Epispace news

On 21 November we took part in 2025 The Next Step. Near the end of the year, a company made in Seogwipo carried its street stories back into a room in the same city.

Our name was on the wall with the other participating companies. On the table were the prints and small models we use on the street. This is not an award announcement. It is the day we stood in front of people and said again what we had been doing in the lanes.

What November was for

Before this room, in the same month, we opened paid offline AR on Lee Jung-seop Street in Seogwipo. The Next Step was the day we put words next to that launch. There is no app to install. Tap the NFC tag on the street and the browser opens. The story of that place continues in front of the camera. When the story ends, the person walks into the shop next door. That is the sentence we keep handing to partners.

A company nested in Seogwipo Startup Bay closed the year in the same city. The next story is still out on the street.

From June through December 2025 we walked people through Lee Jung-seop Street in Seogwipo with Web AR. In November we opened that experience as offline AR and began selling sessions.

The street carries the name of the painter Lee Jung-seop. A themed street does not hold anyone by its name alone. When there is nothing to stay for, people only pass through. We put the story back into that gap.

How a walk goes

Tap the NFC tag outside a shop and the browser opens. Nothing to install. A story sits on the real street inside the camera, and the next stop is already waiting. Finish the mission and a partner shop’s coupon appears. The story becomes a walk. The walk becomes a visit.

The screens above are that walk. A character appears on the street and says hello. While it looks away, the bull runs off: the bull Lee Jung-seop loved to paint. It asks you to find the bull along Lee Jung-seop Street, and you follow the arrow and the distance on screen to the next stop. When you arrive, a letter is waiting.

After half a year of the pilot, November was the month a story that never made the map opened for business.

Open the Lee Jung-seop Street Web AR

On 25 October we opened a booth at the Seogwipo Youth Ieum Camp, “Connecting youth and the local.” We put up a white tent on the grass facing the sea, and wrote on the valance the sentence we wanted this lane to hear.

Lee Jung-seop’s Fantasy of Seogwipo, in your hands. Epispace.

Inside there was a monitor and a table. We did not need a stage set. The camera in a hand is already the screen, and the sea outside is already the backdrop. The camp’s wish to connect young people with the local, and our wish to put a story in someone’s hand, met under the same canvas.

A month before we opened paid AR on Lee Jung-seop Street, we hung that sentence by the water. We believe a story should start where the wind gets in, not in a meeting room.

On 24 September, Samwol Port and Epispace signed a working agreement. The place was Samwol Port Samcheong. Samwol Port hosted. The first line of the banner was plain: for strategic business cooperation.

We work with local governments, shopping streets, destinations, and local brands. Samwol Port is a partner who sat down at the table with us. The fine print of the agreement belongs to the two parties, so we leave it there. What we can say in public is that on that day we chose the same direction.

What Epispace brings is not a technology brochure. It is an experience that puts a place’s story back on its ground and walks a person as far as the next shop. The agreement with Samwol Port is a promise to try that experience along the harbor.

Sooryeon Yoon stood with the agreement that day. A company that had opened in May stood beside its first partner in the autumn.

On 23 and 24 September, Epispace stood at the Korea Tourism Organization’s Ieum Week demo day. The screen in the room read 2025 Tourism Connect Week. We remember those two days as the Ieum Week demo day.

Sooryeon Yoon told our street from the stage. At the booth beside it we set down the same panels and small pieces we use in the lane. We did not bring a slide from a meeting room. We brought an experience that was already being walked.

What we wanted people to see

Visitors do not stop for the words Web-AR. They stop for a story. We open a browser with one NFC tap, no app, and lay the folktale of that lane on the camera. Selected as immersive tourism content in the 16th Preliminary Tourism Venture cohort, this demo day was when that selection stood in front of a room.

We had opened our first booth at the summer flea market. This autumn we were on a stage. The tent by the sea in October, and Lee Jung-seop Street in November, came after.

On 2 September we filed a patent application: a method of delivering AR content from an NFC tag. It is not yet granted. We submitted the method. Examination is still ahead. So we do not say we received a patent. We say we filed.

Every Epispace experience starts with the same gesture. Tap the tag on the street, the browser opens, the story sits on the camera, and a neighboring shop’s coupon follows when the story ends. The filing is about that first gesture, the moment a tag calls a story up.

We do not lead with the technology. We filed so that this gesture can repeat, lane after lane, without coming apart. What a person remembers will still be the story. The tag is only the handle on the door.

On 15 July, Halla Ilbo wrote the beginning of Epispace. “Stories and technology, bringing life to Lee Jung-seop Street in Seogwipo.” The local paper took the sentence we had been trying to live on the street and set it out like a headline.

The article carried the April selection as a preliminary tourism venture, our tenancy at Seogwipo Startup Bay, and the work of waking Lee Jung-seop Street with NFC and augmented reality. The company was not yet two months open. It is the record of a city saying our name first.

“People said Jeju was a good place to start, and that there was room. While looking for the idea, I walked Lee Jung-seop Street. A themed street needs something to do, and this one looked short on that. That was the start.”

Sooryeon Yoon, in Halla Ilbo

That is right. We did not go to Lee Jung-seop Street to sell a technology. We saw a lane without a story, and opened a company to bring the story back. The office is on the third floor of 86 Jungjeong-ro, Seogwipo. The beginning was the lane. The office stayed close to it.

Read it in Halla Ilbo

On 6 and 7 June we opened Epispace’s first booth at the Jeju Special Self-Governing Province flea market. The company was not yet two weeks old. We hung EPISPACE under the canvas. Behind us was the banner for 2025, Jeju’s year of visiting national heritage.

On the table: prints, a few small tools, a laptop. When people came over we did not talk about apps. We said, tap the tag and a story opens. Among visitors who had come for heritage, it was the weekend we first introduced a company that walks people through a lane by its stories.

This booth was the start. The autumn demo day, the tent by the sea, and Lee Jung-seop Street in November all came off this table. It does not have to be grand. Work on a lane begins at one table.

In April 2025 the Korea Tourism Organization selected Epispace for the 16th Preliminary Tourism Venture cohort. The category is immersive tourism content. The work is named as a service that wakes themed neighborhood streets with NFC and augmented reality.

A selection is not a prize. It is a name for the work. In Seogwipo, Jeju, we were building a company that puts folktales and legends back on their ground. We do not hope visitors will admire the technology. We hope they follow a story down the lane and stop at a shop.

We opened the door on 25 May. Sooryeon Yoon is the representative. The room is 302-D, third floor, 86 Jungjeong-ro, inside Seogwipo Startup Bay. The registered trade is information and communications. The actual work is making system software and setting it down on a street.

The year after selection ran through booths, a stage, an agreement, and paid sessions on Lee Jung-seop Street. Preliminary means what it says. We have only just started the real game, out in the lane.

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