The urban paradigm of the Asian metropolitan city is built on an increasingly divergent narrative of modernisation and industrial development vis-à-vis its Western counterpart. Backed by an essential ethos of history and tradition, while at the same time propelled by a pointed desire for dissociation from a past painted by colonial rule and an urgent sense of “catching up” with the global development prerogative, the "Asian City of Tomorrow"—as architect Rem Koolhaas would christen it in his 1995 book, S, M, L, XL, is a coming together of—and staying with—dualities and contradictions. Apart from their urban character, the development of these cities in all other aspects post the Second World War was shaped by the sizeable trade they were beginning to conduct in the overall commercial mechanics of the world. The Asian megalopolis, contrary to the American one with an unprecedented vertical ascend in its structures, and the European one with its inkling of a different kind of urban-architectural history altogether, was touted to be spectacular, racier, more dynamic, and hyper-urban. This was while dealing with unprecedented numbers in terms of density and urban sprawl that has forced Asia to, "construct in 20 years the same amount of urban substance as the whole of Western Europe,” as theorised by Koolhaas in his text.¹

An imagery of contrast and juxtaposition, of neon-lit edifices and central city quarters against shanty apartment blocks that cater to that density became a staple of South Asian urbanism. Seoul, particularly of the 90s, is a forebearer and prime example of that image. While the collapse of the Seongsu Bridge across the Han River in 1994 proved to be a solemn punctuation, a point of rest and reflection in that accelerated narrative, Seoul nonetheless emerged as a major urban centre characterised by a vibrant front, heritage, and pop culture.

It is an assemblage of contradictory prerogatives that have then lent the city a definitive identity in terms of its urban growth, as well as the aestheticism associated with it. Much of the genre of cyberpunk and the Hollywood sci-fi canon, although not entirely mutually exclusive, are fuelled by a near fetishisation and stylisation of the urban 'image' of cities like Seoul. The neon-lit streets, bustling and bursting at the seams with a near orchestral movement of crowds, their incomprehensible babble with traffic, street food vendors, and the occasional patter of rain are contrasted against a section of the city working and housed in the proverbial Babelic tower laying in slumber, mostly relegated to a backdrop. These are all not just constituents of that urban image, but also factors in that image’s lingering resilience and longevity in collective memory. Yet another duality exists here, wherein the city—almost akin to a living entity—offers up places of respite and discontinuity that people appropriate and belong in. These narratives form part of an overbearing mythology that is at the very heart of ‘Delight’, a new multimedia exhibit traversing the “past, present, and future” of Seoul. In a disused Victorian railway archway in London’s Borough Yards, visitors are guided through a flurry of screens, lights, sounds, projections, and installations that double up as the urban interface of the “Asian city of tomorrow”, and as purveyors of Seoul’s enduring architectural image.

The multimedia exhibition, created by Seoul-based artist Gyoungtae Hong and exhibition director Younsook Im, with support from acclaimed curator, Daehyung Lee, was first staged on home ground before making its way to London. The juxtaposition of the two locations, just as in the subject matter, is equally interesting, and Delight draws from it. Walking through the rather iconic bricked arches and vaults—restored from their industrial heritage to housing a sociocultural retail hub—to view twelve exhibits or ‘zones’, the inescapable sense of history as a canvas itself, against which a narration of contemporary modernistic life plays, seems key to the experience. Then again, the transposition of a city’s experience to another is a feat in itself, made possible through urban markers and identifiers that become synonymous with the city’s image, such as London’s Borough Yards, among many, that Italian architect Aldo Rossi would call "urban artefacts".² In the case of Seoul, it is the iconicity of the very skin, the media facades, of its contemporary architecture, along with a bridging of the ‘old’ and ‘new’ that serves this purpose. In conversation with STIR, curator Daehyung Lee remarked on this transposition, “Digital media is a veritable alchemist’s tool that compresses, reshapes, melds and reframes the very fabric of time and space. This medium effortlessly bridges the once-distant divides between now and then, lore and truth, the fantastical and the flesh-and-blood. We know that a city’s full character—both what we can touch and what we feel—can't be completely captured by digital technology. Yet, digital media still shows us a different side of a city. It lets us see parts of the city we might not otherwise notice, bringing to light new stories and perspectives for us to discover."

The scope of the exhibition, traversing over a thousand years of Korean history through arts and literature from as long ago as the 12^th century, up to their assimilation and sustenance in the fabric of modern society, warrants the sizeable displays, composed here of multiple 8K images spread across 1240 square meters. From the first zone on, the experiential walk dwells on a sensorial overwhelming characteristic of Seoul’s urban zeitgeist and a certain ‘rhythm’ that now defines the pace of life in the city. The tempo oscillates, opening with the sound of overlapping testimonies of Seoul residents filmed and presented via a grid of suspended screens in PERSONA: Between “I” and “We”, that leads to a space of absolute silence illuminated by 631 glowing lights that change colour throughout the day in an allusion to the 631 years since Korea’s last dynasty, Joseon, who moved the country’s capital to Seoul.

Revered shamanic deities from the pantheon of Korean mythology, and iconic marketplaces such as Myeongdong, come alive in layered immersive landscapes and digital projections in the following zone, echoing the way Seoul houses its mythical divine forest behind “artificial constructs”. On a mezzanine floor above, in Shinro: God’s Road, an array of freestanding Ionic order columns interspersed with stone-carved deities converge on the neon-lit words, “the old stories that began with stone and wood”. Through a combination of hand sculpted idols, classically proportioned architectural columns, and sharp beams of light cutting through them, the display points to a muddled genesis of creation itself, and the persistent value of folklore and storytelling in a hyper-modern context.

Elsewhere, Resonance and Collage:Gwanghwa, a couple of displays with two-dimensional bricolages of Seoul’s characteristic urban-visual identity, both abstracted and didactic, wash the viewer in a barrage of lights, words, and a spectrum of digital 'information' from decades of the city’s urban development, presenting them as simplified stories of sight and sound. Neon Nostalgia and The Moon: homage and regression double up as contrarian displays strategically placed a doorway apart from each other. While the former presents, again, a deluge of sourced neon signs, as if charting a mental map of Seoul’s night time districts, the latter confronts with an alternative, peaceful nocturnal vision of a full moon setting and rising again in a disruption of the diurnal, staged over a reflecting body of water. Delight, in this way, bears enough metaphysical parallels to evoke what residents, viewers, visitors, and tourists may associate with the city as their experience of a city as multifaceted as Seoul. "Seeking respite from urban chaos, one might find solace in a secluded mountain temple or beside the tranquil sea. Surrounded by the chorus of forest life, the wind's hush, and waves' cadence, the sensation of a damp breeze touches the skin. Such moments pivot from mere observation to deep self-reflection and meditation, uncovering hidden significances. The real test is to see beyond the city's dazzling neon and information overload to the profound truths beneath,” Lee further comments on Seoul’s harbouring of this duality of urban experience.

There is, of course, owing to the quantum of displays and a personal experiential bias, a space for favourites here. Arresting as it was tranquil, Poetry Vanishes is staged through projections of faint spots of light juxtaposed with poetry upon an arched opening covered with frosted glass. The setup succeeds in blurring the visitor’s position as being on either side of a building’s physical facia, transforming it into an interface onto which the patter of rain and the racing down of raindrops evokes a rather tranquil passage of time, sans urgency. The poetry, cast on to that interface, is fated to a similar fleeting dissolution. The apparent verbosity of Goblins: We Live with the Household Gods, an expansive piece occupying the entire first floor of Delight’s second hall, is overcome by its distinct structural staging, with powerful beams of white light piercing a wireframed series of arches, meant to signify a cohabitation with deities central to Korean household culture, and how these deities might manifest themselves in the digital age.

Lee further ruminates on the aforementioned duality, commenting on it as the conceptual spine of the project. “Duality weaves through 'Delight', casting the symbiotic play of illumination and its inevitable counterpart, shadow, as a metaphor for our times. The exhibit laments the fading heartbeat of tradition and historical recollection amidst the relentless march of urban progress, echoing the juxtaposition of the digital and analog realms. It proposes an axiom of existence: that every advancement is twinned with a loss, and within the bloom of innovation, the seeds of the old wither."

Delight London remains on display at the Borough Yards in London until January 2024 from where it may return home—or travel elsewhere in the world. A part of this global travail, I suspect, and what may be an inept summation of the point of it, is a reflection beyond Seoul. There is much more going on here than a mere meeting of the ancient and modern. In a time where digital nomadism is increasingly becoming a conscious choice, and cities’ borders are at the same time concrete to the outsider and amorphous to the insider, Delight prompts a discovery of an individual’s grounding, one’s relationship to place, and what makes one belong—home or not.

References

^1.Rem Koolhaas, S, M, L, XL: Office for Metropolitan Architecture (Rotterdam: 010, 1995).
^2.Aldo Rossi, The Architecture of the City (Padova, 1966).

(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position of STIR or its Editors.)