teamLab Brings its Mind-Bending Visuals to Australia

Since just after the turn of this century, the artists, programmers, engineers, CG animators, mathematicians, and architects of the art collective teamLab have been offering glimpses of what the future in digital art would be through installations that explore creativity, technology, and the natural world. After creating teamLab Borderless in Tokyo last year, teamLab is bringing their immersive works to the Tolarno Galleries as part of the Melbourne International Arts Festival this fall. Brought to life by the group’s hyper-advanced technology, the shimmering artworks of “teamLab: Reversible Rotation” will explore calligraphy, the movement of waves, and ensō, the Japanese practice of painting a circle with a single brushstroke.

Surface caught up with teamLab—a collective who insist on speaking with a single voice—to discuss the upcoming exhibition.

Could you explain the concept behind the upcoming exhibition?

This exhibition aims to explore a new relationship between humans and nature, and between oneself and the world. 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. Everything exists in a long, fragile, yet miraculous, borderless continuity of life.

What are the barriers between the physical and digital worlds?

Digital technology can expand art and create new relationships between people—no longer limited to physical media, our digital art provides us with a greater degree of autonomy within the [physical space of the exhibition]. We are now able to manipulate and use much larger environments, and viewers are able to experience the artwork more directly, interact, and instigate change in an artwork. Through this interactive relationship, viewers become an intrinsic part of the artwork.

Considering our issue theme is Boundaries, how does teamLab Borderless move or break boundaries?

People understand and recognize the world through their bodies, moving freely and forming connections and relationships with others. The body has its own sense of time. Boundaries between different thoughts are ambiguous, causing them to influence and sometimes intermingle with each other. At teamLab Borderless, artworks move out of the rooms freely, form connections and relationships, communicate with other works, influence, and sometimes intermingle with each other, and have the same concept of time as the human body. By experiencing our museum and exhibitions, you might think that everything in this world may be borderless, and that the world without boundaries is a beautiful place.

“teamLab: Reversible Rotation” is on view from October 5 until November 2. 

(Photos and video courtesy teamLab)