By Honorary Reporter Foteini Chatzoudi from Greece
Photos = Yun Jeho

The festival Seoul Light DDP 2026 Fall from Sept. 3-13 will illuminate Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) in Seoul's Jung-gu District by blending light, sound, digital art and performances. 

The event will link the artistic legacies of installation art pioneer Nam June Paik and abstract art groundbreaker Yoo Youngkuk with Korean poetry, contemporary music, visuals driven by artificial intelligence (AI) and innovative laser art.

Set to take part in the festival is Yun Jeho, a Seoul-based audiovisual specialist and electronic music composer who explores the relationship between sound, visual imagery, light and space. 

He directed the laser art for the opening ceremony of the Gangwon 2024 Winter Youth Olympic Games in Gangwon-do Province. His projects also include his exhibition "Resonance of Reality and Virtuality" at DDP last year and "Transmitting Wave" at the Paradise Art Lab Festival on Incheon's Yeongjongdo Island in 2023.

The following are excerpts from an email interview from Aug. 22-24 with him on his laser work and participation in the festival.

Yun's laser work "The Fiesta in the Cave" is shown in September 2021 at the Open Media Art Festival at Oil Tank Culture Park in Seoul's Mapo-gu District.

How do technology and art intersect in your work?

Technology is not used merely to create visual effects but a means of shaping perception, temporality and a sense of place. Rather than treating light and sound as separate elements, I approach them as a single integrated form of energy. Through laser light, I also invite the architecture and surrounding space to be active participants in the work.

Describe your creative process behind a laser show.

I begin with understanding the space and examine the scale and structure of the architecture, movement of the audience, locations of the laser projectors and projection distances.

I then compose music in relation to the theme and design the movement of lines and forms in response to the rhythm, frequency and dynamics of the sound. Though I use computer simulations to preview the composition, on-site adjustments are essential because the scale and density of light, amount of haze and how the laser interacts with architecture differ in every space. Finally, I synchronize the music, lasers, video, lighting and performance. 

"Transmitting Wave Signals into the Cosmos," October 2023, at Paradise Art Lab Festival on Incheon's Yeongjongdo Island

What will you present at Seoul Light DDP 2026 Fall?

The work I will present at DDP's Archaeological Site Exhibition Hall on Sept. 3 is "The Light Ahead: Passing Through the Resonance of Time." It explores the awakening of traces and memories accumulated within DDP through contemporary light and sound, offering a sensory experience directed toward the future, and combines lasers, electronic music, AI-generated visuals, lighting and traditional Korean percussion. 

"Luminous Sound Sculptures," October 2025, at National Science Museum in Daejeon's Yuseong-gu District

What events or projects are next for you?

I'm preparing for the closing performance of the Now or Never Festival in Melbourne, Australia. I hope to further expand my work connecting lasers, sound, data and architectural space, while continuing my research into data synesthesia, through which a single set of data is simultaneously transformed into light and sound to allow a multisensory experience.

I will also expand into sound art, exploring the technical properties of laser media, and works that apply laser communication technologies in new ways.

ljyhwa@korea.kr

*This article was written by a Korea.net Honorary Reporter. Our group of Honorary Reporters are from all around the world, and they share with Korea.net their love and passion for all things Korean.