2026 Seoul Light Hangang Bitseom Festival

Art Director

Kira Kim

Art Director

<Rhapsody of Light> regards Nodeul Island, set at the heart of the Hangang River, as a single living organism, and unfolds the city’s accumulated memory and the time of nature through light and media art. On an island now emerging as the ‘Nodeul Global Art Island’, the quiet ecology and terrain of daytime meet light and sound after dark and awaken as a landscape of new sensation. Drawing on the organic and ecological outlook of Thomas Heatherwick’s <Soundscape> project — he is the designer behind the island’s new architecture — together with Louis Kahn’s ‘Silence and Light’, it portrays the moment a silent island meets the language of light and turns into a new artistic scene.

The exhibition’s narrative begins with the energies that make up Nodeul Island and the Hangang River: water, fire, soil, air and the light of life. The ceaselessly flowing water of the Hangang connects the city’s time and memory, while fire stands for the fierce force that wakes the darkness and for the moment energy transforms. Soil, accumulated over long ages, becomes the ground that sustains the island’s life and our shared memory, and air becomes the invisible medium that links the movement and breath of visitors with wind and sound. And the energy of life generated as all these elements relate and circulate will expand the whole island into a single living landscape.

Across the island, visitors will encounter futures, experiences and scenes beyond what we imagined, carried by the light and sound of each distinct work. Each work breathing with the festival holds its own rhythm while varying and overlapping with the others, forming one great current that connects us all. As both participants and observers, audiences relate to the space through their own movement and senses, and become the subject of the exhibition. In this way the festival’s overarching theme, <Rhapsody of Light>, rewrites the nature of Nodeul Island and the memory of the city in a contemporary language of light, creating a new nocturnal landscape and epic for the megacity of Seoul, made together by art and technology, nature and people.

Kira Kim, Art Director

Artworks

AKA Chang

PAMUN 波紋

2026, Immersive audio-laser visual installation

Multimmersion 浸漬的()線 : Upside Down V2

2026, Immersive audio-laser visual installation

Aka Chang is a new media/light artist based in Taipei, Taiwan. Using lasers and digital technology, he explores the relationships between light, space, and human perception. At the Festival, he presents his representative works and readjusted to Nodeul Island’s natural environment. Harmonizing with the surface of the Han River, his artworks create a landscape of ever-shifting light. This is a space of immersion and contemplation created by lasers, light, sound and haze.

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Quiet Ensemble

Firmamento

2026, immersive audio-laser visual installation

Quiet Ensemble is an artist duo based in Italy. Using light, sound and technology, they explore phenomena and scenes that often go unnoticed because they are too distant or too small to perceive. , presented at the Festival, uses numerous steel wires and lasers to bring distant constellations down to a scale we can perceive. A soundscape generated from astronomical data blends with the ever-shifting constellations of light, creating the sensation of stepping among the stars.

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MUTO

MUTO GROUND : NODEUL

Audiovisual live, about 60 min

The project MUTO has established a contemporary musical language by adding the traditional Korean instrument geomungo to electronic/alternative music. At the Festival, they mainly perform original tracks while also presenting collaborative works encompassing Korean folk songs, traditional Korean music and dance. They also bring an audiovisual live set combining LED visuals, lasers and lighting.

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CIFIKA

Old Fantasy

Audiovisual live, about 60 min

CIFIKA is an artist who has presented dreamlike electronic pop that bridges the realms of sound and visuals. At the Festival, she mainly performs her 10th anniversary album “Old Fantasy,” sharing on stage her musical journey from classical music to trip hop and electronica. Plus, she brings a nonstop live set including the intro and outro tracks she composed specifically for the Festival.

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VAKKI

Rhythms of What Remains

Media art, audiovisual performance, about 60 min

VAKKI is a visual and media artist who explores the link between color, form and rhythm across diverse media including painting, installation, video, sound and performance. In this performance, she reconstructs images and memories collected from urban alleys and markets, using AI and digital technology. Doing so, she brings to life the Korean sense of joy found in these images and memories through an audiovisual performance combining electronic music with visuals.

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HONG Buhm

Memory Weeds

2016-2026, mixed media, variable installation

HONG Buhm has created works that expand memories and experiences, which are accumulated and transformed over time, into spaces through diverse media. The artist reconfigured (expansion of his signature series ) for the connecting bridge of Nodeul Island. The artwork unfolds a narrative of memories that get lost, wander and return. Dichroic structures, light and sound form one single flow, visualizing the transformation and layering of memories.

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Creative HAP

Bitseom: Path of Light

2026, LED, sound

Creative HAP reimagines nature and space through the “sum” (“hap” in Korean) of planning, sensibility and technology. In , light follows the pedestrian walkway of about 300 meters along the Han River bridge, leading to Nodeul Island. Following the railing of the bridge, the ever-shifting light accompanies visitors as they walk, heralding the start of the “Rhapsody of Light” unfolding on Nodeul Island. In this way, the artwork transforms the familiar scenery of the bridge into a special experience that sets the stage for the Festival.

Pavilion of Light

Laser, LED, sound, smog bubble, 2026

Filling Nodeul Square with light, transforms the moment of entering the festival venue into a symbolic scene. Vertically soaring lasers and multi-layered, dynamic lighting serve as a luminous beacon revealing the existence of Nodeul Island, as well as a guide leading visitors to the heart of the Festival space.

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Spatial Practice

Luminous Nodeul Willows

Star laser, speaker, sound, 2026

Spatial Practice explores the potential for expanding nature and space through light and technology. is a light installation that reimagines the willow trees of Nodeul Island with light. Laser beams and starlight spread and scatter amid the trunks and branches and shift in harmony with the trees’ forms and movements. In this way, the artwork transforms the natural landscape into a dreamlike scene of light. As visitors walk between the willows awakened by the light, they experience the intersection of vital energy and light.

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CHOI Chongwoon

Beyond the Space

2021, found glass objects, flashlights, RPLiDAR sensor, Arduino, computer, acrylic, shrinkable tube, stainless steel wire, sound mixer, speakers, Variable installation

CHOI Chongwoon visualizes “calm tension” within objects and spaces through light, sound and kinetic installation. In , light passes through everyday glass objects to reveal each object’s own colors and patterns. Accompanied by music, the artwork creates a space evoking the Milky Way and the cosmos. These light-infused, ordinary objects turn into a cosmic landscape.

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JEONG Jeong ju

Curved Lights 2021

2021, Stainless steel, LED light, 170x280x280cm, 20 units

Inspired by architectural spaces and sites, JEONG Jeongju creates installation works that explore the link between light and space, human perception and psychology. gives sculptural form to immaterial light through a curved lighting structure. The artwork embodies shifting light within a sculptural framework, revealing the connection of light and space in a new way.

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JIN&PARK

Odyssey – On the Orbit of Time

2022, 7-channel sound and video, 6 min

JIN&PARK (JIN Dallae and PARK Woohyuk) is an artist duo that explores the order and sensibilities through which we perceive the world, working across the realms of video, installation and performance based on design and typography. is a seven-channel video and sound installation that reconstructs real-world events and memories into an abstract space and time. In this way, the artwork unfolds images and sensations that repeat and accumulate over time.

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KIM Junsoo

Axis of the Eternal

2025, DC motor, stainless steel, crystal, prism, gear, Cree LED, etc. 1200x500x500cm

KIM Junsoo gives physical form to invisible worlds and subtle events, creating new spatial experiences through mechanical movement and light. reinterprets traditional Korean pagodas through light and motion, extending the origins of memory into the present. The artwork suggests a new kind of heritage experience where past sensations and future imagination coexist, placing viewers at the threshold where past and future intersect.

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University

University Collaboration (Konkuk University, University of Seoul, Sungshin Women’s University)

Through light-sculpture works and hands-on light-play experiences, this presents festival content
that blends university students’ creative perspectives with citizen participation.

Konkuk University × KIM Jaenam

Words: Balloon

2026, steel, aluminum, LED strip, microphone, acrylic, wire, 400(W)x250(D)x300(H)cm

The contemporary art team from Konkuk University explores the interplay of light, sound, form and viewers. visualizes the natural environment of Nodeul Island and human voices through shifting light. As light, sound and the surrounding landscape harmonize, the work creates a scene where nature and humanity coexist and communicate.

I Bring This Up Now : Konkuk

This is a light-themed activity where participants use UV markers to write on balloons things they haven’t said yet, in a space illuminated by UV light. It offers a chance to freely express feelings that are usually left unsaid through words that appear only under the light. Participants can take their finished balloons home.

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University of Seoul × SON Jongjun

Nodeul’s Trip

2026, FRP, LED lighting, 170(W)x170(D)x330(H)cm

The sculpture team from the University of Seoul presents a work that connects sculpture, light and the ecosystem of Nodeul Island. < Nodeul’s Trip > playfully depicts narrow-mouthed toads, which are native to the island, stacking themselves into a tower. In this way, the artwork offers an approachable way to engage with the island’s life and natural environment.

Nodeul’s Bamboo Forest

This is a light-themed activity where participants send messages of well-wishes and encouragement to Nodeul Island’s narrow-mouthed toads that prepare their winter hibernation. Participants write messages with fluorescent pens on toad-shaped note cards and hang them on a miniature wetland. In this way, they complete the small wetland for toads with their messages.

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Sungshin Women’s University × JEONG Jeong ju

Nodeul’s Breath

2026, steel pipes, fiber optics, synthetic and fibrous materials, lighting, sound system, 500(W)x450(D)×350(H)cm

The sculpture team from Sungshin Women’s University integrates light, sound and sensors into sculpture to connect the space and the viewer’s experience. Through an organic structure where light and sound change in response to the viewer’s movements, shows us that Nodeul Island’s memories, present, people and environment breathe together.

Sculpture of Light, Line of Sound

This light-themed activity enables visitors to translate different sounds and moments from Nodeul Island into dots and lines and to make lights out of them. Participants trace the visual patterns of sounds by punching holes in paper and weave optical fibers into the paper. Mounted on the wall, their pieces complete a landscape of light gathering together sounds from Nodeul Island.

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Artists

AKA Chang

AKA Chang is a Taiwanese media artist who places light and human perception at the centre of his practice. Through repetition and symmetrical and asymmetrical arrangements of light, he explores the texture of light and its relationship with a range of media. Using light as a medium, he connects time, space, sound and human presence to build three-dimensional audiovisual structures.

Quiet Ensemble

Quiet Ensemble is an artist duo founded by Fabio Di Salvo and Bernardo Vercelli, exploring the relationship between nature and technology through light, sound and technology. They attend to phenomena too small, too distant or too slow to be easily perceived, revealing the ‘invisible concerts’ hidden within them as audiovisual experiences.

MUTO

MUTO, whose name evokes a ‘vast expanse of land’, is a project bringing together graphic artist Park Hoon-kyu, geomungo player Park Woo-jae, Shin Beom-ho of Idiotape and media artist Hong Chan-hyuk. Working from electronic and alternative music, they build a harmony with the geomungo, a traditional Korean instrument, while continuing to question originality and contemporaneity. On a foundation of fused Eastern and Western music, they extend their forms of expression into media art and lighting art, creating a new kind of performing art.

CIFIKA

CIFIKA is a singer-songwriter and producer who moves freely between sound and visuals, building her own musical world on a foundation of dreamlike electronic pop. She unfolds human emotion through themes of nature, the cosmos and the future, presenting a constantly shifting musical world through electronic and experimental sound.

VAKKI

VAKKI is a visual artist and media artist working across painting, media art, installation and performance, based on colour and geometric form. Centring on ‘relation, combination and circulation’, she explores the energy generated and transferred between people and objects, space and image, turning the familiar world into a new order of sensation through colour, form and rhythm.

HONG Buhm

HONG Buhm connects and reveals memory and experience as they change over time, across media including drawing, video and installation. Focusing on the reciprocal relationship between place and memory, he explores the layered, shifting structure of remembrance, creating synaesthetic experiences that transcend time and space through non-linear, abstract scenes.

Creative HAP

Creative HAP is a project team assembled fluidly from planners, designers and technical specialists according to each subject. Through the ‘hap’ (union) of planning that explores the context of a space, a sensibility that renders intangible media as artistic scenes, and the technology to realise them precisely, the team adds an unfamiliar rhythm to everyday landscapes and creates new spatial experiences.

Spatial Practice

Spatial Practice is an art and spatial direction team exploring new possibilities for space through light and technology. Using lasers and a range of other media and spatial elements, they reinterpret the structure and environment of a site and realise sensory scenes created by light and movement. Working across many fields, they develop technology into an artistic language that expands the experience of space.

CHOI Chongwoon

CHOI Chongwoon explores ‘calmtension’ — a state in which the energy seeking to maintain calm coexists with the opposing energy of tension. Through found objects and a range of sculptural methods, he continually varies states of balance and coexistence produced by differing forces, from the interior of the human mind to the natural world.

JEONG Jeong ju

JEONG Jeong ju has continued to make installations that draw on architectural space and place to explore space, light and the perceptual and psychological relationships of human beings. He uses light as the key medium revealing how we perceive space and relate to others, reconfiguring the viewer’s psychological experience and spatial awareness through interventions of architecture and light.

JIN&PARK

The art collective Jindallae & Park Woohyok observes how the order of the world we see and understand is constructed, and explores the invisible senses and intuitions that coexist beneath it. Across media including two-dimensional work, video, installation and performance, they evoke sensation and memory and lead us toward a new awareness of the world’s order and of time and space.

KIM Junsoo

KIM Junsoo realises events of the microscopic world as tangible matter in reality. Working chiefly with mechanical devices and metal, he creates sensations as uncanny as virtual reality within the real, through combinations of calculated mechanical movement and finely adjusted light and sound.

Konkuk University

The Konkuk University Contemporary Art team is an emerging-artist project group formed by supervising professor KIM Jaenam together with undergraduate and graduate students (Kim Min-gyu, Kim Se-jin, Kim Su-jong, No Ul, Lee Si-yeon, Lim In-gu). Working from media technology and interaction, they explore the relationships arising between light, sound, form, space and the audience, extending their work into a contemporary art experience that changes with the audience’s participation.

University of Seoul

The University of Seoul Sculpture team comprises supervising professor SON Jongjun and graduate students (Geum Ye-jin, Kim Kyung-a, Kim Min-jung, Ma Hae-song, Lee Seo-hyun, Lee So-jung, Lee Woong-bin, Heo Chan, Hwang Ryeon-seon). Working from fine-art sculpture, they explore a range of materials and sculptural methods; for this project they connect sculpture, light and the ecology of Nodeul Island to create a place where visitors can encounter and engage with art and nature.

Sungshin Women’s University

The Sungshin Women’s University Sculpture team comprises supervising professor JEONG Jeong ju and graduate students (Bae Yun-jae, Oh Woo-young, Park Ji-yeon, Kang Young-hwan, Cho Sung-hyuk, Jang Seo-hee, Cheon Han-seo, Lee Seo-young). Building on sculpture, they combine light, sound and sensors to connect the environment of public space with the visitor’s experience. Translating the remembered and present sensations of Nodeul Island into an organic structure and shifting light, they propose public artworks that visitors can dwell within and add to.

445, Yangnyeong-ro, Yongsan-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea (04427)

Nodeul Island, Hangang River

Festival Office : +82-2-790-7555

Seoul Light Hangang Bitseom Festival 2026

2026.10.2.(Fri) ~ 10.11.(Sun)

Operating Hours 18:30 ~ 22:30

MAP

Terms of Use

These Terms govern the conditions and procedures for using the official website (the “Site”) of the “2026 Seoul Light Hangang Bitseom Festival: Rhapsody of Light,” hosted by the Seoul Metropolitan Government, as well as the rights, obligations and responsibilities of users and the Operator.

Article 1 (Purpose)

These Terms set out the matters necessary for users to access all services provided on the Site (the “Services”), including festival information, programme guides, online reservations and enquiries.

Article 2 (Definitions)

“Festival” means the 2026 Seoul Light Hangang Bitseom Festival, held across Nodeul Island from Friday 2 October to Sunday 11 October 2026.
“User” means any person who accesses the Site and uses the Services.
“Operator” means the organisations hosting and organising the Festival, and any party operating the Site under their delegation.
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Article 3 (Effect and Amendment of the Terms)

These Terms take effect upon being posted on the Site. The Operator may amend these Terms within the limits permitted by applicable law. Any amendment will be announced on the Site at least 7 days before its effective date, specifying the effective date and the reason for the change. Where an amendment is disadvantageous to Users, it will be announced at least 30 days in advance.

Article 4 (Provision and Modification of Services)

Provision of Festival information, including the overview, programmes, schedule and venues
Online registration and guidance for programmes requiring advance reservation, such as Light Run and Lecture
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Other Festival-related supplementary services determined by the Operator

The Operator may modify all or part of the Services in response to operational or technical requirements. Any such modification will be announced in advance on the Site.

Article 5 (Suspension of Services)

The Operator may temporarily suspend the Services where unavoidable circumstances arise, including system inspection, maintenance or replacement, communication failure, natural disaster, adverse weather, or the need to ensure visitor safety. In such cases, the Operator will announce the reason and the expected duration without delay.

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Addendum

Effective date: 1 January 2026
Terms of Use version: 1.0.0

Privacy Policy

The Operator of the “2026 Seoul Light Hangang Bitseom Festival: Rhapsody of Light” (the “Operator”) establishes and discloses the following Privacy Policy in accordance with Article 30 of the Personal Information Protection Act, in order to protect the personal information of data subjects and to handle related grievances promptly and smoothly.

Article 1 (Purpose of Processing Personal Information)

The Operator processes personal information for the following purposes and does not use it for any other purpose.

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The Operator processes and retains personal information within the retention and use period prescribed by law, or within the period consented to by the data subject.

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Article 5 (Outsourcing of Personal Information Processing)

The Operator may outsource website operation and maintenance and reservation system operation to external parties for the smooth running of the Festival. When concluding an outsourcing agreement, matters concerning the secure management of personal information are specified in the contract, and any change of trustee will be disclosed through this Policy.

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Administrative measures: establishing and implementing an internal management plan, minimising the number of handling staff, and providing regular training
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Personal Information Protection Officer: Festival Operations Office representative
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Article 11 (Remedies for Infringement of Rights)

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Personal Information Dispute Mediation Committee: 1833-6972 (www.kopico.go.kr)
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Addendum

Effective date: 1 January 2026
Privacy Policy version: 1.0.0
Where content is added to, deleted from or amended in this Policy, notice will be given on the website at least 7 days before it takes effect.

공연예약

Terms of Use

Article 1 (Purpose)

Article 2 (Definitions)

Article 3 (Effect and Amendment of the Terms)

Article 4 (Provision and Modification of Services)

Article 5 (Suspension of Services)

Article 6 (Attendance and Programme Reservations)

Article 7 (Obligations of Users)

Article 8 (Management of Postings)

Article 9 (Ownership of Copyright)

Article 10 (Disclaimer)

Article 11 (Resolution of Disputes)

Addendum

Privacy Policy

Article 1 (Purpose of Processing Personal Information)

Article 2 (Items of Personal Information Collected and Methods of Collection)

Article 3 (Processing and Retention Period of Personal Information)

Article 4 (Provision of Personal Information to Third Parties)

Article 5 (Outsourcing of Personal Information Processing)

Article 6 (Rights and Obligations of Data Subjects and How to Exercise Them)

Article 7 (Destruction of Personal Information)

Article 8 (Measures to Ensure the Security of Personal Information)

Article 9 (Installation and Operation of Automatic Collection Devices, and Refusal Thereof)

Article 10 (Personal Information Protection Officer)

Article 11 (Remedies for Infringement of Rights)

Article 12 (Refusal of Unauthorised Email Collection)

Addendum