Worlds Unbound

Laura Lee

Description

In this lavishly illustrated volume, Laura Lee introduces the art of Tokyo-based digital art collective teamLab, which has soared to global fame with its electrifying immersive and interactive installations. The first of its kind, Worlds Unbound: The Art of teamLab provides a comprehensive overview of teamLab’s artistic vision and achievements from its beginnings to its twentieth anniversary in 2021, and illuminates the remarkable scope of teamLab’s groundbreaking art and its fundamental contribution to the pivotal field of new media art.

This original new book, the first scholarly monograph on this popular group, unpacks the popularity and success of the digital immersive environments created worldwide by the Tokyo-based collective, teamLab, from multiple perspectives and addresses the lack of critical appreciation of their work. The book includes an extensive interview with teamLab.

teamLab launched in January 2001 with five members and now comprises more than 600 individuals in a multidisciplinary collaboration of engineers, computer graphics animators, mathematicians, graphic designers, architects, artists and computer programmers.

The digital art collective has attained international celebrity for its electrifying installations that transcend boundaries between gallery, public space and popular entertainment and, judging from press coverage, ticket sales and prolific production, it seems clear teamLab’s success is only on the rise. In 2018, the collective opened the MORI Building DIGITAL ART MUSEUM: teamLab Borderless, a massive technological environment in Tokyo that recorded 2.3 million visitors in its first year of operation – the world’s largest annual number of visitors of any single-artist museum. The same year saw numerous other high-profile immersive exhibitions, including teamLab: Massless in Helsinki, Au-delà des limites in Paris, and teamLab Planets TOKYO, a second exhibition in Tokyo.

These were quickly followed by two new museums, teamLab Borderless Shanghai in 2019 and, in 2020, teamLab SuperNature in Macao. The vast sea of selfies that have emerged from these venues index the collective’s soaring global popularity.

At the same time, teamLab’s works have found art market success and have been exhibited in major museums worldwide, including the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC and Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), and they are part of the permanent collection of The Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, and Amos Rex in Helsinki, among numerous others. This canonization of teamLab’s art belies the fact that the group did not have a traditional gallery start, and in fact teamLab has always engaged in software development and corporate work, in addition to creating artworks. The collective thus boasts an enigmatic status, spanning conventional categories and defying traditional art world pedigree. In so doing it has produced a tremendously rich body of work that speaks to several overlapping issues pertinent to contemporary art while advancing a unique artistic vision.

Primary readership will include artists, art historians and visual studies scholars who are particularly interested in the most recent media art and Japanese contemporary art. It will be an essential resource for students and scholars working in Japanese art, global contemporary art, digital art, augmented reality, expanded cinema and installation art and related fields.

It will also be of more general interest to those who have visited, or hope to visit, teamLab environments worldwide.

Acknowledgements

List of Illustrations

Preface

Introduction

Part I

Chapter One

Ultrasubjective Space

Chapter Two

Japan and Nature

Part II

Chapter Three

Techno-Ecology

Chapter Four

Interactivity and Co-Creation

Conclusion

Epilogue

Interview

Notes

Bibliography

Index

 

Sujets

• Sculpture
• ART
• Installation
• Digital
• Asian
• Japan
• Far East
• Japanese
• Installation art
• Japanese art
• East Asia

Informations

• Publié par: Intellect Books
• Date de parution: 29 mars 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781789384512
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 25 Mo

Extrait

Worlds Unbound
Figure 00.01: teamLab, Sunflower Phoenix , 2017, Digital Work, single channel, Randomized video loop, 3 sequences, 5 min 20 sec, each. teamLab, courtesy Pace Gallery.


Figure 00.02: teamLab, Peony Peacock , 2017, Digital Work, single channel, Randomized video loop, 3 sequences, 5 min 20 sec, each. teamLab, courtesy Pace Gallery.
Worlds Unbound
The Art of teamLab
Laura Lee
First published in the UK in 2022 by Intellect, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK
First published in the USA in 2022 by Intellect, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
Copyright 2022 Intellect Ltd
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Copy editor: Newgen
Cover and layout designer: Aleksandra Szumlas
Cover photo: teamLab, Microcosmoses , 2019, Interactive Installation, LED,
Endless, Sound: teamLab. © teamLab, courtesy Pace Gallery.
Production manager: Laura Christopher
Typesetter: Aleksandra Szumlas
Print ISBN 978-1-78938-449-9
ePDF ISBN 978-1-78938-450-5
ePUB ISBN 978-1-78938-451-2
Printed and bound by Gomer.
To find out about all our publications, please visit our website.
There you can subscribe to our e-newsletter, browse or download our current catalogue, and buy any titles that are in print.
www.intellectbooks.com
This is a peer-reviewed publication.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Figures
Preface
Introduction
PART I
Chapter 1 Ultrasubjective Space
Chapter 2 Japan and Nature
PART II
Chapter 3 Techno-Ecology
Chapter 4 Interactivity and Co-Creation

Conclusion
Epilogue
Interview
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgements


Figure 00.03: teamLab, Lotus Elephant , 2017, Digital Work, single channel, Randomized video loop, 3 sequences, 5 min 20 sec, each. teamLab, courtesy Pace Gallery.


Figure 00.04: teamLab, Chrysanthemum Tiger , 2017, Digital Work, single channel, Randomized video loop, 3 sequences, 5 min 20 sec, each. teamLab, courtesy Pace Gallery.

F irst and foremost, I truly appreciate teamLab s warm generosity and consistent, dedicated support of this project. Profound thanks are due to Florida State University s Council on Research and Creativity Planning Grant and AHPEG Grant, as well as the College of Arts and Science s Dean s Faculty Travel Award, which were instrumental to this project from its earliest stages to its publication. I am grateful also to: Umeda Mitsuko; Yamada Sosho, abbot of Shinjuan, Daitokuji, Kyoto; The British Museum; Kosanji Temple; Kuboso Memorial Museum of Arts, Izumi; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art; Tokyo National Museum; and Yonezawa City Uesugi Museum. Erica Cioc, Tova Ervin, Noah French, Junyi Li and Hikaru Murakami were terrific interlocutors at the outset of this project, and I am deeply appreciative of the invaluable comments made by the anonymous reviewers of my manuscript. Special thanks to: Umeda Mitsuko; Yamada Sosho, abbot of Shinjuan, Daitokuji, Kyoto; my research assistant, Yuma Moriya; Miryam Sas; Pace Gallery; and the team at Intellect Books for their support and enthusiasm during the publishing process. Finally, eternal thanks to Michael and Kai for being trusty companions at many an exhibition.
Figures
Cover Image teamLab, Microcosmoses , 2019
00.01 teamLab, Sunflower Phoenix , 2017
00.02 teamLab, Peony Peacock , 2017
00.03 teamLab, Lotus Elephant , 2017
00.04 teamLab, Chrysanthemum Tiger , 2017
00.05-00.07 teamLab, Enso - Gold Light , 2019
P.1 teamLab, Drawing on the Water Surface Created by the Dance of Koi and People - Infinity , 2016-18
P.2 teamLab, Drawing on the Water Surface Created by the Dance of Koi and People - Infinity , 2016-18
0.1 teamLab, Forest of Resonating Lamps - One Stroke , 2016
0.2 teamLab, Forest of Resonating Lamps - One Stroke, Metropolis , 2016
0.3 Diagram of lamp arrangement in Forest of Resonating Lamps - One Stroke
0.4 teamLab, Forest of Resonating Lamps - One Stroke, Metropolis , 2016
0.5 teamLab, Ginza Firefly , 2002
0.6 teamLab, Message Tree , 2001
0.7 Monks taking photographs in front of a Bodhi tree, Wat Arun, Bangkok
0.8 Monks taking photographs at Shiseido Forest Valley, Jewel Changi Airport, Singapore
0.9 teamLab, Flutter of Butterflies Beyond Borders, Transcending Space - Floating Nest , 2019
Part I opening figure teamLab, Life is Continuous Light - Azalea Valley , 2017
1.1 and 1.2 teamLab, The Land of Peace and Bliss , 2014
1.3-1.6 teamLab, Flower and Corpse , 2008
1.7 and 1.8 teamLab, Flower and Corpse Set of 12 , 2012
1.9 Pietro Perugino, Delivery of the Keys, c .1481-82
1.10 Masolino da Panicale, Healing of the Cripple and Raising of Tabitha, c .1425
1.11a-e Utagawa Kunisada, Picture of the Upper Floor of a Brothel ,1813
1.12 Tosa Mitsuyoshi, from the Tale of Genji Tekagami (Illusion), 1611-12
1.13 teamLab, Flowers are Crimson , 2005
1.14 Attributed to Toba Sojo, Scrolls of Frolicking Animals (detail), twelfth century
1.15 Views of 3D objects in a 3D space, flattened using perspective versus the logic of ultrasubjective space (from Flower and Corpse Glitch Set of 12: Disaster Prosperity )
1.16-1.18 teamLab, Flower and Corpse Glitch , 2012
1.19 and 1.20 teamLab, Life Survives by the Power of Life , 2011
1.21 and 1.22 teamLab, Cold Life , 2014
1.23 teamLab, Nirvana , 2013
1.24a and b Ito Jakuchu, Birds, Animals and Flowering Plants in Imaginary Scene , late-eighteenth century
1.25 teamLab, Black Waves , 2016
1.26 teamLab, Black Waves (detail), 2016
1.27 Hokusai Katsushika, The Great Wave , from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, c .1830-32
1.28 Chunsoft, Dragon Quest , 1986
1.29 Nintendo, Super Mario World , 1990
1.30 Sega, Zaxxon , 1982
1.31 Gottlieb, Q*Bert , 1982
1.32 Maxis, SimCity 2000 , 1994
1.33 Quest, Tactics Ogre , 1995
1.34 Kano Eitoku, Scenes in and Around the Capital (left screen), sixteenth century
1.35 Kano Eitoku, Scenes in and Around the Capital (right screen), sixteenth century
1.36 teamLab, The TOKYO SKYTREE Mural , 2012
1.37 and 1.38 teamLab, The TOKYO SKYTREE Mural (details), 2012
1.39 and 1.40 teamLab, The TOKYO SKYTREE Mural (details), 2012
1.41 and 1.42 teamLab, Reversible Rotation - Continuous, Divided, Black in White , 2018
1.43 teamLab, Flower and Corpse Animation Diorama , 2008
1.44 teamLab, Flowers are Crimson - Dome Version , 2004
1.45 teamLab, Nirvana - Dome Version , 2012
1.46 teamLab, Flowers are Crimson - Cyclorama , 2012
1.47 teamLab, 100 Years Sea Animation Diorama - Cyclorama , 2012
1.48 Sisyu + teamLab, What a Loving, and Beautiful World , 2011
1.49 Sisyu + teamLab, A downpour of words, a dance of flowers - summer , 2014
1.50 Exterior view of A downpour of words, a dance of flowers - summer , 2014
1.51 and 1.52 teamLab, Circle, Infinity Circle - VR , 2016
1.53 teamLab, Crows are Chased and the Chasing Crows are Destined to be Chased as Well, Division in Perspective - Light in Dark , 2014
1.54 teamLab, United, Fragmented, Repeated and Impermanent World , 2013
1.55 teamLab, Crows are Chased and the Chasing Crows are Destined to be Chased as Well, Division in Perspective - Light in Dark , 2014
2.1 teamLab, Resonating Forest , 2016
2.2 and 2.3 teamLab, Four Seasons, a 1000 Years, Terraced Rice Fields - Tashibunosho , 2016
2.4 teamLab, Four Seasons, a 1000 Years, Terraced Rice Fields - Tashibunosho (detail), 2016
2.5 and 2.6 teamLab, Time-Blossoming Flowers , 2016
2.7 Guo Xi, Early Spring , 1072
2.8 teamLab, Life Survives by the Power of Life , 2011
2.9 teamLab, Universe of Water Particles , 2013
2.10 teamLab, 100 Years Sea [running time: 100 years] , 2009
2.11 teamLab, 100 Years Sea Animation Diorama , 2009
2.12 teamLab, 100 Years Sea Animation Diorama , 2009
2.13-2.15 teamLab, Floating Flower Garden; Flowers and I are of the same root, the Garden and I are one , 2015
2.16 and 2.17 teamLab, Resonating Forest and Autonomous Resonating Life - Tadasu Forest at Shimogamo Shrine , 2018
2.18 teamLab, Forest of Autonomous Resonating Life , 2018
2.19 teamLab, Floating, Resonating Spheres - Shimogamo Shrine , 2016
2.20 teamLab, Autonomous Resonating Life on the Water - Mitarashi Pond at Shimogamo Shrine , 2019
2.21 teamLab, Waterfall of Light Particles - Deep in the Mountains of Shikoku , 2016-17
2.22 teamLab, Flowers Bloom on the Waterfall - Deep in the Mountains of Shikoku , 2016-17
2.23 teamLab, Ever Blossoming Life Waterfall - Deep in the Mountains of Shikoku , 2016-17
2.24 teamLab, Flowers and Fish - Enoshima Aquarium Big Sagami Bay Tank , 2015
2.25 and 2.26 teamLab, Life is Continuous Light - Azalea Valley , 2017
2.27 teamLab, Resonating Mt. Mifuneyama , 2018
2.28 and 2.29 teamLab, Ever Blossoming Life Rock , 2017
2.30 teamLab, Rock Wall Spatial Calligraphy, Continuous Life - Five Hundred Arhats , 2017
2.31 and 2.32 teamLab, The Way of the Sea in the Botanical Garden - Colors of Life , 2019
2.33 teamLab, koi on Clouds , 2012
2.34 teamLab, The Tale of the Heike waterscreen scrolls: Genpei Yashima Battle - Seto Inland Sea , 2014
2.35 teamLab, Universe of Water Particles on the Grand Palais , 2015
2.36-2.38 teamLab, Megaliths in the Bath House Ruins , 2019
2.39 teamLab, Resonating Forest - Shiseido Forest Valley at Jewel Changi Airport , 2019
2.40 teamLab, Crystal Forest , 2023 (planning)
2.41 teamLab, Universe of Water Particles, Transcending Boundaries , 2017
Part II opening figure teamLab, Homogenizing and Transforming World , 2013
3.1 Sisyu + teamLab, What a Loving, and Beautiful World , 2011
3.2 and 3.3 teamLab, HARMONY, Japan Pavilion, Expo Milano 2015 , 2015
3.4 teamLab, Massless Clouds Betwee