Geraldine Limpo / Jeepney Press

STOP. LOOK. LISTEN. AND LOOK AGAIN. TeamLab’s Multi-Sensory Artistic Spaces

by Geraldine Limpo

One of the first skills that I learned about appreciating works of art is that of (truly) looking. Paying attention to each element that makes a composition and sensing how colours trigger certain emotions, stock knowledge and memories helps significantly in the manner I comprehend art. Recently, my husband and I attended two art exhibitions that not only appealed to our sense of sight, but also required engaging our entire bodies. The experiences are unforgettably awe-inspiring!

TeamLab Planets (1-6-16 Toyosu, Koto Ward, Tokyo) requires one to navigate a labyrinth of dimly-lit narrow hallways that lead visitors to a variety of light- ooded rooms with visual displays often accompanied by synchronized music. The rooms are divided into two clusters; the ones belonging to Water are negotiated barefoot. I recall feeling uncertain about my footing as I walked down an incline that led to a pool of water that reached my calves. “When was the last time I walked barefoot in a puddle of water that felt strangely cool and at the same time enjoyable?”, I asked myself as I smiled at giggling teenagers who splashed each other with water. The room that I struggled most in was called Fall in the Black Hole. Having dried my wet feet, I plunged my legs into a soft bed of beads and quickly lost my balance. Suddenly, I became hyper-aware of my body, thought quickly about my centre of mass and the deliberateness with which I should make each step. There were several of us in the same room, and my balance was influenced not only by the careful placement of each leg into the soft floor, but also by the movement of everyone else. Instinctively, in attempts to stay upright, we all seemed to create some distance with one another.

In the room called Wade in the Koi Pond, I stood with eyes transfixed to coloured digital carp that appeared beneath the surface of the water as each morphed into flowers. The experience was heightened by instrumental music synchronous to the visual spectacle.

The other set of rooms were classified under Garden; these were also enjoyed barefoot. Top of mind, I instantly remember four. Onto the interior dome of the first room were projected colourful flowers that bloomed as they glided across the surface. Aptly, this room was called Floating in the Falling Universe of Flowers. The beautiful visual imagery resonated with the falling sakura flowers when the wind blew them off the branches of cherry trees, bringing me a sense of melancholy.

Big plastic spheres were scattered around another room called Expanding 3D Existence. They changed colour when touched. As there were several of us playing with these spheres at the same time, it was fun to see the quick changes in colour. Moreover, the colours and the placement of these spheres quite magically changed my perception of the room’s size and shape.

About 13000 orchids hang from the ceiling of the room christened Floating Flower Garden. As our group of about fty people entered the area under the hanging orchids, the flowers reacted by descending into our space. The flowers moved according to our movements underneath them, so that the distance between the blooms and I, having chosen to lie down on the floor, allowed me to encounter the blossom rather intimately; in other words, eye-to-eye. Almost instantly, I began thinking about the rationale behind this concept. I wonder if I had, through this experience, just been encouraged to evaluate how respectfully I regard flowers (and plants generally). After all, aren’t they sentient beings like me?

Thousands of LED lights installed in the room called Infinite Crystal Universe played tricks on my perception of space. They flickered and changed colour and inspired awe. Some visitors used the downloadable app to influence the pattern of this 3D light universe, injecting even more fun into the already enjoyable experience.

TeamLab Botanical Garden (1-23 Nagaikoen, Osaka) is a complementing exhibition, this time outdoors in an open-air park enjoyed in the nighttime. The big idea is to transform nature into art without harming it. Ovoids of different sizes change colours in the section entitled Resonating Microcosms in the Camellia Garden. Some were allowed to be touched and my friends and I played with them, observing that they change colours when touched.

The same concept (human movement influencing nature) can be seen on Oike pond where motion-sensor floating lamps blink and change colour. When there was no human movement nor wind detected, the blinking of the lamps was slower.

The relationship between movement and natural elements is celebrated in a light sculpture entitled Dissipative Birds in the Wind. The visual imagery in yellows, greens, blues and reds is influenced by the birds that y about the area. It reminded me that the flapping of birds’ wings affects the air around it. When no birds fly, there is no light seen on the tall structures that stand above the pond waters.

These two art exhibitions (Planets in Toyosu and Botanical Garden in Osaka) creatively explore how technology delivers multi-sensorial digital art. They are body-immersive; that is to say, the human body engages with the works of art and influences it in turn. This is markedly different from how we consume the classical forms of art (painting and sculpture) wherein the art affects us but we do not affect art (in other words, the audience can never affect painting or sculpture by looking at it). The principle of being body-immersive seems to suggest the absence of a boundary between art and its audience. In the room Fall in the Black Hole, the boundary between the self and others is also dissolved. It became instantly instinctive to observe the movements of the other persons in the room in figuring out how to navigate the soft floor of beads that sunk with each step.

These digital universes, perfectly instagrammable, were created by a talented collective of international artists and architects, programmers and animators, mathematicians and engineers who call themselves TeamLab. Founded in 2001, this art collective is interested in exploring the relationship between the self and the world, and in new forms of perception by combining art, science, technology, design and nature. Their creative works that call our attention to how light shapes our sense of reality are exhibited in permanent and temporary installations worldwide. Their art form engages not only our eyes, but also our entire bodies.

The TeamLab exhibition entitled Existence in Perception opened at Shoshazan Engyoji in Himeji a few days ago and runs till December 3. Next month, there will be another unveiling at the Himeji City Museum of Art; Existence in an In nite Continuity is open from June 22 to Jan 21, 2024. With some luck, I may visit these too.

Geraldine Limpo

Jeepney Press