K-pop star G-Dragon sends his song Home Sweet Home into space
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The track is the second single from G-Dragon’s album Ubermensch, which was released in February.
PHOTO: XXXIBGDRGN/INSTAGRAM
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Daejeon, South Korea – G-Dragon, a visiting professor at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (Kaist) in Daejeon, South Korea, has become the first K-pop singer to beam his music into space.
The 36-year-old’s agency Galaxy announced on April 9 that his song Home Sweet Home (2024), along with its music video, was transmitted into space via satellite in collaboration with Kaist. The track is the second single from G-Dragon’s album Ubermensch, which was released in February.
K-pop boy band BTS’ music video for their song Dynamite (2020) was previously transmitted from space to Earth by South Korea’s first lunar orbiter Danuri in 2022.
“It’s astounding that science has advanced to a point where people around the world can share music,” G-Dragon said at the Innovate Korea 2025 forum on April 9. “But the idea of one of my favourite songs being selected and sent into space still feels surreal.”
The forum was jointly hosted by Herald Media Group, Kaist and the National Research Council of Science & Technology at Kaist.
The initiative is part of an ongoing collaboration between Kaist and Galaxy, which is also an artificial intelligence (AI) metaverse company. The interdisciplinary project merges science, art and popular music, reflecting efforts to pioneer future-forward cultural content.
The transmission also featured a cinematic media art piece titled Iris, created by Dr Lee Jin-joon, a leading contemporary artist and an associate professor at Kaist.
Based on a scan of G-Dragon’s iris and enhanced with generative AI, the visual work was projected using a 13m satellite antenna on Kaist’s campus – the first of its kind to be used for projection mapping.
“The iris is often called the ‘mirror of the soul’, and through this project, I wanted to represent the infinite universe as seen through the inner lens of humanity. G-Dragon’s gaze, in this case,” Dr Lee said.
Since being appointed visiting professor at Kaist in June 2024, the leader of K-pop boy band Bigbang has played a leading role in promoting AI-powered entertainment research. THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
