Overview
“How can we think and act In the age of A.I. ?”
Participants try to create movements for 10 seconds that resist video compression. They stand before a camera and record; the person whose video stays largest after compression wins.
Random movements should defeat codecs like H.264, but there's an irony: once people consciously try to be random, they can't truly be random.
The competition has been held all over the world, including:
- Basel, Switzerland 🇨🇭
- Goa, India 🇮🇳
- Rome, Italy 🇮🇹
- Seoul and Daejeon, South Korea 🇰🇷
In 2022, Don't Compress Me World Competition started.
The artist Hojun Song says he started the competition to find a human who can live beyond the predictions of artificial intelligence.
The competition will continue to be held in various cities around the world.
The winner in each city will receive 1 Ethereum as a prize, and the winner of the World Series to be held in Korea will receive 1 Bitcoin.
Join the “Don’t Compress Me” competition to become a New Human.
The work, contemplated since 2009, was first realized and presented at Future Now, Berlin, 2015.
Unlike the regular "Don't Compress Me" competition where participants use their entire body, this version requires participants to move only their head for 10 seconds to resist video compression.
Artists from various countries participated in the competition, and certain patterns seemed to emerge in their movements and sound.
At "Don't Compress," shown at Unfold X in late 2025, many people participated in groups. Individuals could not overcome the dynamics of the group.