Aerial Climbing through a Flock of Colored Birds

teamLab, 2018-, Interactive Digital Installation, Sound: teamLab

Aerial Climbing through a Flock of Colored Birds

teamLab, 2018-, Interactive Digital Installation, Sound: teamLab

Aerial Climbing is a space where horizontal bars of varying colors are suspended by ropes and float three-dimensionally in the air. People use these bars to navigate the space in mid-air through three dimensions, trying not to fall. As the bars are linked, the movement caused on a bar by a person will affect the bars on which other people are standing. The arrangement of the bars vary depending on the selected route, so people’s experiences will differ depending on the various ways the bars are linked.

When people climb onto the bars, they shine brightly and produce a sound specific to its color. The more people climb onto bars of different colors, the more sounds will be played at the same time.

Flocks of birds fly around freely in this space. When they fly near the people in the space, they take on the color of the bars on which the people stand.

The movement of thousands of birds is beautiful and mysterious, appearing like a single giant life form. The flock has neither a leader nor mutual consensus, but it is said that the birds move on the simple basis of; if my neighbor moves, then I move too. However, the biological mechanism that causes hundreds of birds to move at the same time remains a mystery. It seems there is a universal principle that humans have yet to understand. Likewise, the arrangement of color of the flock is not predetermined. Influenced by people, the birds move, based on a primitive rule unknown to humankind, which in turn creates a complex and beautiful coloration in the space.

The artwork is not a pre-recorded image that is played back; it is created by a computer program that continuously renders the work in real time. The interaction between people and the installation causes continuous change in the artwork, so previous visual states can never be replicated, and will never reoccur. The picture at this moment can never be seen again.