Spatial Calligraphy: Line, Space, Overlap, Continuous and Uncontinuous, 2 sets of 5 screens - Gold and Silver in White

teamLab, 2016, Digital Installation, 3min

Spatial Calligraphy: Line, Space, Overlap, Continuous and Uncontinuous, 2 sets of 5 screens - Gold and Silver in White

teamLab, 2016, Digital Installation, 3min

Spatial Calligraphy is calligraphy drawn in space, a form of calligraphy that teamLab has been exploring since it was founded. The artwork reconstructs calligraphy in three dimensional space to express the depth, speed and power of the brush stroke, and that calligraphy is then flattened using the logical structure of space that teamLab calls Ultrasubjective Space. The calligraphy shifts between two and three dimensions.

In a Japan that had no knowledge of perspective, depth was constructed through a different method, not just in painting but actual space itself. For example, in the gardens of France's Palace of Versailles, trees of the same species and height are planted at regular, uniform intervals. A continuous sense of depth in the garden is created by how the identical trees systematically appear smaller as one looks to the horizon. Conversely, at the gardens at the Shugakuin Imperial Villa in Japan, the scenery consists of a foreground, middleground, and background, and a sense of depth is achieved by layering.

For this artwork teamLab expresses Japanese calligraphy in a variety of spaces, then brings these spaces together in a single exhibition area. It is an experimental work to see what experience is created by the various ways in which the spaces where the calligraphy are drawn, and the larger space where they are exhibited, relate to each other.