Founder of K-pop powerhouse SM Entertainment, Lee Soo-man, has revealed his company’s upcoming rookie girl group, aespa, during this year’s World Cultural Industry Forum. The word is the combination of “æ”, Avatar X Experience, and “aspect”, to express SM’s upcoming double-sided experience, which involves featuring both human and virtual members.

The group’s innovative story surpasses the boundaries of the real world and the virtual world by debuting a new sense of entertainment through music, lyrics, videos, visuals, performances, and more. The real-life members of aespa will carry out offline promotions just like any other SM artist, but within the virtual world, their avatars will also engage in unique promotions.

“The members who reside in the real world and the avatar members who reside in the virtual world meet up in a middle world, the digital world, where they 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. 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,” Lee Soo-man said.

We know, there’s a lot going around. Take a look at the member reveal below for better understanding, and meet human members Ningning and Karina, followed by virtual member æ-Karina. In a special interview film, Karina and her virtual counterpart, æ-Karina touched on their first encounter and how they were connected by someone named “Navis.”