国内外で注目を集めている女流書家、紫舟さんとウルトラテクノロジスト集団「チームラボ」によるコラボレーションから生まれた参加型アート作品「世界はこんなにもやさしく、うつくしい」が、２７日から成田空港の第１ターミナル南ウイング４階出発ロビーに展示される。(Excerpt from text)
teamLab Brings Their Animistic Visions to Narita Airport
TOKYO — Starting April 27, visitors to Tokyo and other travelers who are passing through Narita Airport will be able to view a specially produced atmospheric installation by Japanese art collective teamLab, projected onto the concave El Panorama Vision display in the fourth floor waiting area of Terminal 1’s South Wing (to the left of the baggage inspection area at the departure gate).（Excerpt from the text）
“Nirvana,” a video installation by teamLab sold all editions at Ikkan Art Gallery
por Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop
Publicado: 25 Janeiro 2013シンガポールで開催されている「Art Stage Singapore」の2日目は、週の半ばにも関わらず驚くべきほどの訪問者で賑わっており、相変わらず展示作品がよく売れていた。
「Ikkan Art Gallery」は、展示作品の1つであるチームラボの「Nirvana」の5つのエディションを完売し、香港を拠点とする「Kwai Fung Hin Art Gallery」も、8つのスクリーンで投影されるLee Lee Namによる5編のアニメーションインスタレーション「Traditional Painting – Happiness」を売った。ギャラリーのオーナーであるCatherine Kwai氏は、「お客様であるコレクター達は、展示している作品についてとても真剣に多くの質問を投げかけてこられますよ」と語った。
SINGAPORE – For visual arts in Singapore, 2012 will likely be remembered as the year Gillman Barracks opened, a cluster of new art galleries. But beyond this government-led opening, many other new international galleries independently also found their way to the city-state attesting to the interest in the region. Meanwhile, the quality of the exhibitions on offer also seems to go from strength to strength. Within one month this fall, Richard MacDonald, Bernar Venet, Richard Deacon, and Zadok Ben-David were all in town opening separate shows.
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"The Experience Machine" at Ikkan Art Gallery
The immersive exhibition of new media art allowed viewers the opportunity to interact with and contribute to many artworks. Of particular note was "What a Loving, and Beautiful World" by Japanese calligrapher Sisyu and teamLab an interactive animation installation where slowly falling kanji (the characters used in Japan) for words like ‘rain,’ ‘flower’ and ‘butterfly’ transform when touched by a viewer’s shadow to become the image of the word they represent while a corresponding sound is heard.
渋谷・宇田川町に12月6日、「電脳喫茶☆電脳酒場『めいどりーみん』（渋谷店）」（渋谷区宇田川町、TEL 03-6427-8398）がオープンする。経営はネオディラントインターナショナル（千代田区）。（Excerpt from the text）
渋谷・宇田川町に12月6日、「電脳喫茶☆電脳酒場『めいどりーみん』（渋谷店）」（渋谷区宇田川町、TEL 03-6427-8398）がオープンする。経営はネオディラントインターナショナル（千代田区）。（Excerpt from the text）
Carla Bianpoen, Contributor, Singapore | Art and Design | Thu, October 18 2012, 7:44 AMAs the technical revolution continues with ever evolving digital innovation, it seems that video art and digital art, which have been gradually being accepted as valid mediums of artistic expression, are just the tip of the iceberg.This is being made clear at the exhibition of new media art from the past 13 years by nine international artists at Ikkan Gallery Singapore, showcased under the title “The Experience Machine” until Oct. 27.When visiting the show at Ikkan Gallery, Tanjong Pagar recently, I was amazed and overwhelmed by the surreal landscape that I was allowed to co-create in, in what I found was the most inventive and fascinating work made by the Tokyo-based teamLab with chief executive officer Inoko Toshiyuki (b. 1977) . “What a Loving and beautiful world” was invented by teamLab, whose hundreds of interdisciplinary members from various countries have cooperated with Sisyu, a calligrapher who explored the power of emotional and visual evocation of Japanese ideograms, with accompanying music from Hideaki Takahashi.While interactive work has been around for some time, this installation work differs in that it literally transports the viewer into a self-created natural world, rendering the feeling of being a creator of sorts.
In a space specially constructed for the purpose, everything is initially black, as was the Earth before its creation, until kanji signs randomly fall from the four walls through the touch or shadow of our hands. At the touch of the sign for the flower, the entire space is filled with flowers. If the sign of bird comes down together with that for a tree and is touched simultaneously, the signs will erupt with a flight of birds that automatically occupy the branches of the emerging trees. When touching the character for wind, all things on the screen will be swept away including the character, and when one happens to touch the character for the butterfly and flower at the same time, the butterfly automatically seeks the flower. The characters are programmed with an intelligence of their own, says gallery owner Ikkan Sanada, who moved from New York to Singapore less than a year ago.As I stood in the dark space before the falling kanji signs in a dramatic night landscape illuminated by the moon, it was as if I was experiencing the very story of creation as told in the Book of Genesis. The difference of course was that the images evoked by the touch or shadow of the human hand were ephemeral, disappearing immediately as we touched another sign, perhaps hinting at the transient nature, the impermanence of things. In the same sense, requiring a human hand to evoke the images could also be understood as the role humans must play in the preservation of the natural environment.The work was awarded the Architecture, Art & Culture Award at the international contest ReVolution during Laval Virtual, Europe’s largest virtual reality salon in spring 2012.Another piece of work by teamLab in the show visualized their suggestion that Asian art appreciation differs from that of Western art. In “Flower and Corpse Glitch” animation, turning a 2D Japanese painting into a computer generated 3D virtual space, teamLab suggests that ancient Japanese visualized a picture from inside, blurring the subjective and the objective, without a focal point, whereas paint in the West considers the rules of perspective, geometry and objectification.
Similarly, the absence of a focal point is also seen in the photographic view of The Last Judgment in Cyberspace by the Chinese artist Miau Xiaochun, where the artist in fact enters the famous painting by Michelangelo, re-inventing it by transforming the 2-D into computer-generated digital scenes with depth and volume while eliminating the focal point and allowing the viewer to see the scene from various angles. He once said that it was his way of proposing equality. The repeated use of the same model “automatically abandons the distinctions between high and low, left and right, good and evil, honorable and humble, east and west, ancient and modern.”Other works in the show include Enclose by Philippine artist Bea Camacho, Home Movie by Jim Campbell, ASCII History of Moving Images by the Ljubljana, based artist VukCosic, Dust Storm by John Gerrard from Ireland, Vermeer study: Looking Back (mirror) by the Japanese artist Morimura Yasumasa, Something is boiling by Ben Rubin from the US and Endless victory by John F. Simon Jr, US.
Transition has been on my mind of late. Maybe that’s why I gravitated towards the insight noted in The Experience Machine’s catalogue essay on the industrial age making way for the “electronic era”, allowing for renewed “ways of seeing and experiencing our world”.How then does our current electronic era influence art? More than ever, artists are using technological advances to alter and challenge their practices and processes, giving rise to ‘New Media Art’, which comprises “constantly evolving hybrid technological art forms such as video art, digital art, interactive installation and customized software art”. The semantics of art then comes into question. Can the programmed digital software John F. Simon Jr. used to create what I heard some visitors call a “Microsoft screensaver” be called art? Ambivalence about popular acceptance of such unfamiliar art forms has clearly not deterred co-curator and owner of Ikkan Art International, Ikkan Sanada, from presenting a plethora of unconventional, tech-savvy and wonderfully bizarre works that the local art scene has probably not yet witnessed. After all, what is transition without the slight discomfiture and strange newness of change?With change comes a reconfiguration of habits and customs. Technology allows and promotes the manipulation and reconstruction of our visual, social and perceptive norms, engendering new sights and experiences that challenge the beliefs we have become used to. Iconoclastic and irreverent, Morimura Yasumasa’s contemporary takes on the historically famed Vermeer painting, Girl with a Pearl Earring, challenge art-historical and social ideas regarding the male gaze. By reconstructing his Japanese, male identity into that of a Western, female figure, Morimura subverts the conventional notions associated with the invasive, voyeuristic male gaze, confounding the viewer and prompting him to look beyond the superficiality of representation. He employs more physical reconstruction and metamorphosis than technological (although his use of video alone in the appropriation of Vermeer inserts a wholly new artistic dimension and comparison): notorious for being contemporary art’s “most famous drag queen”, Morimura paints his face and painstakingly transforms his sartorial, facial and overall physical appearance to that of his subjects. From artist to subject (and object), male to female, Asian to Western, hidden to exposed, Morimura boldly appropriates a revered historical piece, only to playfully, completely turn it on its head.One of the things I love about contemporary art is its ability to engage audiences in participation and dialogue. Performance alone does not suffice, as the distance between artist and audience is sorely emphasized. By engaging the senses and encouraging activity, art ceases to be a hierarchical distinction and moves into a new realm of participation, reflection and agency.The magnum opus of The Experience Machine is SISYU+teamLab’s installation that presents a visually captivating spectacle, allows visitors to participate and act, and uses technology to reflect, not manipulate or violate, a natural milieu. Upon walking into a specially constructed black room, I was surrounded by screens depicting a surreal, otherworldly 3D landscape of nebula and falling kanji (Chinese characters). Intrigued, Mr. Sanada then prompted me to ‘touch’ a falling character. My action caused the kanji signifying ‘bird’ to transmogrify into an animated version of a bird. Mr. Sanada then proceeded to enliven ‘tree’, which the bird then flew to. This is just one of many instances of the everyday, arbitrary interactions between nature, the elements and animals that the installation mirrors with surprising accuracy. While we might often think of technology as automated, soulless and clinical, What a Loving, and Beautiful World demonstrates how SISYU+teamLab has invigorated their animation with the unpredictability and simple beauty of nature.While some might get lost in SISYU+teamLab’s technological playground, my favourite work from the show was unenviably positioned in a quiet corner in the neighbouring room. Walk into the room flashing with Jim Campbell and Ben Rubin’s light installations, and you might just leave without noticing Bea Camacho’s video, located on the floor in a corner next to the door. Interestingly, the artist herself made the curatorial decision to place her video screen in a negligible place.Enclose isn’t meant to scream out at you. On the contrary, as the title suggests, it wants to be hidden, isolated. Besides forcing the viewer to bend, squint and make a physical effort to watch her video, Camacho has refused to make Enclose a performance piece, isolating herself from the glare and scrutiny of a surveying audience and their emotional and auditory responses. By choosing not to sensationalize her emotions, Camacho makes a bold statement about artistic and personal integrity. Enclose is thus poignant because it is an act of catharsis, not a lurid, effusive spectacle.Having never been physically or emotionally close to her family, Camacho channels the rejection and loneliness she experienced (or is experiencing) by literally ensconcing herself in a crocheted cocoon. While crochet might evoke memories of familial warmth and affection, for Camacho, it refers to “an idealized version of home”. Challenging the futility of fulfilling a romanticized fantasy, Camacho pushes herself to physical extremes by crocheting non-stop for 11 hours, going without rest, food or water. The artist as sufferer, a familiar concept popularized by Marina Abramovic, is here given new life by Camacho, who allows us to witness and experience her pain vicariously through her creative process. As The Experience Machine shows, this shiny new electronic age has more heart than we might think.
Japanese gallerist Ikkan Sanada showcases New Media Art by nine international artists in the exhibition titled The Experience Machine.Co curated by Andrew Herdon,director of Herdon Contemporary,a company that works with international emerging and mid-career artists to present new art to new audiences,this exhibition explores,this exhibition explores theories related to the historical differences between Western and Asian ways of seeing,understanding and experiencing the world.Flower and Corpse Glitch
By teamLab, animationJapanese group teamLab’s computer-generated 3-D virtual story animation captures the essence of traditional Japanese painting and a fairy tale.Exploring themes of nature,the clash of civilizations,cycles and symbiosis,the surface of the animation flakes away and reveals the underlying structure-the complex technology that forms the background to the work.The traditional Asian way of appreciating a painting is ‘duhua’(to read a painting) in China,or the concept of ‘narikiri’ (entering a picture,or visualizing a picture form inside it) in Japan.Without a specific focal point,the observer’s mind is allowed to drift into another world.What a Loving, and Beautiful World
By Sisyu+teamLab, interactive animation installationThis interactive animation installation,the product of a collaboration between the famous Japanese calligrapher Sisyu and teamLab,creates an immersive ‘environment’ combining projections with motion sensors in a darkened room.Kanji(Chinese characters) paper on the walls and fall slowly.When someone’s shadow touches the characters for words such as ‘moon’ and ‘butterfly’,they change their shape.This dynamic interaction shows the endlessly renewed beauty of the changes in the world caused by humans interaction with it.
Held at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts in Taichung, the second biggest city in Taiwan, ‘We are the Future’ is a general exhibit that lets artwork by the teamLab ‘Ultra Technology Strike Group’ and commercial works live together.There were more than twenty works on display at the exhibit including ‘Flower and Corpse Glitch,' an animation scroll which consisted of twelve films. Included are ‘One Hundred Years Sea – Running time: 100 years’ whose scale seems to span one hundred years; ‘teamLab Hanger,’ an interactive experience displaying different images when a hanger is picked up off of a clothing rack; and ‘Sword Dance and Shadowgraph,' a projection mapping video that was made to complement Taichi Saotome’s performance.
‘Peace can be Realized Even without Order Diorama Ver.,' the latest work specifically made for this exhibit, stood out conspicuously inside of the dim exhibit area, even alongside many other video works. Hundreds of smartphones were displayed in a dark, each with a tiny figure singing or playing an instrument, as if part of a Japanese festival, all while communicating with each other. These small people do not establish communication across the whole group, instead interacting with those nearby, resulting in a massive group interaction.
‘Peace can be Realized Even without Order Diorama Ver.', teamLab, 2012. Interactive Animation Installation, Smartphones, Sound: Hideaki Takahashi, Voice: Yutaka Fukuoka, With the Cooperation of HTC
teamLab’s work used to be one large print from a video, but it is an aggregate of small displays this time.For example, the scenery is large in ‘Flower and Corpse Glitch,’ which displayed at the Louvre, but pictured within are the stories of many small characters. I have realized that it is more effective to have many small displays with one character on each than it is to have one big display and put many characters on it in order to develop a story. The space becomes more abstract by placing innumerable characters in the dark, and the each smartphone pops out as if they were a sculpture of a picture. The idea of being able to create an imaginary world with only characters is like feeling you might have had as a kid trying to create your own world by setting up ‘Kinnikuman Erasers’ in your room.
'Flower and Corpse Glitch Set of 12'. teamLab, 2012, Animation, 1min 50sec (9:16 × 12)
The characters in this piece react to the audience and perform on their instruments especially well in response to each other’s actions.There are some messages in this work, but a theme of ‘beauty of unbalanced things that are not restrained’ is one of them. The old Japanese knew the beauty of incomplete things, such as the stone garden of Ryoan-ji and the shape of the stone at Zen-ji. They pick up a lump of the distorted energy in nature. The same idea applies to bonsai since they become a microcosm filled with life in a small container. Asian design seems to unleash energy while European design is made up of many restraints.Taichi Saotome and teamLab, Special New Year Performance of Dragon and Peony, Sword Dance and Shadowgraph. teamLab, 2011, Animation, 2min 32sec, Produce: UBON, Cooperation: S.J.K.
What kind of design are you particularly talking about?For example, if it’s a Western garden, it would be made symmetrically, or restrained in a way like cutting trees. The Japanese garden lets people pick up and place things anywhere, including any little cluster of natural energy that people might feel. Of course, it still continues these days. Western fashion magazines have such simple layouts while Japanese fashion magazines like ‘Koakuma AGEHA.’ are essentially doing the opposite, using confusing layouts which overflow with Asian-like energy. Western countries developed a culture that believes ‘being balanced is comfortable’ and Japan developed the idea of ‘the beauty in unbalanced things.’
Is this same energy shown in the arrangement of the smartphones in the dark?Each individual, overflowing with energy, was placed without restrictions and this might be able to create one view of the world. These small people on the smartphones created a life and became free. It's like the liberated people at festivals exist in innumerable smartphones. They will communicate with each other and could be in a festival-like mood if they do well.Can you tell me the process how you created this work in detail?This exhibit is a retrospective show, but I wanted to include a new work as well. So I looked into HTC, a Taiwanese mobile maker. I contacted them about four weeks prior to the exhibit, and two days later I was told that they were able to get hold of the necessary amount of smartphones that I would need. Since this was a very sudden project, an engineer from HTC flew all the way to Haneda from Taipei to bring six terminals. An engineer from teamLab also went to Haneda and discussed technical issues with him there on the spot.
It sounds like a pretty dynamic creation process.They also love both technology and art, so they were cool with helping us. The music was done by Hideaki Takahashi who teamLab has worked with often. The base of the music is the footsteps of the small people, since each smartphone plays music and that creates the harmony. Each smartphones starts stepping along with the footsteps of others nearby and this is the base of the music. The small people have flutes, small and large drums, and biwas. They also sing, and the voices were done by Yutaka Fukuoka, who sings the opening theme song for the TV program ‘News Station.’ Takahashi completely understood our concept for this work, and we even laughed when we heard his rough draft music the first time since it was already perfect. Minoru Terao, visual director at teamLab, directed the animation. The animation team, which includes Atsushi Ito, made the dance moves with CG based on Awa folk dances. Tetsuro Kato from the computer vision team set up the movement recognition for actual people, then Sakashita, an engineer at teamLab set up the small people' movement to be interactive based on that information. There were so many problems when they actually installed the smartphones at the exhibit area, including overheating, the smartphones couldn't handle continuous operation over long periods of time, and there were problems with the power supplies, so the work wasn't in perfect working order when the exhibit opened. Therefore, Sakashita was still in Taiwan (as of July 3rd) troubleshooting the problems. Things to be running more smoothly since the beginning of July.‘Peace can be Realized Even without Order Diorama Ver.'
Why did you choose smartphones?If you think of a camera as eyes, a microphone as ears, a speaker as a mouth, and a display as a face, smartphones are like people who can express themselves. While we were working on this project, we noticed why Google’s smartphone is called the ‘Android.’ They are a man-made intelligence known as an android, the closest creatures to human beings. They are wireless and can communicate almost like human beings do and perceive the outside world. They can express themselves with a display and a speaker. They network with each other in a very human way.
It’s not just one PC controlling all of the smartphones in this project, but it’s a situation where each one seriously communicates each other, isn't it?Due to the limited number of connections possible with Wi-Fi, they can only communicate with those nearby. Therefore, the information transmits like ripples from phone to phones. The Internet is the same thing since they go through servers or routers that are nearby. The Internet society seems more like the Asian style than the Western style since there is almost no rule in the structure of the Internet. There is no center. The rules are minimal, but society is maintained society. This project could resemble that idea.
There is also what’s called self-imposed restraint, right?That could be the state of the internet when you impose half-baked Western concepts. The Western concept sees ‘peace’ as the rule of law, the expulsion of strange things, and the use of power to maintain control. In this respect, I think that the old Asia was different. For example, when I go do the Awa Folk dance in my hometown, Tokushima, I don’t see any orders there, and even the music gets made up of rhythms which someone started and others hopped on. This is how the festival is made.
Is it a close to the idea of free Jazz?I don’t know much about Jazz but I feel like this is more selfish than Jazz. It seems like people play sounds that go well with others when they play Jazz. However, people don't care about others when they dance Awa folk. Since everyone is getting excited, I should be able to get excited as well. The idea is abstract and selfish like this.
Are there rules like a core melody or BPM in Awa Folk dance?There is a brief pattern of rhythm but absolutely no melody, so everyone will be surprised when they actually experience the festival. Everyone communicates in their way and creates the atmosphere of “I should be excited since everyone is.”
So this work reflects the experience of the Awa Folk dance?I got drunk and babbled in the middle of the Awa Folk dance, “Look, peace can be realized even without order. Western society is making a mistake,” but it made an impression on the people who were with me. I even forgot about what I had said at the time, but anyway, the Awa Folk dance is a completely disorderly situation and a peaceful space. It’s very rare that fighting happens during the Awa Folk dance. Everyone gets drunk and dances wildly. “Although there are no rules, peace is still there.” When I realized that that was the case, it became the base of this work. I realized it later, but teamLab is also a pretty ideal example of being able to create a distributed network in an organization.
What type of distributed network has been used at teamLab?In the case of this private exhibit in Taiwan, this was completed without any single person understanding the entire situation. After the exhibit was confirmed, it took us only two months to finish displaying about twenty pieces. Thanks to mobile phones and the internet, unbelievable progress was made possible. For example, each time various different people would come out to the window at the museum. Since no one was in charge of this exhibit full time, the museum staff was pretty confused. But they eventually got used to the distributed network of the teamLab (laugh).
That sounds like a good story.Usually, if we want to do animation work, we set up a couple of PCs before the screen and project the image or run the program. But, smartphones are the ultimate standalone objects that can communicate and show expression. Instead of having a computer in the middle, this work has smartphones communicate individually. Since the communication is exchanged between independent smartphones, there are moments that everyone is in an excited mood or in silence. I understood that smartphones can create a society like humans due to the sensitivity of sensing and communication between phones. This work hints at the idea of a new network society through the Awa Folk dance. I will always believe that there are hints for the future from the old days and non-20th century Western societies.Text: Kurando Furuya
Translation: Yumico Miyagawa