Light Sculpture of Flames

teamLab, 2016, Interactive Light Sculpture, Endless, Sound: Hideaki Takahashi

Light Sculpture of Flames

teamLab, 2016, Interactive Light Sculpture, Endless, Sound: Hideaki Takahashi

Pointillism is a genre of paintings that expresses the subject matter through a series of points. This interactive sculpture, however, consists of a set of points of light that are used to express three-dimensional objects. For this work, a three-dimensional interactive flame is produced by the points of light.

When people move close to the flames, the flames increase in intensity.

Flames are a phenomenon of light and heat generated by combustion, not a substance, but our sensory experience when we see a chemical reaction called combustion. People perceive the flame, a sensory experience, as if it were an object, and sometimes feel life in it.

Flames often appear to have a hierarchy of colors from their outside to the center: red on the outside, strong bright white on the inside, and dark in the center. In the case of a raw egg, the outer shell is white, the interior is transparent, and the center is yellow, but because it is a three-dimensional object, only the white shell is visible from the outside. Unlike an egg, the flame is a three-dimensional object made of light, and the strong bright white inside is still white when mixed with the red outside. Therefore, the flame, which is a three-dimensional object, appears as if it were a flat painting with a color hierarchy, no matter where you look at it.

By creating a three-dimensional flame with a collection of points of light, the three-dimensional flame sculpture moves back and forth between three and two dimensions.