Watch: This Crashing Wave Art Installation in South Korea Brings Seaside Tranquility to a Busy City

These waves won't unexpectedly soak your beach towel when the tide comes in.
These waves won't unexpectedly soak your beach towel when the tide comes in. / d'strict, YouTube
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Since residents of Seoul, South Korea, can’t exactly enjoy the sight of ocean waves breaking on the shore during their lunch hour, a design house is bringing them the next best thing: An enormous screen that plays realistic waves on a loop in the middle of the city.

Travel + Leisure reports that the installation, titled WAVE, is an anamorphic illusion, a distorted image that the viewer must observe from a specific angle for it to appear multi-dimensional. It’s on display in K-Pop Square at the Coex Convention and Exhibition Center in the district of Gangnam, but you don’t have to book an international flight to check it out—the creator, a design company called d’strict, shared a mesmerizing video of the work on YouTube.

Over about two months, developers molded two LED displays together to create a screen approximately 262 feet by 65 feet, with a resolution of 7840 pixels by 1952 pixels—almost twice the resolution of ultra-high-definition. In other words, the waves on this screen look more convincing than footage of the actual ocean would on your state-of-the-art living room TV.

For 18 hours a day, locals can watch icy blue swells slosh against the sides of the virtual tank, complete with the tranquil sounds of crashing waves (though they’ll have to rely on their imaginations to catch a whiff of salty sea spray).

Looking for other immersive displays? Dive into 15 awe-inspiring virtual tours here.

[h/t Travel + Leisure]