K-POP Androids and Auto Artists: Welcome to South Korea’s bizarre and ambitious robot theme park

Four child-sized humanoid robots appear on stage at an arena in eastern Seoul and begin dancing as the opening beat of a song by K-pop star G-Dragon begins.

Arms waved, feet stepped with it, heads swung, wigs and baggy clothes swung, until one of them broke midway through the performance and had to be removed from the stage.

Welcome to Galaxy Robot Park. A new 16,500 square meter facility in Koto Ward that its creators claim is the world’s first robot theme park.

It represents an ambitious, some might say audacious, vision of a future in which robots will not only assist humans but also entertain them, perform concerts across continents and even walk runways at the same time.

The company behind this project is Galaxy Corporation, an entertainment company that positions itself as an “entertech” company that combines entertainment and technology.

The company manages megastar G-Dragon, Taemin from the group Shinee, and actor Song Kang-ho, known to Western audiences for his role as the father in Parasite.

K-pop has long served as a testing ground for experimental technology, from SM Entertainment’s Aespa, which combines real members with virtual avatars, to fully virtual boy bands like Plave.

During the opening show, the robot executes movements with amazing fluidity across a diverse repertoire of songs, including G-Dragon’s Home Sweet Home and Taemin’s Advice and Idea.

“We plan three to six K-pop concerts every day, and perform more than 1,000 times a year,” Choi Yong-ho, Galaxy’s CEO and self-proclaimed “chief happiness officer,” told reporters. “We plan to take them on a world tour by the end of this year.”

Music critic and industry analyst Cha Woo-jin is cautious about whether audiences around the world will embrace the show, but sees the ambitious plan as a cultural and economic experiment. “If you put a robot in an Elvis museum, the fans would be disgusted,” he says. “But K-pop is a visual packaging model, so robots aren’t that foreign.”

He said the robot tour is like a cover dance crew (a group that recreates the routines of famous K-pop performers), but without the hotel or per diem costs.

In addition to the arena, the park also offers a variety of robot experiences. A robot attendant greeted guests at the entrance. Dogs, including robot dogs, also roam the outdoor areas and play with visitors.

A robotic arm with a facial attachment draws my portrait and chats with me as it moves. The results are very accurate, but I feel like I look older than my actual age.

There is also a boxing ring on the hill, where visitors can control the humanoid fighters through a mirroring system and watch the fighters’ movements reproduced in real time as the machines fight each other.

At one point, a punch sends the glove flying into the crowd. One robot falls off the stage, but recovers and works again.

Galaxy also plans to hold what it calls the world’s first robot fashion show in late May, followed by the launch of a robot fashion label. Choi has provided few details about how exactly the robots will model the clothes or what the robot fashion brand means.

The broader vision includes deploying K-pop performance robots to locations where human stars cannot easily travel, including combat zones. Once a choreography is programmed into one robot, all robots around the world can instantly learn and perform it, allowing for simultaneous shows in multiple countries.

The real question for music critic Cha is whether robots can recreate the emotional connection with fans that is an essential element of K-pop. “That will determine whether this is a real cultural shift or just a novelty show.”