Tokushima Digitized City Art Nights - teamLab: Luminous Forest and River

Dec 16 - Dec 25, 2016

Tokushima City Tokushima

Nature as it is becomes art,
the city as it is becomes art.

Tokushima City is a city of water that is nurtured in the Yoshino River and flows through 138 rivers.
In the castle ruins of Tokushima Castle, in the center of town, there is the Shiroyama primary forest (a forest untouched by human hands). Areas of virgin forest such as this are very rare in Japan. Also located in the central area of town there is a very unusual and vast green belt, with a “dragon king” camphor tree that is 600 years of age, and 80 kinds of wild birds survive in the area.

Taking advantage of Tokushima City's natural beauty, we use light, sound, and digital technology, to transform the river and the forest in the center of the city into a digital art space that changes according to the existence of people.

There rural areas with wonderful geographical characteristics, places of historical interest, and places with unique cultures. Whilst these places are attractive to those with knowledge of them, they can be somewhat obscure for people without prior knowledge. There are aspects to them that may be considered boring for people of the modern age. However, if we can make use of the characteristics of these places, add new value and extend or expand them in some way, we think that such places have the potential to become as attractive as big cities. This is the concept behind the project called Digitized Nature, Digitized City.

Nature as it is becomes art, the city as it is becomes art.

Digital technologies that react to their surroundings and are networked are non-material, and like light and sound, they have no physical impact. By using digital technologies, nature can be turned into art without destroying nature. Furthermore, cities can be turned into art without changing anything physical, maintaining the infrastructure of the city.

No longer does art need to be exhibited in nature; rather nature itself becomes art.
Similarly art need not be exhibited in the city, but parts of the city itself can become art. We can then expand this concept, with an entire city becoming a huge artistic space without disruption to its normal functions.

teamLab uses digital art to influence the relationships between people in a space. By turning a city into digital art, it may be possible to stimulate positive relationships between people in the city.

ARTWORKS

PLAY MOVIE
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Shimmering River of Resonating Spheres

Spheres of light float on the surface of the water of Japan’s Shinmachi River. They move on their own, shining brightly, then disappearing—as if they are softly breathing. When the spheres of light are touched by a person or receive an impact, the color of their light changes and they emit a musical tone corresponding to their new color. They can also resonate with the spheres around them, changing to the same color and emitting the same tone, creating a chain reaction.

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Resonating Forest in the Castle Ruins Mountain

The light of each tree is autonomous; slowly breathing, it shines brightly and then fades. When visitors or animals approach the trees, the light changes color and a tone resonates outward. The neighboring trees will also resonate, switching to the same color and tone. This response will ripple outward to the surrounding trees; it will finally reach the trees in the mountains, and the mountains themselves will resonate. If a wave of light rushes from one direction, it signifies the presence of a person in that location. If a wave comes from the mountains, it means that animals are there. As a result, the audience will have a heightened awareness of the presence of other people in the same space and of animals in the forest.

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teamLab Crystal Tree

This is an interactive, three-dimensional Crystal tree that is made from a cumulation of light points. It uses Interactive 4-D Vision to display dynamic visuals in real time based on selections made by participants. People can decorate the tree from their smartphones by adding large 3-D light ornaments that are made of hundreds of thousands of light points. Using the tablet provided, they can also rotate the tree in three dimensions.

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youku

Flowers in the Sandfall - Tokushima

Height 5210mm, Width1280mm, Depth160mm, a giant three-dimensional LED object. With the changing of the months throughout the year, the flowers of Tokushima bloom and scatter. They are in constant change. Flowers grow, bud, and blossom, and eventually they scatter, wither, and fade away. The flowers are in a continual cycle of birth and death, repeating forever. When a person stands before the flow of falling sand, the sand’s path is changed by their presence; the flow of the sand parts, and a space opens. Since ancient times, people have gazed at falling sand to gain a sense of the passage of short moments in time—and they have watched the changing of flowers to feel the passage of long-term changes in time. The work is rendered in real time by a computer program; it is neither a pre-recorded animation nor on loop. The interaction between the viewer and the installation causes continuous change in the artwork. Previous visual states can never be replicated, and will never reoccur.

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Press Kit

Title: Tokushima Digitized City Art Nights - teamLab: Luminous Forest and River
Term: Dec 16 - Dec 25, 2016
Hours: 18:00 - 22:00
Address: Various places in Tokushima City
-Shimmering River of Resonating Spheres at Shinmachi River Waterside Park
-Resonating Forest in the Castle Ruins Mountain at Tokushima Central Park
-Riverside Crystal Tree at Aibahama Park
-Flowers in the Sandfall at Awa Bank Head Office Sales Department West Entrance
Admission Fee: Free
Organizers: Tokushima LED Art Festival 2016 Executive Committee and Tokushima City
Art Director: Toshiyuki Inoko (teamLab)
URL: Tokushima LED Digital Art Festival
http://tok-led-artfest.net/

ABOUT US

teamLab

teamLab (f. 2001) is an art collective, interdisciplinary group of ultratechnologists whose collaborative practice seeks to navigate the confluence of art, science, technology, design and the natural world. Various specialists such as artists, programmers, engineers, CG animators, mathematicians and architects form teamLab.

teamLab aims to explore a new relationship between humans and nature, and between oneself and the world through art. Digital technology has allowed art to liberate itself from the physical and transcend boundaries. teamLab sees no boundary between humans and nature, and between oneself and the world; one is in the other and the other in one. Everything exists in a long, fragile yet miraculous, borderless continuity of life.

teamLab’s works are in the permanent collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; Asian Art Museum, San Francisco; Asia Society Museum, New York; Borusan Contemporary Art Collection, Istanbul; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; and Amos Rex of Helsinki, Finland.

Biographical Documents
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