Against a patchwork wall of hammered copper, a black veil appears to billow in mesmerizing motion. The fabric-like layer writhes and twists against the glimmering backdrop, revealing its diaphanous texture as it unfolds to translucence. Like a curtain flapping in an open window, the digital projection floats across the metallic surface of one of teamLab’s latest works.
Part of teamLab: Everything Exists in Infinite Continuity at the Smart Museum of Art, “Sea of Darkness, Memory Shining from the Depths” is one of several new commissions from the international art collective. Founded by Toshiyuki Inoko in 2001, teamLab consists of hundreds of artists, animators, musicians, mathematicians, developers, engineers, and more who tap into the provocative intersection of art, science, and technology.
The collective has long been interested in the limits of human perception and imagination. Through interactive and immersive installations, they invite viewers into a world where boundaries are suspended and continuity in space and time are key. teamLab was one of the earliest adopters of incorporating digital technologies into experiential works, and they continue to use basic software and programs most people have access to.
Today, encountering such elegant, yet technologically simple digital works is rare as we witness the exponential rise of AI and a collective outsourcing of much of our lives. In contrast to the tech evangelists and the luddites, teamLab’s approach is decidedly human without eschewing the digital. Works like “Order in Chaos” respond to physical touch, shooting a cacophony of vibrant lines across the floor, walls, and a grid of screens in the gallery. Riotous in energy, the piece “is an attempt to expand painting from a completed image, or a perspective illusion of space, into a spatiotemporal pictorial space that is continuous with the real space,” the collective says.
Bridging divides between time and location also emerges in “Continuous Life and Death at the Now of Eternity II,” which corresponds to its current exhibition’s environment. While on view in Chicago, for example, the floral piece brightens as the sun rises and darkens when it sets. As fall turns to winter, so will the ecosystem on the screen.
Closing the exhibition is one of teamLab’s most ingenious pieces, “The World of Irreversible Change.” Depicting a serene animated community as it goes about its day, the paneled digital work is programmed to respond to human touch by triggering a year-long, irreversible state of war and bloodshed between the inhabitants if the piece is tapped too many times. Several editions of “The World of Irreversible Change” were created, although the iteration on view at the Smart Museum is the only to exist in its original, pristine condition (it’s understandably cordoned off for preservation).
As Inoko tells us during a walkthrough of the exhibition, when the battle breaks out, the community can never return to its quieter days of peace. Eventually, all the people die, and the once thriving metropolis turns desolate. After a few years, shrubs begin to pop up and later still, bird song rings through the skies. But humanity never returns, a poetic if not cautionary tale for our era.
teamLab: Everything Exists in Infinite Continuity is on view through February 21 at the Smart Museum of Art. Explore more of teamLab’s works on its website and YouTube.
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