• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.34
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• pp.129-165
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• 2014

K-pop performances are in the center of the contemporary popular arts and cultural industry, and implicitly reveal the way that our society views the body and the time-space. This paper explores the motif of automaton in the K-pop idol group ShiNee's stage performance of 'Everybody' and the song's music video. At the same time, the paper relates the motif with the automaton of the digital era-that is, the sense of time-space in digital animations. The motif of the automaton has its origins in the mythical forms related to the animation, and is related to the human desire to create humanlike forms. Also, this motif is closely linked to the aesthetical meaning of the animation, being played in different variations since the beginning of the animation. This paper explores the tradition of automaton motif in culture and the arts, and look into the cases in which the history of the relationship between the media and body performance harboring the automaton motif has been displayed in 19th century ballet or modern body expressional arts. In addition, this paper will compare and analyze representative contemporary works that reveal digital viewpoint and the choreography of 'Everybody', and compare other works that stand in similar aesthetic tradition, investigating the influence of digital animation reflected in the K-pop idol and its aesthetic and social undertones.