Arts & Entertainment

TeamLab unveils interactive digital waterfall in Tokyo

Tokyo, Jul 15 (efe-epa).- Japanese digital art collective teamLab unveiled a simulated waterfall outside one of its museums in Tokyo on Wednesday.

Both of the group’s museums in the Japanese capital will celebrate their second anniversary this summer.

teamLab Planets celebrated this milestone with the inauguration of a new work called Universe of Water Particles Falling from the Sky, a column of digital droplets tumbling down a prism that reacts to human contact.

Toshiyuki Inoko, founder of the collective, said: “We wanted to create a sculpture made of light.”

He added that the creators wanted to blur the work’s limit with the sky as a representation of nature and the concept of eternity.

The teamLab philosophy is to break down boundaries between artworks, which are mainly digitally created, and visitors with interactive pieces.

Spectators can use their mobile phones, screens installed in the museum or their bodies to connect with the immersive installations.

The collective’s Tokyo galleries reopened in early June after coronavirus pandemic restrictions were lifted across Japan.

Inoko told Efe that the artists are also designing ways people can interact from their own homes with pieces at the art museum, with more details due to be released over the summer.

TeamLab is a group of artists, programmers and engineers who create installations that constantly change depending on how the viewer reacts to them.

Inoko said he does not think computers will be able to create the artworks any time soon.

“I don’t think that will happen as long as I live,” he adds.

A series of safety measures have been implemented in both galleries, including masks, hand sanitizer and social distancing.

On the labyrinthine tour, visitors can walk through a room with stalactites of bright LED lights hanging from the ceiling that continually change their pattern.

Another installation is a small lake filled with knee-high water with holograms of fish and changing aquatic vegetation, depending on the season.

Any surface becomes a canvas thanks to projections and sets of mirrors that invite the visitor to connect with the light and water in this immersive illusion, in which the trick is technology. EFE-EPA

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