This new K-Pop group features both human and virtual members

Eat your heart out, Black Mirror

In another episode of ‘Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should’, SM Entertainment has revealed its new South Korean girl group Aespa, which will feature members both virtual and human.

Per the South China Morning Post, Aespa is SM’s first all-female act since the debut of Red Velvet in 2014. The name is a mishmash of the words avatar, experience, and aspect, as the group aims to explore ‘experiencing a new world via the encounter of the ‘avatar’, your other self’ – whatever the hell that means.

In a video tweet, Aespa debuted this surreal concept when it featured group member Karina interacting with her virtual counterpart, æ-Karina.

aespa 에스파 ‘MY, KARINA’#KARINA #카리나#aespa #æspa #에스파#MY_KARINA pic.twitter.com/A2R5CtjFUT

— aespa (@aespa_official) October 28, 2020

According to SM founder Lee Soo-man, both the human and virtual members will function in their respective worlds similar to any K-Pop artist. The real-life girls will attend to real-world promotions, while their AI counterparts will handle those that are virtual.

As for interactions between members, Lee Soo-man says this will be done digitally, so that the girls can ‘communicate, empathize, and grow together’.

‘Aespa is a new group where the members of the real world and the avatar members of the virtual world coexist, supporting and assisting one another, and they are able to promote together with a revolutionary identity’, reads the report.

‘The real-life members and the avatar members are separate organisms, and the avatar members have AI brains that allow for them to converse and to support the real members, even befriending them, sharing information, as well as going back and forth from one world to another’.

Us, with the concept

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Source: we the pvblic