CASE STUDYSouth Korea’s
Suwon HwaseongMedia Art Showsheds new light on
historic landmark
with Disguise
Connecting an iconic building from the past withimpressive new technology from Disguise, an art show
in South Korea oﬀered vibrant visions that seamlessly
ﬁt complex architecture.

www.disguise.one

At a glance
In this case study you will discover how
Disguise partners BasicTech, in collaboration
with Suwon Cultural Foundation and related
government parties in Korea, were able tocreate a magical experience for audiences
powered by Disguise 4x4PRO media servers.
Suwon Cultural Foundation faced a challenge when putting
together a vibrant visual display that would form a major part ofa media art event at UNESCO World Heritage site HwaseongFortress, twenty kilometers away from Seoul. Their video
imagery - an animation that considered the past, present andfuture of the area - needed to be projected onto the fortressitself in an amazing projection show.
Inspired by King Jeong-jo of the Joseon dynasty, who had built
the fortress between 1794 and 1796, the production planned touse the 220 metre-long outside wall of the fortress as a canvas.
The team aimed to produce a projection show lasting almost
twenty-ﬁve minutes and featuring dynamic motifs including thebuilding of the fortress before the audience’s eyes, as well as a
dramatic appearance by a golden dragon.
BasicTech mapped the projections on an incredibly complex
structure, with the help of Disguise, to create a spectacularshow drawing in over 310,000 visitors within 26 days to theworld heritage site.

Image credits: Lorem ipsum

The challenge
Projecting content onto complex surfaces
This sort of projection presented plenty of challenges whenattempted on simple modern structures, but Hwaseong
Fortress is an elaborate and complex 18th century building withcurved walls and delicately formed features.

Protecting the site and the neighborhood
Since Suwon Hwaseong Fortress was located in a residentialarea, the team was concerned about generating noise that willspread.
Also, since the show made use of Hwaseong Fortress, which isa UNESCO World Heritage, there were concerns aboutdamaging the site.
Additionally, due to Covid-19, social distancing measures suchas restricted seating arrangements and gate sterilisers had tobe put into place.

Image credits: Lorem ipsum

The solution
Seeking to wrap their projections around the mixture of straightand curved lines that formed the west gate of the fortress, theteam turned to Disguise’s Designer software. Disguise’s
ﬂexibility meant their 4x4PRO media servers with six DVI
outputs had no diﬃculty working with third party projectors
from Barco in order to realise the vision of the projection.
This meant that although the building was a complex shape,with projections twisting around curved corners and evenstretching onto the angled, tiled roof, the projected content was
seamless from end-to-end, with no elements distorted by thebuilding’s features.

Image credits: Lorem ipsum

BASICTECH“We found the Disguisetech was perfectly suited
to what we needed. We
were able to map all theWARP points necessary tocreate imagery thatwrapped the building,which was very helpful forthe work.”
Mr. Jong Hyun Yoon
Visual Rental Business Executive Manager

The results
The team had extra peace of mind in their ability to control
every element of the production. Through Disguise’s Designer
software, every step could be pre-visualised in advance.
Changes could be checked as soon as they were made, andthe ﬁve content teams involved in creating the show were able
to have every conﬁdence in the quality of their ﬁnal productbefore the projector was even switched on.
Through Disguise’s seamless workﬂow and the various pilot
tests and pre-rehearsals conducted by the team at BasicTech
to ﬁnd the optimal implementation of the show for the building,they were able to deliver a successful show while keeping thestructure and splendour of the Hwaseong Fortress intact.

“Disguise’s media servers oﬀer powerfulperformances such as a STAGE window thatcan be visually checked immediately. It wasalso easier to sequence our timeline inreal-time than it would have been using othermedia servers,” Yoon says.

Image credits: Lorem ipsum

Success
An 18th century fortress was brought to life by moderntechnology. The result was an incredibly successful productionthat spanned the length of the fortress walls, sending digital
vines up them one moment, and dropping vibrantcomputer-generated ribbons down them the next. In spite ofongoing Covid-19 regulations, over 310,000 people visited thefestival, which was awarded ﬁrst place for overall satisfaction
by the Cultural Heritage Administration of Korea. The
production team has no doubt that their ability to project
beautiful images from the fortress’s storied past had a majorpart to play as the festival brought history to life for its
attendees.

220300k+

1st

metre-longprojection canvas

people attended
the festival

place
awarded for overallsatisfaction

Image credits: Lorem ipsum

Disguise equipment used

DESIGNER

4X4PRO

Designer is the ultimate software
to visualise, design, andsequence projects at every stage,
from concept all the way throughto showtime.

Capable of driving up to 16 HD
LED processors for large video
surfaces, the 4x4PRO served asactor and understudy machines
backstage.

Find out more

Find out more

In Partnership with
Cultural Heritage Administration of Korea
Suwon-si, Suwon Cultural Foundation
Production Directing Team: BasicTech
BasicTech
Visual Rental Business Executive Manager:
Jong Hyeon Yoon
3D Simulation Designer (Mapping Matter):Jong Seong Yun, Hwi Jin Hwang, Dae Won LeeGet in touch
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