NEWS

Featured on OPENING CEREMONY, Jul 16, 2014

Big In Japan: TeamLab's Digital Installation Takes Flight

Big In Japan: TeamLab’s Digital Installation Takes FlightChelsea’s Pace Gallery, host to Tara Donovan: Untitled, will debut another large-scale installation this evening: Ultra Subjective Space. A direct import from Japan design group teamLab, five high-definition monitors flirt with one another to comprise a video loop titled—are you ready for it?—Crows are chased and the chasing crows are destined to be chased as well, Division in Perspective — Light in Dark, 2014. Phew. Dissimilar to its name, artgoers will actually remember the show. Press notes call the collective’s US debut “an all-encompassing experience of spatial perception,” which loosely translates to a futuristic ride at Tokyo Disneyland (but in this go-around, psychedelic brushstrokes meet Space Mountain). Riffing off the whiz-bang choreography of the popular anime, “ITANO CIRCUS,” in teamLab’s take, missiles and lasers are eschewed for multiplying crows, the avian pest equivalent to American pigeons. We watch as the birds’ flight paths splice together to eventually crash and splatter into kiku (the chrysanthemum widely used at funerals in Japan). If it weren’t for the soaring music, this could be somber, but at the gallery preview last night, 37-year-old teamLab founder Toshiyki Inoki explained to Opening Ceremony that it’s not meant to be sad; the symbolism of fight-or-flight should stoke romance in a “what has been will be again” type way. Maybe we’re a bunch of anonymous birds; maybe we’re a bunch of flowers. Whatever we are, these staggered visuals come in the spirit of wabi-sabi, the Japanese philosophy of finding beauty in the imperfect—or even (gulp) the morbid.Ultra Subjective Space runs through August 15Pace Gallery New York508 West 25th StreetNew York, NY 10001

Featured on Sankei News, Jul 10, 2014

花と人、コントロールできないが共に生きる 「チームラボ」国東半島芸術祭に出展

サイエンス、テクノロジー、アート、デザインなどのスペシャリストで構成するウルトラテクノロジスト集団「チームラボ」が10月4日から大分県豊後高田市、国東市で開かれる「国東半島芸術祭」に新作「Flowers and People,Cannot be Controlled but Live Together(花と人、コントロールできないけれども、共に生きる)-Kunisaki Peninsula」を出展する。(Excerpt from text)

Featured on Sankei News, Jun 6, 2014

幻想的…滝の3D映像が人工衛星を包む チームラボ、ミッション〔宇宙×芸術〕展

ウルトラテクノロジスト集団「チームラボ」が「憑依する滝、人工衛星の重力」など3点を出品する「ミッション〔宇宙×芸術〕―コスモロジーを超えて」が7日から東京都現代美術館(東京都江東区)で始まる。6日の報道向け内覧会にチームラボの猪子寿之代表も出席し、作品への思いを語った。(Excerpt from text)

Featured on SHISEIDO TOKYO TREND REPORT, May 2014

teamLab’s Sketch Aquarium

In making things that combines science, technology, design and art, one of the IT companies most notable in Japan now for doing so is teamLab. “Learn! Amusement Park of the Future”, a project created by them for children, was held in various parts of Japan, garnering rave reviews. In this project, children are encouraged to move their bodies in front of the latest technology-leading device to experience the creation of an art space. Sketch Aquarium is one representative attraction of the project.Against the wall of a dim hall is an undersea world of swaying seaweeds and beautiful coral reef. Paper drawings of sharks, jellyfish, and squids, among others are prepared for them to use crayons to colour as they wish. By scanning their works, the creatures that they have just designed will start to appear in the sea on the wall, swimming around freely. The fish respond to touches and it is possible to make them change their swimming direction and feed them. Besides the children, the accompanying adults also become engrossed, colouring the fish themselves, pointing to them and teaching after they are scanned in, enjoying each other’s works, and so forth, making the scene bustle with life. A never before seen virtual aquarium filled with colourful fish swimming has finally appeared.

Featured on i-D, Apr 24, 2414

The top 5 best events from the Milan Furniture Fair - Salone del Mobile

The top 5 best events from the Milan Furniture Fair – Salone del MobileI covered the 2014 edition of the Fuorisalone from top to bottom, from the white smooth space to rough and dusty concrete or the space with soft LED reflections. Digital was competing with kids drawings, and memories were buried one after another by technology innovations. Past and present were mixing everywhere in the city. Nostalgia of the past and new challenges made this design week exciting.Here are 5 examples that are mixing both of these concept very well.Sketch AquariumTeamLab presented an aquarium in which fish drawn on paper by children swim freely, creating colorful shapes that then swim along with those drawn by other children in a large aquarium. Fish of the same shape create crowds, and when children come close to the aquarium they can also feed their fish.

Featured on Sankei News, Mar 21, 2014

日本郵便「KITTE」が開業1周年 デジタルアート展など開催

The top 5 best events from the Milan Furniture Fair – Salone del MobileI covered the 2014 edition of the Fuorisalone from top to bottom, from the white smooth space to rough and dusty concrete or the space with soft LED reflections. Digital was competing with kids drawings, and memories were buried one after another by technology innovations. Past and present were mixing everywhere in the city. Nostalgia of the past and new challenges made this design week exciting.Here are 5 examples that are mixing both of these concept very well.Sketch AquariumTeamLab presented an aquarium in which fish drawn on paper by children swim freely, creating colorful shapes that then swim along with those drawn by other children in a large aquarium. Fish of the same shape create crowds, and when children come close to the aquarium they can also feed their fish.