Display technology continues to be more advanced, eccentric, and sophisticated – permeating its way through the crevices of our daily lives from buses, offices, bakeries, and of course, the art world. LG Display’s OLED is no stranger to the art world.
In fact, the display technology already playing a critical role for many digital artists around the world, thanks to ability to expand the potential of digital art and media by providing a ‘digital canvas’ that allows artists to express the richest colors and striking visuals.
You might remember the company’s first art project titled ‘OLED Art Wave: Every Wave You Will Sense’ that was exhibited in September last year. The success of the first project paved the pathway for the company to hold a second OLED Art Wave exhibition this year titled ‘OLED Art Wave: Never Alone.’
The exhibition takes place at the Scène café/gallery at the heart of Seongsu-dong, a neighborhood that has been taking on new energy in the post-pandemic city of Seoul. Also known as Seoul’s Brooklyn, Seongsu was once lined with small factories. However recently, it has been transformed to a trendy, vibrant spot bustling with young artists and designers – making it the perfect setting for OLED Art Wave’s digital artists to show off their ingenious art.
OLED: A Digital Artist’s Secret Weapon
‘Never Alone’ Exhibition at Scène
At the ‘Never Alone’ exhibition, six famous local and global digital artists – Sung-sil Ryu, Hyang-ro Yoon, Jin-seung Jang, Eun-sol Lee, eobchae and Universal Everything – presented works that utilized OLED as a creative tool to integrate art and technology. Thanks to OLED, the artists were able to express their intended images and colors without distortion.
Once again LG Display was able to prove that Transparent OLED is the ultimate art canvas that allows artists to push the limits of their creative expression through the display’s exceptionally unique form factor.
The New & Different Art Canvas
‘Mr. Behind’ and ‘Flag’ based on 77-inch OLED panel
The artists used LG Display’s 77-inch OLED and 55-inch Transparent OLED displays to present their masterpieces. Contemporary artist Sung-sil Ryu’s piece titled Mr. Behind uses digital media art to express the spirit of his ancestors. Based on a 77-inch OLED panel, his piece signifies the true depth of OLED, a technology that isn’t merely a panel device but a modern medium to connect the past with today’s descendants. Ryu also praised the OLED panel’s ability to achieve perfect black, commenting “I wanted to create an image that emphasizes black, and I found (OLED) to be the best device to do so.”
Hyang-ro Yoon’s Flag attaches two 77-inch OLED panels from front to back. Flag uses OLED to show ‘the present’, playing a video that changes according to the real-time weather data. Regarding OLED, Yoon said, “Thanks to OLED, I was able to work on color reproduction and expression in my own way.”
The Magic of Transparent OLED
‘CONTRAPTION V001, V002’ and ‘Transfiguration 2020’ use 55-inch Transparent OLED displays
Jin-seung Jang and British media artist group Universal Everything used Transparent OLED displays to showcase a collection of futuristic artworks. Jang’s CONTRAPTION v001, v002 uses two Transparent OLED panels to show video content that signifies the future. Combining displays with their structures, piece shows two humanoids from a traditional period blending the real with the virtual, posing questions to the viewer about what form our near future will take.
Meanwhile, Universal Everything’s Transfiguration 2020 uses three Transparent OLED panels to depict humans’ changing behaviors within virtual space and reality. The Transparent OLED allowed the artists to exhibit vividly colorful images that seemed as if they were floating in mid-air.
OLED Meets Art to Create Infinite Creative Possibilities
‘Midnight Sun Daze’ and ‘Mint Your Destiny’
Moreover, Eun-sol Lee and creative team eobchae presented works that used a combination of 77-inch and 55-inch Transparent OLED displays.
Lee’s Midnight Sun Daze depicts the artist’s alter ego, illustrating how dystopia and utopia exist simultaneously in the software and blockchain technology that allow virtual figures to sustain their being. “When I encounter new technologies, I feel my plans for my next project expanding and accelerating,” said Lee, praising OLED’s influence on art.
Eobchae’s Mint Your Destiny uses a 77-inch OLED panel to present a video performance based on machine learning technology. The artwork uses a narrative of cryptocurrency and future predictions to imagine a multilayered portal structure, alluding to a future of transformations as human beings and machinery become intermixed. Eobchae’s Hwang Hwi also praised cutting-edge OLED technology, “The self-emissive OLED allowed us to accurately depict the images we intended.”
In addition to the OLED Art Wave exhibition, LG Display has also demonstrated the artistic potential of OLED in projects and collaborations across the world – from the Smithsonian and Guggenheim Museum in America, as well as the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Royal College of Art in England.
What’s next for LG Display’s art portfolio? Stay tuned to watch OLED continue its journey on becoming the next ultimate digital art medium!
