Design practice Space Popular has inserted a video installation in the gate of a historic palace in Seoul to show viewers the past and the future.
Called Gate of Bright Lights, the project is an invitation for passers-by to see how screens are portals to digital realms, and symbols of South Korea's place in the modern economy.

The screens sit in the middle opening of the Gwangmyeongmun Gate at Deoksugung Palace and play a video of a digitally-rendered wooden gate opening and shutting to reveal different scenes.
"Every time the doors of the Gate of Bright Lights shut they reveal a different design, and every time they open a new and stranger space is revealed," said Space Popular.

First the doors open to a view from a hundred years in the past, when the palace was still used by  Korea's imperial family, the House of Yi. Then it closes with a different, more ornate door, before opening to reveal an internet chat room.

The video sequence was created to draw parallels between how the palace gates once operated as the connection to the imperial family, and how today devices such as smartphones are portals to digital platforms that hold a similar level of significance in people's lives.

"Royal palaces have historically been a form of architectural mass media," said the studio in the exhibition text.
"Fortified with decoratively laid stones, held up by intricate columns and sheltered by highly ornate grand eaves, the architecture of the palace spoke t...