UHD ZOO- Bringing Safari to the City

Zoos are awesome. As a child growing up, there was nothing more exciting than jumping in the car with mom and dad, and driving to the zoo to see all the exotic animals from the picture books in real life! On the other hand, as an adult, zoos can be somewhat less exciting. First of all, there’s the long drive since zoos aren’t usually located in urban areas.  Then there’s the lack of excitement – we strive for more action in our entertainment. The animals sometimes look like they are exhausted from daydreaming about their wild days. We all know that Mother Nature is at her best untouched, so wouldn’t be the best for the wild animals to be in the wild?

It seems like Samsung knew exactly how to fix our problems. Samsung UHD (Ultra High Definition) TV hosted the ‘UHD ZOO’ exhibition in Seoul, the urban capital of Korea. On the surface, the idea might seem pretty strange. But UHD ZOO exceeded way beyond my expectations.

The UHD ZOO exhibition was the perfect opportunity to experience an African Safari without having to travel to Africa, yet, closer than you would ever get in real life.

Editors Note: FYI, we have already covered the astonishing resolution of UHD TV on this blog. But the resolution doesn’t mean much if you don’t unlock its full potential.  So what did Samsung do?   Umm.. Show amazing wild animals from an African Safari in such detail that you felt as if you were among the pack! If you had seen what they did with Samsung UHD TV at this exhibition, you would quickly be a fan of UHD TVs. Check it out.

Samsung UHD TV put a lot of time and effort into this UHD ZOO exhibition; Samsung visited Africa, after carefully planning for 117 days. A special video was filmed in Africa for 20 days with about 200 production staffs, and five representatives of animal protection society to make sure the event went off without a hitch. A variety of videos of endangered species in Rwanda were shared through 47 Samsung UHD TVs at the event.

‘Video art exhibition of endangered species, UHD ZOO with Samsung UHD TV’ was held from August 8th thru 17th, at the Beyond Museum in Cheongdam (Seoul), South Korea. The first impression of the exhibition was absolutely delightful, because they made me feel special. They let me in for free! Well, it was free for everyone, but still, anything free makes me feel special.

Samsung Electronics’ motto for the exhibition was as clear as the UHD TV display: “Discover True Detail.” Samsung wanted people to witness the stunning display of UHD TVs. Let’s just say that discovering true details was not so difficult thanks to the crisp clear display of UHD TVs.

The UHD ZOO exhibition was not just for showing off the UHD TV – no, not at all.  The main purpose was to raise awareness of endangered species. The most featured animals on this exhibition were all endangered species, like lemurs and gorillas. The exhibition emphasized how everyone, including corporations, should work hard to preserve and protect the endangered animals around the world.

Now that we went over the serious stuff, let’s check out some animals! FYI, I might not be as informative like ‘Docent audio guide’, which was available for everyone at the exhibition, but I’m the best guide you have for now. So be calm and carry on.

Mountain gorillas are critically endangered species, with about 600 remaining gorillas today. It was definitely more than amazing to be able to see these endangered species in the city, through Samsung UHD TV! Seeing them through the UHD screen made me realize how beautiful and peaceful nature is. It made me hope that these beautiful creatures are well preserved and protected. Yes, I had my emotional moment. Don’t worry. I didn’t cry…out loud.

Check out this cute sea turtle crawling across the white sand. Isn’t it just adorable? I learned that these turtles need to come out of the ocean to breathe to survive. However, many of them can’t make it out of the ocean, because hundreds of sea turtles are being trapped and killed by commercial fishing fleets every year. Guess what? Now they are another endangered species!

Meet this monkey called black and white ruffed lemur. This bad boy made it all the way to Hollywood and was featured in a movie called ‘Madagascar’. OK, it was an animated movie, so he wasn’t really present on the movie set. However, that wasn’t the only reason. This species is endangered. In the last 27 years, there has been an 80% decrease in black and white ruffed lemurs. They are slowly losing their habitat from aggressive urbanization. Also, the island’s indigenous people are hunting the ruffed lemurs for food. Black ruffed lemurs need some good news people!

Back to the mountain gorillas! Don’t let the size and the red eyes scare you. They are herbivorous animals, they only eat plants. Did you know their DNA matches 99% to human beings? They also live and behave in family units! It is quite humbling to see how different we look from each other yet we are really so similar. Mountain gorillas are usually found in Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, and Rwanda. And the estimated total number of mountain gorillas is about 600.

By the way, it was pretty amazing how up close I felt to these animals without fearing for my life. The UHD TV experience from this event truly brought the best out of its amazing display. I’ve never been to Africa, but I felt that I was looking at these animals in real life at an extremely close distance.

Even though, you might like wild animals, petting them is pretty much off limits. However, the ‘Touching Zone’ section of the exhibition let me experience what petting a wild animal would feel like, of course, minus the sensation of ‘touch’. When you pet the animal on the screen, it reacts to your touch with movements and sounds. So it feels like you are actually interacting with the animals, especially because the image looks so real!

At the gift shop, they were selling T-shirts printed with the photo you took at the ‘photo zone’. All the money from this t-shirt was going to the charity that works to protect and preserve endangered species. Great cause!

Overall, this exhibition was entertaining and full of unique experiences with the great intention of raising awareness of endangered species. In other words, it was a Safari zoo in the middle of Seoul. It wasn’t the conventional zoo I was used to, but in a lot of ways, it was better. I’m going to stick with my initial assessment – zoos, of any kind, are awesome!

Co-written by Seunghyun Park & ASyk