frame of the project — the cycle of cultural symbols.

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  Cultural Origin | A food rooted in migration, memory, and tradition.

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  Modern Consumption | How cultural food becomes aestheticized and shared.

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  Migration | Movements of people that carried cultural cuisine across borders.

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  Commodification in Korea | A trendy brand that grew by obscuring labor behind its image.

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  After the Scandal | The collapse of a polished cultural symbol and public reaction.

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  Standardization of Taste | The product line detached from its human origins.

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  Restoring Warmth | Reclaiming community, dignity, and shared humanity.

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  Global Perspective | Cultural diversity as a planetary condition, not a commodity.

Inspiration

This project began with a real incident in South Korea, where a highly popular bagel brand was found to be involved in severe labor exploitation.
The stark contrast between its polished “cultural trend” image and the hidden suffering of its workers raised a deeper question:
How does cultural diversity become misunderstood, beautified, and ultimately commodified?

I realized that the human bodies, memories, and labor sustaining these cultural symbols were disappearing beneath market-friendly narratives.
The film emerged from a desire to restore that overlooked dignity.

What it does

The film traces the movement of cultural symbols through four phases —
migration → consumption → commodification → restoration.

By retracing this trajectory, the project exposes how cultural diversity is reshaped under capital and how the warmth of human labor becomes obscured in the process.

How we built it

The film was created entirely through a digital and AI-driven workflow.
It combines:

• AI-generated video sequences,
  
• image-to-video and video-to-image transformations,
  
• digital compositing and color processing,
  
• timing adjustments and layered sound design.

Working without live-action footage or 3D assets, the project constructs a visual language produced solely through generative models and digital manipulation.
This method reflects the film’s central inquiry — how cultural symbols are constructed, circulated, and consumed while the human bodies that sustain them remain unseen.

Challenges we ran into

The greatest challenge was addressing a real labor issue without reducing it to an aesthetic effect.
Depicting exploitation required careful ethical judgment — ensuring that the workers’ narratives were not overshadowed by style or technology.

Another challenge was maintaining conceptual clarity across the four symbolic phases of the film.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

• Reframing an everyday food item into a site of memory, labor, and dignity
  
• Revealing the gap between a brand’s trendy image and the human cost behind it
  
• Using AI not as decoration, but as a medium for critical investigation
  
• Building a cohesive visual form without relying on live-action or 3D assets
  

What we learned

This project demonstrated how easily cultural symbols detach from the people who create and sustain them.
Working with AI reinforced the need for ethical transparency, especially when dealing with themes of labor, migration, and cultural identity.

What’s next for The Circle of Taste — The Temperature of Diversity

The next phase of this work will expand into a multi-channel installation integrating documents, interviews, and spatial sound.
I plan to further examine who sustains cultural diversity today, and whose labor remains unseen beneath its commercialized surface.

Built With

• davinciresolve
• elevenlabs
• freepik
• google
• hailuo
• kling
• photoshop
• seedream