We (my partner Barry, good friend Masumi, and I) bought tickets online for the 8pm slot, which turned out to be quite the trudge from our hotel in MidTown Tokyo to Toyosu on a rainy night. The upside was that there were very few of us there, which meant no queues and having the time and space to explore each of the 4 exhibition halls housing 7 interactive “body immersive” works.
teamLab is an international and interdisciplinary art collective founded by Toshiyuki Inoko in 2011. Combining specialists in the arts, programming, engineering, animation, architecture, and mathematics the goal of this collaborative is to
“navigate the confluence of art, science, technology, and the natural world.
teamLab aims to explore the relationship between the self and the world and new perceptions through art. In order to understand the world around them, people separate it into independent entities with perceived boundaries between them. teamLab seeks to transcend these boundaries in our perception of the world, of the relationship between the self and the world, and of the continuity of time. Everything exists in a long, fragile yet miraculous, borderless continuity of life.
https://www.teamlab.art/about/
We started our tour in a large locker/changing room to prepare for walking through spaces with water and other sensorial set-ups. Corridors with various ambient lighting, textured flooring, changes in elevation, and even water segued into each of the main exhibition rooms. It definitely was made to heighten your senses in anticipation of what was to come. Certain segments reminded me of things experienced ex: at the entryway of one room, was a waterfall, and the lighting put upon it had the effect of individual glittering crystals falling onto the floor. It reminded me of watching water drip down from a wall with the sun hitting each droplet to activate the water, reflecting the light. I found it all very poetic and it was nice to have these in-between moments from the larger exhibition spaces to consider the experience wholly.
The picture above on the left is one of the 7 works titled “Waterfall of Light Particles – Deep in the Mountains of Shikoku (2016-2017)”
I’ve encountered interactive artwork or work meant to have some sort of direct dialogue with the viewer many times, but not like this. You enter a room that resembles something found in a children’s gymnasium and it definitely triggered those feelings. You attempt to step unto the floor only to sink into it. I loved how we could feel this sense of humor of playfulness with an artwork that elicited the same feelings in the other visitors, so we were sharing in that experience having our inhibitions come down – we all looked pretty raw and stupid which was fantastic. It was very physical as well getting from one side to the other. Finding a spot to just be enveloped in reminded me of what it would be like to be in a womb. It was this notion of life and death that played on the physically of the works themselves, as in, by being so physically aware you couldn’t help but feel more alive and you couldn’t help but think on death (I’ll get more into that in the upcoming rooms).
This room was simply amazing. You could get ‘lost in the light’, which visitors could control via smartphone app. The artwork forms and changes according to the people within that room. It is not only an impressive display of technology but creativity: to experience pointillism, to feel infinite and part of the universe as a single point within the spectrum.
Photo above: “Expanding Three-Dimensional Existence in Transforming Space”
Carrying on with the idea of light and how each point/dot/sphere holds light and color, is a room filled with large free floating balls that move and can be moved according to the movement of each visitor. It was another room reminiscent of a “fun-house”. Two things came to mind: first the feeling that you were shrunken in size (a la “Honey I Shrunk the Kids”) as large as each molecule and second a student sculpture I made during my time at UCLA. I had constructed a floating sculpture out of garage bags to resemble a still life’s shadow. The balloon I made was dependent on the movement within the room and played on the idea of how a shadow follows you. I’ve always loved the notion of installation and art that is in direct dialogue with the viewer. It touches on so many memories and feelings while also challenging concepts of what a 3-D object is.
you come upon is filled with water. You step into the warm, almost milky, liquid with projections of swimming koi and blossoming flowers moving in around and colliding with you. The images are not pre-recorded but are interacting with you in real time. It speaks to the uniqueness of our individual experiences traversing this space and how we are in control of certain trajectories. Stepping into a smaller room, the feeling changes like spring into winter. The room is small and dark, the water cold, and a single quiet projection is in front of you. To me they looked like nerve-endings, neurons or even tree branches stripped bare. It felt essential and spiritual. Is this life or death? It seemed meaningful that two very different artworks would be placed directly next to each other with water (which bears life and takes it away) being the bridge.
The final room, which I cannot show here because I’m unable to upload the video file, allows you to sit or lie down for an extended period of time as projections of flowers surround you — blossoming, coming apart, flying away into space. It’s beautiful to feel a part of and to just lose yourself in that moment. At the time we went, I had a friend who was in the hospital dying of cancer. I took videos of this artwork wanting to show her that this is what I believe happens when we are no long physically ‘here’ – we go back into that vast space, dissolve, explode, scatter as colorful forms of light.
https://planets.teamlab.art/tokyo/ew/fitfuof/
The fact that these questions and correlations regarding nature and existence could exist in a completely manufactured and technologically-reliant space is impressive. To think you could be the furthest away from what is natural to feeling as close as possible to the essence of your self and relying on your senses is something close to genius for me. It fills me with wonder and makes me jealous because it’s something I dream and strive for within my art practice. It could easily have been nothing but a gimmick and all “flash” if not carefully considered. The beauty is you don’t have come into it thinking much at all and it’s still an enjoyable experience ❂
LITTLE wagamama 