At the beginning of the global coronavirus pandemic, all eyes turned to Seoul, South Korea. Not just, as you might expect, for the city’s admirable containment of the new plague, but rather for a massive simulated wave image in a skyscraper.

If that doesn’t sound impressive, you should understand that the wave didn’t look like a mere oversized poster projected across the façade. Instead, the wave appeared to be moving back and forth forcefully within the building itself, as if several stories of architectural engineering had transformed into the world’s largest fish tank.

It was almost like the tidal force of Hokusai’s iconic wave painting had been first conjured and then contained in a box, the type of work that blurs the line between magic and techno-progress. While it alluded in an oblique sense to the most famous image in Asian art, at the same time it reflexively asked the question of itself.

The conundrum dates back to the dawn of culture in the most primordial sense.

Indeed, the designers of D’strict have created interactive pieces for malls and theme parks. They created a robot arm to craft artisanal coffee drinks and dessert, a concept that borders so close to satire it feels like a twisted Banksy prank.

Another installation piece invited visitors to the SLS Hotel in Las Vegas to project their own face onto a monolithic screen, interacting with fantastical nature images.

On the one hand, the idea of inspirational art existing in a Vegas luxury hotel feels a tad grotesque, if not downright dirty.

Yet Mark Rothko designed brilliant murals for an elite restaurant in the Seagram Building.

(They're now in the Tate Museum in London.)

Diego Rivera painted a provocative mural in Rockefeller Center.

(Granted, the Rockefellers rejected it.)

There are two possible solutions to the riddle.

The first is that we simply reimagine our conception of art in the broader sense of technology and culture. The breakthroughs of photography, film and video took time to acquire the status of art. It’s possible that a generation reared on video games and augmented reality will simply accept the work of D’strict and others who dabble in digital site-based user experiences and interactive technological illusions as worthy of a more elevated status.

The second option is another category for visionary works and creators who fall through the cracks. Think about fields like architecture and design, which have always existed apart from their less utilitarian cousins but nonetheless produced works of beauty. Think about individuals like Walt Disney or Jony Ive, who arguably have done more to shape the aesthetics of modern culture than Marcel Duchamp or Andy Warhol. Perhaps, in the end, a work of vision is as worthy of admiration and interpretation as a work of art.