Gwanghwamun Media Facade Show
Feast of Lights
빛의 향연
In an era of distance, breath becomes our most intimate common ground.
This work gathers the small, tender fragments of daily life; steps, glances, pauses and quietly stitches them into a single, shared cadence. Between people and the city, between memory and motion, light becomes the language through
which connection is felt rather than seen.
Beyond spectacle, this is a living composition of time, emotion, and urban memory.
The city’s shifting rhythms, its tenderness and its tensions are translated into waves of illumination that move, gather, and release. As light swells and recedes, Gwanghwa inhales once more, reawakening as a space where presence returns and the invisible current of shared life is gently restored.
Re: Breathing. More: Shining. Gwanghwa.
aplan-company
aplan-company is a creative studio devoted to the art of immersive media performance, where architecture becomes a canvas and space is transformed into atmosphere. Through the poetic convergence of light, narrative, and environment, the studio crafts sensorial experiences that linger in memory long after the audience has departed. Their major works include Diffusion of Will at Seodaemun Prison History Hall (2022), Companions of Light at Jeonju Jeondong Cathedral (2024), and Journey of Light, created for Asiana Airlines’ 30th Anniversary (2024) each project standing as a quiet meditation on space, history, and human presence through light.
Artwork ❶
SONG 1
SONG 1 reimagines Gwanghwamun as an architecture of light and sound, where the city itself becomes both instrument and stage. Flowing in measured rhythm across the urban surface, the work transforms the façade into a living screen, one that reflects the pulse, memory, and emotional temperature of the city in real time. Anchored in the timeless refrain of I Only Have Eyes for You (1934), the piece unfolds through multiple contemporary reinterpretations, woven together into a shared sonic and visual tapestry. Through this convergence, SONG 1 evokes a collective language of love and longing, drawing individual emotion into a single, luminous urban experience.
Courtesy of the artist; 303 Gallery, New York; Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich; Victoria Miro, London; and Regen Projects, Los Angeles.
Doug Aitken
Doug Aitken is a leading figure in American contemporary art, renowned for his immersive exploration of the relationship between urban space and human perception.
Working across video, installation, architecture, and large-scale public interventions, Aitken creates environments that dissolve the boundaries between image, sound, space, and lived experience. His work has been exhibited at major international institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Centre Pompidou. In 1999, he was awarded the International Prize at the Venice Biennale for Electric Earth. Since then, he has received numerous international honors from institutions such as the Nam June Paik Art Center and the Smithsonian Magazine, affirming his enduring influence on contemporary visual culture.
Photo by Ami Sioux
Artwork ❷
Are You Sleeping?
자니?
A quiet mythology awakens as the sun and moon of the Irworobongdo begin to exchange their silent dialogue across the sky.
Through a contemporary digital language, these ancestral symbols are gently transformed, infused with warmth, imagination, and a subtle sense of wonder. The celestial bodies, ancient pines, and flowing waters rise into color and motion, unfolding with a vivid, almost dreamlike vitality. By reinterpreting the enduring iconography of Korean heritage through an experimental and contemporary sensibility, the work breathes a youthful, distinctly modern spirit into Gwanghwamun where tradition does not remain still, but moves gracefully into the present.
Director | TZUSOO
3D Graphic | Princess Computer (TZUSOO, Lloyd Marquart, Zion Koenig)
Music | Maarten Vos
TZUSOO
TZUSOO works across 3D animation, sculpture, installation, and print to articulate the sensibilities of contemporary digital life.
Drawing from the perspective of a digital-native generation, her practice merges cyber culture with character-driven aesthetics, probing the fluid boundary between the virtual and the real. Through this synthesis, she constructs a distinctive visual language at once playful and critical that reflects the emotional texture of a hyper-mediated world. Her current exhibition at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art features the MMCA×LG OLED Series 2025—TZUSOO 《Agarmon Encyclopedia: Leaked Edition》 TZUSOO is also a faculty member at the State Academy of Art and Design in Stuttgart, Germany, where she continues to shape emerging voices in contemporary media art.
Photo credit: ⓒ 2025 Jusung Hyung
Artwork ❸
Gesture Pop!
제스처 팝!
Rooted in the belief that the future of Seoul is carried in the hands of its people, this work unfolds through the quiet yet powerful language of the hand.
The hand becomes a symbol of creation, communication, and solidarity, its smallest gestures gathering into a collective force that shapes the life of the city and guides it forward. Through the delicate choreography of finger tutting interwoven with the visual poetry of sign language, the piece gives form to participation, inclusion, and shared emotional presence. What begins as individual movement gradually expands into a communal rhythm, dissolving the boundary between performer and spectator. The work culminates in a celebratory invitation, drawing the audience into its final gesture of togetherness, welcoming the new year with joy, unity, and renewed hope.
THE FIRST GATE
THE FIRST GATE is a creative studio operating at the fluid intersection of media art and cinematic practice, where technology becomes a vessel for artistic expression.
By weaving traditional aesthetics with advanced visual techniques, the studio reimagines space as a living narrative field, guiding audiences into immersive environments where sensation, image, and story quietly unfold as one.
Artwork ❹
Gwanghwamun Media Facade
Timetable
Screening Hours
Every hour on the hour,
Screening starts in
30 minutes
Sun-Thu / 5:30 PM - 9:30 PM
Fri-Sat / 5:30 PM - 10:00 PM
Artworks
A Feast of Light
aplan-company
SONG 1
Doug Aitken
Are you Sleeping?
TZUSOO
Gesture Pop!
The First Gate
※ On Friday, December 12, 2025, the event will begin at 8:00 PM after the opening ceremony.
※ 2025.12.31 (Wed) will be screened until 12:30 AM as a New Year's countdown event.