Arc ZERO Eclipse: James Tapscott’s sublime intervention of Light and Mist in Seoul

Unveiled at Godeok I Park in Gangdong gu, Seoul, Arc ZERO Eclipse marks a new chapter in Australian artist James Tapscott’s ongoing exploration of light, water, and atmosphere. Recently recognised with a major LIT award, the installation introduces a quietly powerful presence into the rapidly developing urban landscape of eastern Seoul, offering a moment of stillness amid movement, infrastructure, and growth.

Installed within a rooftop garden of a new mixed use development, the work transforms an overlooked corner into a contemplative threshold between city, river, and sky. Seen up close or from afar, Eclipse operates simultaneously as landmark and refuge, an artwork that resists spectacle while achieving an unmistakable visual gravity.

Arc ZERO Eclipse evolves from Tapscott’s earlier Arc ZERO works, first realised in Japan in 2017 under the title Nimbus. While Nimbus installations often embraced a more architectural and immersive condition, frequently wrapping their luminous rings around bridges or infrastructural elements, Eclipse shifts the emphasis toward perception. Space, water, and light become the primary materials through which the work is experienced.

Here, the ring is no longer an enclosing environment but a visual phenomenon. The arc sits directly within a body of water, its circular form completed by reflection. The installation reads less as an object and more as an event, one that emerges fully only through the viewer’s movement, time of day, and atmospheric conditions.

LIGHT, WATER, AND THE ILLUSION OF WEIGHTLESSNESS

At the heart of Eclipse is a half ring set within a custom infinity reflecting pool. As darkness falls, the form appears to detach from gravity, hovering in space while emitting fine illuminated mist that drifts outward like spectral flame. The reflected arc completes the circle, dissolving the boundary between physical structure and optical illusion.

Unlike controlled indoor versions of Arc ZERO, where the central void often appears dense and almost solid, this outdoor iteration remains deliberately open. The void frames the bridge beyond, allowing the surrounding city to enter the composition. The artwork does not isolate itself from context but absorbs it, turning infrastructure, traffic, and distant movement into part of its visual field.

MATERIAL PRECISION AND VISUAL ABSENCE

A defining feature of this Seoul installation is the bespoke diamond profile of the ring itself. Technically demanding to fabricate, the profile is designed to minimise reflection of the viewer. By avoiding mirrored self image, the work sustains immersion, preventing the experience from collapsing back into self awareness.

This restraint reflects Tapscott’s broader artistic approach. Rather than simulating natural phenomena through digital effects, he consistently works with elemental materials directly. Mist is mist, light is light, water is water. The technology recedes, allowing sensory experience to come forward with clarity and simplicity.

A PUBLIC ARTWORK IN MOTION

Positioned at the edge of the rooftop garden, Eclipse was carefully sited to engage both close and distant audiences. From within the garden, it offers a place of pause for residents and visitors. From the nearby freeway and surrounding buildings, the drifting illuminated mist registers as a moving, textural presence in the urban nightscape.

This dual visibility reinforces the work’s public dimension. Eclipse does not demand attention but rewards it, revealing different qualities depending on speed, distance, and duration of encounter. It becomes part of the city’s rhythm rather than an interruption of it.

Arc ZERO has appeared in multiple locations worldwide, with a permanent installation in Kaohsiung, Taiwan receiving the CODA award for landscape art in 2023. The Seoul iteration continues this trajectory, confirming the work’s adaptability across cultural and geographic contexts while maintaining a consistent philosophical core.

Commissioned and curated by Seoul public art agency The Ton, with project curation by Jane Lee, Arc ZERO Eclipse stands as a refined example of contemporary public art. It demonstrates how minimal form and elemental materials can produce profound spatial and emotional resonance, offering a rare experience of coexistence between the human, the built, and the natural within the contemporary city.

Project Credit

Arc ZERO: Eclipse (2025)
Location: Godeok-I Park, Gangdong-gu, Seoul, Korea
8 meter diameter ring in 9m x 6m reflection pool
Polished stainless steel, led, high-pressure mist, acrylic, water
Firm: Studio JT / @James_Tapscott_art
Photo: Studio JT