Show at Deoksugung lets visitors plan a 1900s state dinner, with AI handling the 'cooking'
AI can write your emails and plan your vacation these days. But could it put you in charge of the kitchen at a Korean emperor's state banquet?
A special exhibition that opens Tuesday at Deoksugung in central Seoul lets you do just that. Visitors play an imperial chef, choosing ingredients for a dinner and have generative AI cook up the dishes on the spot.
The concept opens a window onto a short and turbulent chapter of Korean history. In October 1897, King Gojong of the fading Joseon dynasty declared himself emperor and renamed his country the Korean Empire, a bid to stand on equal footing with the great powers surrounding it. The empire lasted only until Japan annexed Korea in 1910.
In those 13 years, Gojong worked to modernize the long closed-off country by adopting Western ways. That included everything from electric streetcars to Western-style uniforms for the officials, all the way down to the dinner table.
As was standard at diplomatic receptions of the day, foreign envoys and other visitors were served a multicourse French-style meal. The menus featured dishes such as beef fillet braised with truffles, pheasant breast with grapes and foie gras, served on plates that bore the plum blossom, the emblem of the empire.
The exhibition brings those meals back to Dondeokjeon, a Western-style hall that sits inside a traditional Korean palace. Visitors choose among 30 model ingredients that were once served at the imperial court, from lamb and pheasant to salmon, truffles and caviar, and place them on a table.
AI takes it from there, creating an image of the finished dish along with a name and a short backstory in Korean and English. The cooking plays out on video in a digital kitchen on the wall, and the meal is then projected onto an empty plate in front of the visitor. The whole process takes about five minutes, according to the organizers.
The show also brings together some 60 artifacts and other objects from imperial banquets, including a chandelier with the plum blossom pattern, iron cooking utensils and Western-style dishes that carry the same emblem. A 27-meter LED wall plays footage of a recreated state dinner, where officials of the empire share a table with guests from abroad.
"The Korean Empire's Imperial Banquet: Reimagined with AI" is at Dondeokjeon in Deoksugung from Tuesday through March 28.
moonkihoon@heraldcorp.com
