DIGITAL ART INVADES REALITY
12 Jul 2018
Teamlab has expanded its wildly popular 2016 digital art exhibition to form Body Immersive, an installation that comprises a labyrinth of varying virtual experiences to ensnare the senses and coat the viewer in a world of fantasy and colour.
On view for the next two years, Teamlab Planets Tokyo are presenting developed iterations of their previously featured artworks, as well as an immense new installation that will be spread across 10,000 square metres of space. Teamlab views the idea of Body Immersive as a way to dissolve the borders between the viewer and work.
“This allows for continuous dynamic behaviour, visual phenomena, and the ability to transform the canvas,” the Japanese collective explains. “By doing so, the boundaries between the body and the work become ambiguous, which may become the starting point for people to think about their relationship with the world.”
Teamlab Planets Tokyo will bring some of the collective’s most epic installations to a monumental stage, where visitors engage in a sequence of immersive artworks. “My motivation is to create something that people have never seen, felt or experienced before,” explained Takumi Nomoto, CEO of Teamlab Planets Tokyo. “I would love to make a strong, positive impact on people and share happy memories. It may be small a step, but I believe that happiness will increase on a global scale if we could make as many visitors as happy as possible.”
Highlights from the exhibition include, Floating in the Falling Universe of Flowers, a digital installation showing a seasonal year of flowers blooming and changing over time. The artwork is rendered in real time by a computer and is neither pre-recorded nor on loop. Any interaction between the viewer and the installation causes a constantly-evolving change in the artwork, where flowers grow, bud, bloom and eventually wither away and die – the cycle of birth and death continues without end.
Waterfall of Light Particles at the Top of an Incline is based on a previous work by Teamlab, which was projected on a natural waterfall in the mountains of Shikoku. Here, light particles cascade down and generate the ethereal image of a surge of luminous water. In the darkness of the exhibition venue, the lit particles leave a trail of light that appears to draw lines in physical space.
While pointillist paintings use an accumulation of distinct dots of colour to create a picture, The Infinite Crystal Universe uses light points to create three-dimensional objects. This interactive artwork expresses the universe through accumulated luminescence spread infinitely throughout the venue. Furthermore, visitors are encouraged to use their smartphones to select elements from the ‘universe’ by dragging and releasing them into the installation. Thus, the work is continuously created by people in the space and, as a result, evolves forever.
In Drawing on the Water Surface, Created by the Dance of Koi and People – Infinity, visitors are invited to take off their shoes and wade knee-high in an abyss of water. Virtual fish swim on the surface of water that stretches out into infinity, tracing colourful lines across the space. Their movement is influenced by the presence of people in the water — when the fish collide with guests, they turn into flowers and scatter around the space. Like Floating Flowers, the work is neither pre-recorded nor on a loop, meaning previous visual states can never be replicated and will never reoccur.
Meanwhile, Cold Life comprises of a calligraphic series of brush strokes modelled in virtual 3D space that forms the character 生 (Sei, Japanese for “life”), which transforms into the image of a tree. As time passes, various life forms begin to grow within the arboreal element. Teamlab has been experimenting with the theme of Spatial calligraphy since the collective formed, and seeks to offer a contemporary interpretation of traditional Japanese characters in abstract space.
There are many more installations on exhibition at Body Immersive and they all have to be seen to be believed. Teamlab have endeavoured to utilise modern technology to create a completely immersive art and public space experience, that seeks to bond visitors together through wonder and curiosity and create a place where people can be happy.