Catching and Collecting in the Sea of Life

teamLab, 2022, Interactive Digital installation, Sound: Hideaki Takahashi

Catching and Collecting in the Sea of Life

teamLab, 2022, Interactive Digital installation, Sound: Hideaki Takahashi

Catching and Collecting in the Sea of Life is a new learning space based on the concept of Catch, Study, Release, in which people explore the world with their bodies, discovering, catching, and broadening their interests based on what they catch. Explore with your smartphone, capture various sea creatures, study them, and create your very own collection book.

Fish and other sea creatures have been an integral part of the human diet for centuries. Such fish are consumed on a daily basis. Some sea creatures are now endangered and some have already gone extinct, all these creatures live in this Sea of Life. When you touch a sea creature, it will run away or hide.

When you use the smartphone's camera to look at a fish swimming in the space and release a Study Arrow at the fish through the camera, the arrow flies out from the phone into the real space. When the Study Arrow reaches the fish, it disappears from the space and is added to the smartphone collection. Information about the captured fish will be stored in the app's collection book. To release the captured fish, swipe towards a location you can see in the app's camera and it will return to that location.

You can also throw a Study Net at your feet to catch sea creatures. Work together with those around you, use your body to drive sea creatures from the seafloor into the Study Net to capture them, and watch as they disappear from the space and, at the same time, appear in your collection book. Swipe the captured creatures away to release them at your feet.

The more you capture the same sea creature, the more detailed information you can record in your collection book.