Environmental Phenomena
2020
The artworks do not exist independently, but are created by the environment which produces the various phenomena that cause the artworks to exist.
Up until now, things that humans have created have existed through matter, just like a rock, and have a stable structure in and of themselves. Unlike such things, the existence of the artworks are created by the environment.
The environment produces the phenomena, and the environment maintains the existence of the structure. Let us call that existence environmental phenomena.
Existence will be freed from matter that has previously been responsible for its existence. Elements like air, water, and light that permeate our daily lives are transformed by their environment into unique phenomena that will become the existence. The boundaries of that existence are ambiguous and continuous. Even if people break the artwork apart, the work will remain in existence as long as its environment is maintained. Conversely, if the environment is not maintained, the work will disappear. Perhaps, people's consciousness will spread from existence itself to the environment.
A rock will continue to exist even if it is placed in a sealed box isolated from the outside world, but life cannot maintain its existence if it is placed in such a closed box. Life is also an existence that is maintained by the environment.
Life may be a miraculous phenomenon that emerges from a flow in an open and continuous world.
FEATURED WORKS
teamLab, 2022, Interactive Installation, Sound: teamLab
Like an organic entity created from crystallized light, the work shines iridescently from its center as it moves around, merging and dividing continuously.People can walk into the artwork, and even if they do so, the artwork will continue to be maintained, its existence unharmed. If a person touches the artwork, they realize that what they are looking at is ordinary water. The artwork’s existence is not independent, but is actually a unique phenomenon created by its environment.The places where the work appears will change as the viewer moves. The work’s appearance is unique to the viewer, so someone viewing the artwork from another angle will see a different colored work appearing in a different place. In other words, the existence of the artwork being seen is created by its environment, and exists only in the viewer.Environmental PhenomenateamLab explores the creation of artworks based on the concept of environmental phenomena, in which the artworks do not exist independently, but are created by the environment that produces the various phenomena.Objects like stones and man-made creations maintain a stable structure on their own. Unlike these, the existence of the artworks are dependent on their environment.The environment produces phenomena and stabilizes their structure - these stabilized phenomena are what create the existence of the artworks.Environmental phenomena are released from the material substances that have been responsible for maintaining structures of existence. Elements like air, water, and light that permeate our daily lives are transformed by their environment into unique phenomena that become works of art. The boundaries of their existence are ambiguous and continuous. Even if people destroy the work, the work will remain in existence as long as its environment is maintained. On the contrary, the work will disappear if the environment is not maintained.In time, people's consciousness will expand from existence itself to the environment.A stone can continue to exist in a closed box, sealed off from the outside world, but life cannot sustain its existence in such a box because it is created by its environment.Life is a miraculous phenomenon that emerges from a flow in a continuous world.
Vedi AltroMassless Clouds Between Sculpture and Life
teamLab, 2020, Interactive Installation, Sound: teamLab
Life is an order of energy.In this artwork space, like life, we created an order of energy. In doing so, a giant white mass is born, and emerges afloat.The sculpture, a giant white mass, neither sinks down to the floor nor reaches the ceiling, floating as though transcending the concept of mass. The contour of this floating sculpture’s existence is ambiguous, becoming smaller when it tears and growing larger when the masses come together. People can enter this sculpture with their entire body, and even if the sculpture breaks, it naturally repairs itself like a living thing. But, as with living things, when the sculpture is destroyed beyond what it can repair, it cannot mend itself, and collapses. Even if people try to move or push this floating sculpture, they cannot do so. If they stir up the wind, the sculpture will scatter.What is life in biological terms? Viruses, for example, are considered to exist somewhere between living and inanimate because they do not have cells, the smallest unit of biological life, nor do they have the ability to self-reproduce. What separates the living from the inanimate cannot be defined biologically to this day.Objects like stones and man-made creations maintain a stable structure on their own. A stone can continue to exist in a closed box, sealed off from the outside world, but life cannot sustain its existence in such a box because it is not an independent structure that can exist on its own.Life is like a vortex created in the ocean. The vortex cannot maintain a stable structure on its own; rather, it is created and sustained by water that continuously flows inwards and outwards.The vortex is an existence within the flow, and its contour is ambiguous.The same is true of life. It consumes external matter and energy as food and discharges it, sustaining its ordered structure as the energy dissipates. Life exists within the flow of matter and energy, and its contour, like a vortex, is ambiguous.Life is a miraculous phenomenon that emerges in the flow of matter and energy, and its structure is the order of energy created by that flow.In terms of material substance, the only things that exist in this space are ordinary soap, water, and air. The bubbles are soap bubbles.Although life cannot be strictly defined with modern biology, everything that is structured upon cells, metabolizes, and self-reproduces, is conveniently labeled living things. In other words, all living things are composed of cells. All cells are surrounded by a cell membrane composed of a lipid bilayer with the hydrophilic part facing outwards and the hydrophobic part covered within the layers. Both the inside and outside of the enveloping membrane are liquid.Soap bubbles are similarly enveloped by lipid bilayer membranes, and the membranes of the bubbles that make up this sculpture are structurally identical to cell membranes. However, contrary to cells, the bilayer of the bubble membrane floats in and encloses air, so the hydrophobic part faces outwards, while the hydrophilic part is covered within the layers. In other words, if we consider cells to be pouch-shaped membranes in liquid, bubbles are pouch-shaped membranes in air.The space is filled with soap bubbles to create a unique environment in which an order of energy is born. By doing so, an immense white mass emerges from this sea of bubbles that floats steadily in mid-air.This sculpture is created from substances composed in the same ways as cells, the structuring units of life-forms, and the order of energy created from this unique environment.
Vedi AltroteamLab, 2022, Digital Installation, Sound: teamLab
Reality is not what we see. What we see is a world that we are capable of perceiving.A sphere made of accumulated rays of light.The light radiates from the center in infinite fine rays, creating its spherical shape. The light source remains motionless, yet the countless lines emitting from it wriggle continuously.The sphere has no surface boundary, and the perception of the boundary between the artwork and the body is ambiguous. When you try to touch a sphere, your hand goes into the sphere as it does not have a physical boundary.What is this sphere? Why do the rays wriggle?Our world is within us.And once we recognize this sphere made of accumulated lines, our perception of the world expands, and we will begin to notice them wherever we go.
Vedi AltroMassless Suns and Dark Spheres
teamLab, 2022, Interactive Digital Installation, Endless, Sound: Hideaki Takahashi
Countless spheres of light and spheres of darkness.Each sphere of light can be clearly perceived in the space as a mass seemingly made of solidified light, however, there is no material surface boundary. The perception of the boundary between the artwork and your body is ambiguous.When you broaden your vision, purple-blue spheres made of darkness also begin to appear, as though darkness has been solidified.If you try to touch a sphere of light, the sphere shines brightly and the surrounding spheres respond one after the other.Light does not solidify, and masses made entirely of light do not exist in the universe. In other words, these spheres of light only exist in your perception.The work cannot exist on its own - its existence is a phenomenon created by its environment.The work questions the notion of existence and what it means.
Vedi AltroLevitation - Flattening Red and Blue & Blurred Violet
teamLab, 2021, Digital Installation, Sound: Hideaki Takahashi
Life is an order of energy.In the artwork space, an order of energy is created, just like life.The sphere is not supported by anything. Nevertheless, through the order of energy, the sphere transcends the concept of mass: it levitates in the space between the floor and ceiling, floating up and down. When a person taps the sphere, it floats away, falls to the ground, and rolls away. But if there is no external interference, it will slowly rise into the air again, as though restoring itself to its original state.The sphere also appears to shift between two and three dimensions.What is life? Viruses, for example, are considered to exist somewhere between living and inanimate, because they do not have cells, the smallest unit of biological life, and they do not reproduce. What separates the living from the inanimate cannot be defined biologically to this day.That you continue to be tomorrow who you are today is against the law of increasing entropy, wherein tangible things collapse. In other words, in a universe where entropy (a measurement of the lack of order in a system) is supposedly being maximized, life is an entity that resists this trend. Life can be thought of as a “supernature” phenomenon: an occurrence that defies the laws of classical physics.Physicist and 1977 winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Ilya Prigogine, observed that in the natural world, when energy is absorbed from an external source, internal entropy is generated, then released. Prigogine discovered that there exists a non-equilibrium state that is only realized when this entropy is released. Through the dissipation of energy (or matter) and the removal of entropy, internal entropy is reduced and order is created. It can be said that living organisms take in energy from the outside in the form of food, disposing of entropy in the form of excrement, thereby preserving entropy.Life can be thought of as an order of energy that is continuous with the external environment.The existence of life can be thought of as a Supernature Phenomenon that defies the laws of physics. When an order of energy is created within the artwork space, the sphere transcends universal gravitation, violating physics as life does. The sphere slowly levitates, becomes suspended in the middle of the space, and floats up and down in the air.When a person views the Supernature Phenomenon before them, it causes their perception to change, thus leading to a new cognitive experience that differs from that of everyday life.This artwork aims to explore changes in cognition.
Vedi Altro