PAST EXHIBITION
Nov 29, 2014 - May 10, 2015
NATIONAL MUSEUM OF EMERGING SCIENCE AND INNOVATION Tokyo

Dance! Art Museum

In pursuit of digital expression. Humankind has incorporated the “digital” concept into their lives. We believe that this is not only based on the point of view of convenience or innovative costs, but also as a way to expand the concept of beauty. 



For example, we think that digital technology can dramatically alter the relationship between people and art. Rather than just a visual experience, art can be changed into something that is more participatory and physically experienced. People’s behavior itself can change the artwork. It is changed from a relationship between the individual and the work to a relationship between the group and the work. It also influences the relationships between the people in front of the work, and the process of creating the work. 



Through new digital methodology, we are trying out a scientific approach to seeking a logical structure to the time-honored Japanese perception of space. And by reusing that methodology we are trying out new visual experiences and raising questions about how people in the modern age perceive the world. This is because we believe there may be hints for a new society among the things that mankind cultivated over many years in ancient times but abandoned simply because they were incompatible with modern society. 



At least, we have discovered that the logical structure of the time-honored Japanese perception of space is very compatible with what people experience as they walk around freely within the art space, taking part in and experiencing the work; in other words, the work changes freely depending on how the people behave. The ancient Japanese perception of space that has been discarded in modern times can, through digital means, flourish once again. If there is no need for viewers to stand still to appreciate the work, it can retain its beauty regardless of how it is transformed. 

Learn and Play! teamLab Future Park

Through collaborative creation, we learn the experience of “co-creation”. 

30 years ago, when I had just become a schoolboy, could anyone in the world have imagined the jobs that we do today? 

With the arrival of the information society, everything is connected by networks and society is changing ever more rapidly. I can’t imagine what kinds of jobs the children of today will be doing 30 years from now.

Creativity is far more important than memorizing historical dates or being good at doing calculations. 

Meanwhile current education is no more than extensive memorization and practicing questions with one correct answer, where all other answers are wrong. Conversely, freedom of expression, doing things differently to others, anything that doesn’t lead to a right answer, these are all seen as wrong and are corrected. In society, there is no such thing as a problem with a single right answer. An answer that had never existed until now may be the right answer. A bookstore that delivers from one click is a right answer, and a comfortable bookstore with a lovely cafe atmosphere is also a right answer. And many of the bookstores that were the correct answer 30 years ago are now, possibly, the wrong answer. 

And in the current education system, from a young age and without exception, the focus is on homogeneous development of ability so that each individual has no weak points. Homework is done individually, tests are taken individually, and entrance examinations are individually evaluated. In other words, working solo is completely drilled into students. Furthermore, many kids today are obsessed with their smartphones. Their brains might be connected with others through the smartphone, but physically they are engaged in completely individual activity. Humans learn about the world through every kind of experience, and even when moving our bodies, we are thinking. 

But in society, it is increasingly required to be able to achieve creative results as part of a team. Collaborative and creative experience, in other words “co-creative” experience, that is what we believe children may need now more than anything else. Using the latest digital technology, we want children to enjoy moving their bodies about freely in a shared space, interacting with each other, collaboratively creating in a “co-creative” experience. And we want them to become the kind of people who can enjoy creative collaboration, and from this wish was born, “Learn and Play! teamLab Future Park”. 

MESSAGE

teamLab Dance! Art Exhibition and Learn and Play! teamLab Future Park

Toshiyuki Inoko, President and CEO, teamLab


From spring to summer of 2012, teamLab held their first personal art gallery exhibition at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, featuring as many as 19 artworks and projects.


At the time I was surprised to see that, on weekends, the art museum welcomed a great number of visitors with children. Perhaps it was because parents had a strong desire for their children to experience modern art. And the children seemed to be running excitedly around the art gallery. Visitors must have felt that it was normal for children to run around art galleries; that is, a generally acceptable behavior. One of the artworks we exhibited provided a space for large amounts of people to interact with it. Many children gathered there, continuing to be loud and full of energy. The children worked together to participate in incredibly intellectual and creative experiences.


Seeing the children behave like this, one member of the teamLab group who normally shows little interest in art (teamLab members are very diverse, so we do have people like this... ) suddenly started saying that he would like his two children in Japan to have the same experience.


This is how teamLab’s “Learn and Play! teamLab Future Park” was started. We wanted to let children in Japan experience art as well, interacting in the same space with other people, working together to have a creative experience, in a space where they would be able to run around freely! These were our thoughts.


In line with this, at the same time, teamLab has also been holding exhibitions and showcasing art around the world as modern art. Humankind has incorporated the “digital” concept into their lives. We believe that this is not only based on the point of view of convenience or innovative costs, but also as a way to expand the concept of beauty.


For example, we believe that digital art will dramatically change the relationship between people and art. Rather than simply viewing it and feeling it, we can make changes to allow people to participate in it and experience it even more. And going further, people’s actual behaviors can also effect changes to the artwork itself. This instigates a change that goes from the relationship between individuals and artworks, to the relationship between groups and artworks. In this way, there is also an effect on the relationship between the people standing in front of the artworks.


In addition, it also expands the process for creating the artworks themselves. We use new methodologies based on digital techniques to try out new scientific ways for finding logical structures in space recognition of ancient Japan. We then reuse these to try out new visual experiences, raising questions about modern people’s perception of the world. This is because we believe that, in spite of humankind having been fostered for many years and because of its incompatibility with modern society, the ancient times may hold, among all that has been discarded, a variety of clues for completely new societies.


At any rate, we believe that expanding the concept of beauty through this new digital concept will greatly drive the values of humankind.


In summer of 2014, we were able to hold a personal art exhibition for the first time ever at the amazing Pace Gallery in New York, receiving great feedback and achieving great success.


And now, we have finally reached Tokyo. In Japan, this will be the first large exhibition held in one place under the teamLab name. And coincidentally, it is to be held at a National Museum as well. In actual fact, from the very beginning we had decided to put together and exhibit once more the artwork and amusement park that had originated right in the same place. In Japan, it is also acceptable for children to experience art and run around at art exhibitions. And it is fine for adults to do the same too, of course. That's right; everyone can experience art and dance around as they like. If everybody were to dance, surely art would dance as well.


Our great wish is for everyone, even adults on their own, to enjoy “Learn and Play! teamLab Future Park”. Why? Because we also want adults to work together and enjoy creative experiences. At times, they may even get mixed in with haphazard and random children who are overflowing with great creativity.


After all, to start with “Learn and Play! teamLab Future Park” was not actually created for children; we simply did it because we wanted to create something that we thought would be fun.


We are forever grateful to be given this opportunity. Thank you so much for all your continued support.

Shake and Learn in the Past and the Future

Mahoro Uchida, Miraikan National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation


Mr. Inoko, CEO of teamLab, once said at a symposium, “All heavy things are unsophisticated”. “Scripts must not have a limited number of characters”. Apparently this is one of teamLab’s commandments (?). teamLab is an unusual group that scatters around the kind of lack of common sense that will make you think “huh?!” regardless of the field, whether it is business, advertising, and even public works, and regardless of space and size such as mobile, TV, Internet, towns, or airports. It appears freely here, there, and everywhere, providing us with intellectual stimulus and a lot of fun.


teamLab does not believe in thick and heavy materials created by modern society, nor in fixed formats, in terms of number of characters and the like. But rather, teamLab believes in mathematical algorithms that may continue on to eternity, relationships that continue to change based on other people, as well as ambiguous perspectives of time and space held by the Japanese people of ancient times. teamLab artworks have the amazing power to make us value the existence of each and every moment, each and every point, whether you are having fun moving your body, or staring intently at an image. As well as raising deep questions about the modern era, this might also be because these unique moments can make us feel a definite connection with those ancient times, as well as the future.


The role of art is to make us experience God (or something akin to a god) and raise questions, and the role of science is to pursue the truth and find answers to those questions. In Renaissance, where both of these concepts had the same meaning, the great masters Da Vinci and Michelangelo used art and science, that is to say beauty and knowledge, just like magic, creating order and generating deep emotions around the whole town, and leading people toward the future. At this exhibition, which spans across the realms of time, space, and material objects, it would make us very happy if you could join teamLab, as a modern Raphael based on the concept of “team = people” and “lab = studio”, to dance and learn, and create our future.

The Future is so Interesting and Beautiful

Gen Iwama, Project Producer, Nippon Television Network Corporation


teamLab shows us the future. An extraordinary, fun and snazzy future. A future that will make adults and children alike, whatever their age or gender, experience the same feeling of wondrous excitement. In order to reel this future in, they will jump easily over old-fashioned demarcations, boundaries, and genres. Regardless of whether it is science or art. So is it art or is it science? That really does not matter. Is it art? Is it play? Is it business? Or is it education? That is completely up to the viewers. teamLab provides creative experiences that are vivid and light. Maybe this used to be the role of television. That feeling of not knowing what would come flying out, giving us a great sense of excitement as if we were in a circus tent. teamLab has the magical power to envelop ordinary people in smoke, leading them to take a step into new worlds. As I gaze at their shiny silhouettes, I can sense that we are experiencing a historical moment as we stand in front of the gateway to the next generation. Yes, I am sure that is it. This group will be home to creators of new beauty and fun of a new era. As I think this, I feel slightly jealous. If I had been born 15 years later... I would have loved to join teamLab . This exhibition is sure to provide viewers with new experiences and new types of excitement. Please come to Odaiba and witness teamLab's extraordinary, snazzy, fun, and beautiful future.

Connecting Japanese Imagination in the 21st Century to a World Where Peace is Possible without Order

Tsunehiro Uno, Critic


teamLab is an ultratechnologist collective of infotech specialists headed by Toshiyuki Inoko.

By combining modern IT with the logic behind the sense of space shown in Japanese art—a sense of space that differs from the traditional Western European perspective—teamLab has produced a wide variety of digital artworks that offer a unique visual experience.




Read more >

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Venue Details

Title
teamLab Dance! Art Exhibition and Learn and Play! teamLab Future Park
Term
Nov 29, 2014 - May 10, 2015
Hours
10:00-17:00
Open until 19:00
-After March 7, on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays.
-Between April 29 to May 10.

*Last entrance: 30 min before the door close.
Closed
Tuesdays
December 28 - January 1, 2015
March 2 - March 6, 2015
*Exceptions: Opens on December 23, January 6, March 31, April 28 and May 5, 2015.
Admission Fee
Tickets on site
Adult (19 years old and over) / JPY 1,800
Young (6 to 18 years old) / JPY 1,200 (On Saturdays JPY 1,100)
Child (3 to 6 years old) / JPY 900
Infant (2 years old and under) / Free
Person with Disability and one accompanying person (Valid Disability Book) / Free

Discount Tickets for Group of 8 and over, and Returning visitors
Adult (19 years old and over) / JPY 1,600
Young (6 to 18 years old) / JPY 1,000 (On Saturdays JPY 920)
Child (3 to 6 years old) / JPY 700

*Returning discount will be applied only with your own ticket stub. On your next visit to the exhibition, please show your ticket stub at the ticket counter.

Ticket Agencies
Lawson Ticket / e+ / Ticket PIA / Seven Ticket / tixee / etix

Permanent exhibition
You can also enter the permanent exhibition in the same museum with this ticket.

ACCESS

Address

National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation (Miraikan), Special Exhibition Zone 1F
2-3-6, Oume, Koto-ku, Tokyo
Map

BY TRAIN
Tokyo Waterfront New Transit Yurikamome Line:

5-minute walk from Fune-no Kagakukan station, 4-minute walk from “Telecom Center station”

Tokyo Waterfront Area Rapid Transit Rinkai Line:

15-minute walk from Tokyo Teleport station

CONTACT US

ARTIST
teamLab
teamLab (f. 2001) is an international art collective. Their collaborative practice seeks to navigate the confluence of art, science, technology, and the natural world. Through art, the interdisciplinary group of specialists, including artists, programmers, engineers, CG animators, mathematicians, and architects, aims to explore the relationship between the self and the world, and new forms of perception.

In order to understand the world around them, people separate it into independent entities with perceived boundaries between them. teamLab seeks to transcend these boundaries in our perceptions of the world, of the relationship between the self and the world, and of the continuity of time. Everything exists in a long, fragile yet miraculous, borderless continuity.

teamLab exhibitions have been held in cities worldwide, including New York, London, Paris, Singapore, Silicon Valley, Beijing, and Melbourne among others. teamLab museums and large-scale permanent exhibitions include teamLab Borderless and teamLab Planets in Tokyo, teamLab Borderless Shanghai, and teamLab SuperNature Macao, with more to open in cities including Abu Dhabi, Beijing, Hamburg, Jeddah, and Utrecht.

teamLab’s works are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; Asian Art Museum, San Francisco; Asia Society Museum, New York; Borusan Contemporary Art Collection, Istanbul; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; and Amos Rex, Helsinki.

teamlab.art

Biographical Documents

teamLab is represented by Pace Gallery, Martin Browne Contemporary and Ikkan Art.
  • Organizers
    National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation (Miraikan), teamLab, Nippon Television Network Corporation, and BS Nippon Corporation
  • Co-organizers
    Yurikamome Inc.
  • Sponsors
    Microsoft Co., Ltd, PFU LIMITED, Sony Corporation, and PENTEL CO., LTD., USHIO LIGHTING, INC SORAA, Inc. Nissen Co., Ltd.
  • Supporters
    Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, TOKYO FM Broadcasting Co., Ltd., Tokyo metropolitan television Co., Ltd., Television Kanagawa Inc. and TOKYO WATERFRONT AREA RAPID TRANSIT,INC