teamLab, 2012, Animation + High-performance inkjet on Wall

The TOKYO SKYTREE mural is on the 1st Floor of TOKYO SKYTREE, it is 40metres in length and 3metres tall. 13 monitors are embedded in the wall and they form a seamless picture; with the parts of the mural in the monitors being animation.

In Japanese art, traditional there is no centre of focus, there is no fixed time frame, and a huge amount of information is depicted. This art work presents Tokyo as a mix of reality and fiction, history and future; it exceeds human limits and contains an overwhelming amount of hand drawn objects, and a colossal amount of information.

Tokyo is a city made up of the stories of each and every person living here. That is what makes it such an exciting and interesting place. In Japanese art there are rakuchurakugaizu (views in and around the city of Kyoto) and edozubyoubu (scenes of Edo on folding screens), these art works have no central point of focus, they are ‘flat’, everything is depicted with the same degree of importance and they contain a vast amount of information even down to the stories of each and every individual.

We have created this picture of Tokyo as a continuation of the above form of artistic expression, incorporating the techniques of Ukiyoe and reproducing applicably the methods of Edo print using the latest digital technology to produce an art work that has no centre of focus, is flat, and contains a truly vast amount of information.

Based on our conviction that technological evolution brings about human evolution this mural exceeds previous human limits and forms a link of connecting the Tokyo of the Edo period to the Tokyo of the future.