A.I. Immersion Therapy 2026

Hi everyone.

Thank you for being here.
I know there’s, like, a queer noise opera happening next door and at least two open studios with free wine.
So this… is intimacy.

I’m Seung Min Lee. I’m a performance artist.
Which, in case you’re unfamiliar, is a job that combines the financial stability of an adjunct professor with the public humiliation of a YouTuber in 2009.

I’m here tonight to talk about… Artificial Intelligence.

Yes.
Because the robots have come for our jobs, our attention spans, and, apparently, our boyfriends.
And I—an artist, an Asian woman, a Gemini moon—have decided to make peace with them.

(Smiles slyly.)

Quick poll:
Raise your hand if you’ve ever used ChatGPT or some kind of AI tool to… avoid doing the thing you said you really cared about.

(Waits.)
Yeah. Same.
I once asked AI to write an artist statement while I sat in the bathtub eating string cheese and crying about my open tabs.

Here’s the thing.
Being an artist today means being a content engine, a grant-writing bot, a TikTok strategist, a spreadsheet shaman, a walking trauma archive with a Linktree.

Sometimes I think:
“I didn’t go to art school to become a part-time brand.”
Then I remember…
I didn’t go to art school.
I went to therapy.

Also, I’ve recently started studying for my driver’s license exam.
Because let’s be honest:
Performance art will become obsolete before human-driven cars do.
And if I can’t monetize my trauma, I might as well be able to parallel park it.

AI is not magic.
It’s not sentient.
But it is… strangely useful.

I use it to help me:
— Generate bios in three tones: poetic, professional, and sexy-disoriented.
— Rewrite emails where I accidentally sounded like a feral raccoon begging for validation.
— And once, I asked it:
“Can you tell me what my work is about because I actually don’t know anymore?”

And it said:
“Your work explores diasporic longing through embodied gesture and speculative technology.”

I cried.
And then I used that sentence in four grant applications.

Also: tonight’s performance is brought to you by a twelve-step K-beauty routine I did backstage in the bathroom stall—because if I’m going to watch the collapse of the arts economy, I want to do it with dewy glass skin and SPF 50.

Next poll.
Who here is currently working on a grant? Or thinking about applying to one?

(Raises hand, encourages audience)
Yes. Yes. Okay.
Now keep your hand up if that grant pays… less than one month of rent.

(Nods.)
Welcome to the simulation.

AI doesn’t just save me time.
It lets me protect my energy.
It helps me delegate the emotional labor of pretending to be a “professional” so I can return to being an artist.

It’s like having a secretary who’s really fast, kind of dumb, and doesn’t judge me for writing at 2am while Googling “how to make rice feel luxurious.”

Last group exercise.
What’s one task you’d love to never do again as an artist? Just shout it out.

(Waits for: “writing proposals!” “resizing images!” “pretending to be okay!”)

Yes.
EXACTLY.

We didn’t get into this because we loved compressing JPEGs.
We came here to dream.
To collapse.
To maybe scream on a live stream while covered in seaweed.

We are tender, and chaotic, and full of vision.

AI gives me just enough structure to rest.
To return to my materials, my body, my grandmother’s kimchi recipe I’ve been trying to digitize with Midjourney.
And also… to multitask.

Because yes, while performing this piece tonight—
I’ve been generating new artwork using AI tools behind the scenes,
checking Duolingo so I can learn how to say "late capitalist exhaustion" in Korean,
and yes—uploading pieces to the merch table…
Because art must be made, sold, and moisturized, simultaneously.

So… I’m not saying AI will save us.
But it might help us finish the press release, get the grant, send the newsletter,
…and still have enough time to light incense and cry to Björk in the bathtub.

Which is, frankly, the closest thing I’ve had to balance in years.

Thank you.

(She bows deeply. A few Post-it notes fall from her pockets. Beat. Then one last look up.)

Oh—
And in case this wasn’t late capitalist enough for you…

I’ll be selling limited-edition art made during this performance—AI-assisted, human-fingerprinted, emotionally unstable—out at the merch table.

They’re printed on recycled grant rejection letters and dreams.
Cash, Venmo, or bartered emotional labor accepted.

Take care of your soul… and your inbox.