MORI Building Digital Art Museum: EPSON teamLab Borderless – The World’s First Digital Art Museum

We often refer to Tokyo as Art Capital of the World, and our friends at art collective teamLab, along with their collaborators Mori Building and Epson, just made this statement even truer with the unveiling of the world’s first digital art museum: ‘MORI Building Digital Art Museum: EPSON teamLab Borderless’. Maction Planet was honoured to be amongst a select few invited to the pre-opening preview event, and we were able to bring our guests along to experience the hottest ticket in town. Enjoy video and photos from our visit.

The museum opens in Tokyo’s Odaiba district on June 21 2018 inside the Palette Town commercial complex. teamLab’s main partners in this venture have been Mori Building, the real estate developer most famous of the construction of Roppongi Hills and EPSOM, who bring their computing power.

teamLab was founded in 2001 and has grown from 5 to over 500 members. It is an interdisciplinary group that brings together artists, animators, designers, programmers, engineers, mathematicians, architects and more to create a team of ‘ultra-technologists’ whose goal is to achieve a balance between art, science, technology and creativity and to explore our relationships with the world and each other in the information age.

Their work is immersive and interactive, making full use of cutting edge digital technology, which has freed art from the static canvas, enabling it to exist independently and change freely.

The museum’s overall concept is ‘teamLab Borderless’.  The museum is like a large maze, where visitors can see digital images change in reaction to their movements and feel immersed in the artworks. Artworks move in and out of rooms freely, form connections and relationships with people, communicate with other works… even going so far as to influence and intermingle with each other. The museum builds on some of teamLab’s past installations and works and links them together in a way never before seen.

A good example is in the work ‘The Way of the Sea, Flying Beyond Borders – Colours of Life’. Schools of fish, thousands upon thousands in size, swim under the influence of people’s movement. Each person has a colour, and the nearby fish receive that colour. They change paths and split as directed by people. The work is rendered in real time by a computer program. It is neither prerecorded animation nor is it looped imagery. The artwork is constantly changing; previous states will never be repeated and can never be seen again.

When you visit  you will appreciate the complexity of this endeavour. It is a truly mammoth undertaking when you consider that the space is 10,000m2. The operation requires over 500 computers and 470 projectors to support the 40 or so works on permanent display.

Thank you to Takashi Kubo for his kind arrangement and Kazumasa Nonaka for being our guide on our exclusive journey through this digital future as envisioned by the world’s most pioneering ultratechnologists.

teamLab Borderless – another reason why Tokyo is the World’s Greatest Metropolis.

Maction Planet runs bespoke Tokyo Private Tours and Experiences, including Tokyo Art Tours. To book yours, contact us on info@mactionplanet.com