EXO
K-pop boy band EXO perform during the Opening Ceremony of the 17th Asian Games on September 19, 2014. Reuters/Kim Kyung-Hoon

You’d be forgiven if you thought "I'm Making A Boy Band" was the latest reality singing competition. But it's actually the work of a Columbia University student and her friends creating a K-pop (as in Korean pop) band as a conceptual art piece.

What's the concept? None of the performers are Korean. They don't even speak Korean.

The band, to be called EXP – short for "experiment," says Vice -- was the brainchild of Bora Kim, a Columbia sociology student from South Korea, who is interested in cultural flow. "I wanted to see what would happen if I made American boys into K-pop performers, by teaching them how to sing in Korean and act like Korean boys," she said. With friends Karin Kuroda and Samantha Shao, Kim put out a casting call in December for band members to mold into a K-pop group.

The group has gained a following on social media, launched a successful Kickstarter campaign and just finished shooting their first music video, which is set to be released in August.

Some listeners, however, have been unhappy with what they see is a blatant copy of the popular group EXO. That group hit the Billboard charts in 2014 with their EP "Overdose."

K-pop has been described as an "East-West mashup" by The New Yorker. Performers are mostly Korean, and the complex synchronized dances have Asian flavor. Yet, the music is a mix of hip-hop, Euro-pop dance and rapping. K-pop has garnered a large following across Asia, with devoted fans from Japan, China, Hong Kong and the Philippines. K-pop has been less of a force in the U.S., except for PSY’s massive hit "Gangham Style."

The K-pop industry has been criticized for its training and business practices. Some of the more questionable practices The New Yorker cited include locking performers into long-term contracts, paying them very little, and even monitoring their food intake.

Kim said examining cultural appropriation was key to the project. "We want to raise the question of what it actually means to appropriate culture," Kim told Vice, "because this implies ... the idea of cultural authenticity. How does one determine authenticity and originality in culture?"

EXP’s first song, "Luv/Wrong", is currently available on iTunes. Critics have been harsh in their reviews, and so have iTunes users: The average rating from 109 reviews is 2 stars.