DDP lights up for annual media art festival

Dongdaemun Design Plaza in Jung-gu, central Seoul, is celebrating the return of fall with an annual media art festival that garnered over a million visitors last year.

Seoul Light DDP, a media art festival jointly hosted and organized by the Seoul Metropolitan Government and Seoul Design Foundation, showcases media artworks by projecting them onto the 222-meter-long exterior of the city's landmark with spaceship-like architecture.

This year’s festival, which runs through Sunday, celebrates the 10th anniversary of the multipurpose public space under the theme “Future Log.”

The event, first launched in 2019, has since grounded itself as one of Seoul’s signature media art festivals. In 2023 alone, the festival attracted over 1.16 million visitors and received international recognition at the Red Dot Design Awards and at the International Design Excellence Awards or IDEA in the same year.

The first act of the two-part exhibition, “Poetry of Time,” features artworks by late Korean painter Kim Whan-ki, in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of his passing. "Poetry of Time" was directed by media artist and professor Park Je-sung from Seoul National University’s Department of Sculpture, with music direction by producer Yoon Sang.

“We tried to reinterpret Kim Whan-ki’s works by capturing the essence of eternal time that the painter wished to convey through his artworks as well as his formative poetry,” Park told the press during a press conference on Aug. 29. “I am honored to have been a part of bringing Kim’s works back to life with modern digital technology, creating something that allows us to imagine both the past and the future together.”

The second act, “Invitation,” features a work by media art label Verseday, created to honor the DDP’s 10th anniversary since opening to the public in March 2014.

Also directed by professor Park and producer Yoon, it explores some of the basic elements of art, including the geometric movements of dots, lines and shapes that later evolve into different objects.

“The geometric movements represent the DDP’s beauty, identity and its potential to become a media platform for the future,” added Park. “Invitation is a message from the DDP, extended to artists and audiences worldwide, hoping that many will join in shaping a new future for the DDP as it celebrates its 10th anniversary.”

Both media works, lasting 8 and 7 minutes, respectively, will be shown back-to-back at 30-minute intervals from 8 p.m. until 10 p.m. Viewing is free of charge.

Besides the media facade exhibition, the “Design and Art” festival will also take place across all parts of the DDP, featuring outdoor exhibitions, sculptures and optical illusion artworks by designers, artists and artistic groups from various parts of the world.

The DDP’s Design Dulle-gil, a 533-meter-long passage connecting the DDP’s second basement floor to its fourth floor, features five new artworks by Swiss artist Felice Varini. Each of the works in this exhibition, titled "Colors Shapes Movements,” use anamorphic optical illusions, allowing viewers to move around freely and discover the different shapes and forms an artwork can hold.

On top of the DDP’s Grass Hill sits “Our Beating Heart,” a heart-shaped sculpture resembling a mirror ball designed by the UK-based design studio Studio Vertigo. Meanwhile, Australian artistic group Atelier Sisu installed a pavilion at the DDP's Eight Junction titled “Aperture,” composed of intersecting lines and framed apertures that invite viewers to interact with the work.

“We were able to expand the scale of the Seoul Light DDP event this year, thanks to the positive response we received from the public during last year's event,” said Rhee Kyung-don, CEO of Seoul Design Foundation. “As the DDP commemorates its 10th anniversary, we promise to continue to demonstrate the factors that differentiate the DDP from other exhibition halls, such as its annual Seoul Light DDP festival and exhibits featuring artworks from locally and globally renowned artists.”