The transmission also featured cinematic media art piece based on scan of G-Dragon’s iris
G-Dragon, member of K-pop group Big Bang and a visiting professor at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, has become the first K-pop singer to beam his music into space.
G-Dragon's agency Galaxy Corp. announced Wednesday that the artist’s song “Home Sweet Home,” along with its music video, was transmitted into space via satellite in collaboration with the KAIST Space Institute. The track is the second single from G-Dragon’s recent album “Ubermensch,” released in November.
While BTS’ music video for “Dynamite” was previously transmitted from space to Earth by Korea’s first lunar orbiter Danuri in 2022, this marks the first time a Korean artist’s song has been transmitted from Earth into space through a ground-based satellite antenna.
“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 jointly hosted by Herald Media Group, KAIST and the National Research Council of Science & Technology at KAIST, Wednesday. “But the idea of one of my favorite songs being selected and sent into space still feels surreal. I’m incredibly excited — and I just hope the song finds the right home out there.”
Galaxy Chief Happiness Officer Choi Yong-ho said, “It marks a pioneering step in introducing human culture to space and will be remembered as a milestone performance in music history — on par with what The Beatles achieved.” NASA beamed The Beatles’ song “Across the Universe” into space in February 2008.
The initiative is part of the ongoing collaboration between KAIST and Galaxy Corporation, an artificial intelligence metaverse company, under their joint “AI Enter-Tech Research Center. 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 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 13-meter 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," Lee said.
Also the same day, KAIST held an official plaque-unveiling ceremony to commemorate the establishment of the AI Enter-Tech Research Center, a joint initiative with Galaxy Corporation.
The center aims to integrate advanced science and technology with creative cultural content, further solidifying KAIST’s commitment to art-technology convergence.
Since being appointed visiting professor last year, G-Dragon has played a leading role in promoting AI-powered entertainment research and has actively contributed to project planning through his agency.
jaaykim@heraldcorp.com
