d’strict is a pioneering digital art and design company based in South Korea that was established in 2004. Over the past two decades, it has redefined digital experiences through captivating, user-centric content based on the company’s expertise in digital craftsmanship and cutting-edge media technologies. The company received acclaim as a leading creative group in 2020 for WAVE (2020), a public media artwork featured at COEX Artium, and WATERFALL (2021) at New York’s Times Square. ARTE MUSEUM, Korea’s largest immersive media art exhibition venue launched by the company in 2020, has welcomed over six million visitors so far. d’strict continues to engage in diverse projects to achieve its goal of expanding into a global hub of culture and the arts and finding new audiences for its innovative, digitally-grounded spatial experiences.
OCEAN, 2022/2024
Projected installation, multi-channel video, sound, 1 min.
The artwork featured in this exhibition is OCEAN (2022), a large projection screen installation of dark, surging waves that appear to engulf everything in their path. This installation offers visitors a hyper-realistic experience, enhanced by a powerful sonic landscape created in collaboration with Jang Younggyu, a first-generation Korean indie bassist and noted composer, music director, and producer.
ECHO, 2024
Installation, eight-channel kinetic sound and light.
‘ECHO,’ launched in 2024 as part of the new ‘d’strict Art Project,’ is a creative initiative, aiming to establish a collaborative network of multidisciplinary experts on a global scale. Building on the foundation set by a’strict, the media art unit within d'strict, this project functions as an expansive platform for creative exploration, inviting both in-house and external professionals across diverse fields and generations.
The first piece, ECHO, features ‘Kinetic Sound,’ a dynamic integration of a soundscape derived from black hole observation data and a light installation. At the core of the installation is a rotating sodium lamp surrounded by an eight-channel sound system. Together, they simulate the movement of energy near black holes – a domain that remains largely unexplored and immeasurable. The piece is designed to create an immersive experience where visitors lose their sense of place. ECHO offers distinctive spatial expression of physics theories including Doppler’s shift, and relativity, from the perspectives of a black hole, a massive gravitational distortion, and a photon, the smallest unit of light. The installation serves as a transformative medium, momentarily taking visitors from the real world into the realm of scientific phenomena.
The project is the outcome of a one-of-a-kind collaborative effort led by d’strict’s creative direction. It involves notable contributions from Erin Kara, Assistant Professor at the MIT Department of Physics and observational astrophysicist; Ian Condry, founder of the MIT Spatial Sound Lab; Kyle Keane, Professor at University of Bristol, UK, who developed sonification from black hole data models; KKOL Studio, which created spatial design of the light and sound installation; and oOps.50656, a Korean new media composer and artist collective that produced multi-channel sonification and sound producing for the project.
d'strict, based in South Korea, est. 2004
Erin Kara, Assistant Professor, MIT Department of Physics, USA
Ian Condry, Professor, Founder of MIT Spatial Sound Lab, USA
Kyle Keane, Professor, University of Bristol, UK
KKOL Studio, Architecture Design Studio, South Korea
Hyeji Bae, Euisun Yoon, Subin Haam
oOps.50656, Media Artist Collective, South Korea
Gyuchul Moon, Sunjeong Hwang
FLOW, 2024
Projected installation, multi-channel video, sound, 8 min.
FLOW, which premiered in early 2024 at Outernet London, an immersive entertainment space that boasts the world’s highest-resolution LED screen, will be presented in Korea for the first time as part of this exhibition. This surreal “mega-art performance” explores the progression of art history that, by portraying art movements through symbolic dance moves, shows how we forge relationships with the world in which we live within the continuity of time. The sounds, produced in collaboration with multiple award-winning Australian composer Tristan Barton, breathe life into the artwork while heightening visitors’ sense of immersion.