Let's make it clear that the Tokyo Digital Art Museum curated by teamLab - a Japanese collective known internationally for its huge digital artworks and formed not only by artists, but also programmers, engineers, CG animators, mathematicians and architects - it is not a museum. Or at least not in the terms with which we know museums: entering those 10,000 square meters and observing the over 50 works of art, goes beyond the traditional concept of a museum because there are no boundaries between the visitor and the surrounding space that immerses the public in works impressive three-dimensional. A totally engaging, 360-degree artistic experience.
A museum that is not a museum
Do not expect to find traditional paintings, sculptures, or other works of art, fixed or hung on a wall. In the MORI Building DIGITAL ART MUSEUM in Tokyo, the spaces are continuous, without borders, where the public is completely immersed and captured by works that seem three-dimensional. Within the museum space, visitors can literally step inside works of art and interact with them. These enchanted spaces of the museum revolve around the concept of «borderless», that is, "without borders", eliminating the boundary between art and spectator, between fiction and reality. What struck me most was that the works of art change and transform based on the presence of people, in fact, the installations are constantly changing in real-time, producing a complex, apparently natural world. Projectors, lights, and computers together are used to reproduce inside a world that is difficult to describe in words, but maybe the video I made will give you a better idea.
[embed=videolink]{"video":"https://youtu.be/MeobMpK5PuA","width":"100%","height":"500"}[/embed]
Some useful info:
This museum has quickly become one of the most popular museums in Tokyo. On holidays or weekends it is easy not to find tickets available for the day, so I recommend that you buy tickets online, which you don't even have to print (save the planet! 😁); in fact, as a good digital museum, just show the QR code received with the booking email. The museum can basically be divided into two main areas on two different floors: the Borderless World on the lower level and the Athletic Forest on the upper level. Then there is the Forest of Lamps, the Future Park children's area, and the En Tea House tea room.
Borderless World
Certainly the most spectacular area of the museum, the one in which you find yourself immediately after entering. Characterized by very dark corridors, it has several rooms, more or less large, where you can admire the intangible works of art exhibited in this museum, or games of light, colors, and shapes that change continuously and that often interact with each other and with visitors ( download the app and you can in fact influence what happens in some rooms). No map or indication, the visitor can literally get lost inside the work of art. You may not even be able to find all of them and this is done on purpose.
Athletic Forest
To reach this area you have to go up some stairs starting from the Borderless World. As the name suggests, in this area you can actively make your body interact with some special effects for an even more engaging experience. The heart of this area is a large space with a three-dimensional floor made up of different slopes (Graffiti Nature - High Mountains and Deep Valleys), which together with the projectors help to create very special effects. In a corner of the room, you can color the sheets depicting different animals as you like, and hand them over to the staff, who will scan your creation instantly. From that moment on, once projected, you can meet your creature as it wanders on the walls of the room and of course, you can even react with it too.
The forest of lamps
It is accessed in groups and time is limited (unfortunately….). Inside there are hundreds of lamps, produced in Murano, with glass lampshades, which change color and intensity in a breathtaking play of light. What may seem like an almost random luminous movement is actually the result of mathematical calculations that make every visitor feel that the light is always moving from a lamp towards the one closest to them.
The tea ceremony
Japan is one of the tea countries par excellence: throughout the country, the ceremony is taken very seriously, but in a good self-respecting digital art museum they could only reinvent it in a contemporary and technological key. The atmosphere with very soft lights, the furniture, the way the tea is served, up to its strong point: the play of light projected inside your cup, inside which you will see virtual flowers blossom that will unravel petals on the table every time you move the cup itself.
IN ONE WORD: GO! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!