I could still remember when I first saw teamLab work on a small 4-channel digital screen in London Frieze 2017, I knew I desperately wanted to see their work in a bigger space once in my lifetime. And I finally find one in the Tank while I was in Shanghai. Now I want to see even more! This digital installation was just fascinating and amazing. Although it was a bit too crowded on a Sunday, I still managed to enjoy the moment and take some nice pictures like nobody was there!
One ticket includes the entrance to two exhibitions: Transcending Boundaries (2017) and Black Waves (2016). That’s fair enough, isn’t it? I’ve come up some tips for you to make your visit perfect, here you go:
Do wear pure and light coloured clothes, ideally with no pattern on it so that the work could be perfectly projected on you.
Spend more than half an hour or even longer on each exhibition as the projection changes continuously and it never stops.
Avoid going to the exhibition on a weekend as it could be very busy.
The boundaries of nature and all manmade (ideas, concepts and us: human) are transcended when we consider ourselves as part of the nature. teamLab put waterfall inside the Tank, offering a spacious area for us to feel the surrounding nature element – water. I was so surprised that the installation was actually interactive. The waterfall will change the flow when people touch it or go over it, just like how something obstruct the water flow in nature. Therefore, the projection changes by how we react, and it can never be duplicated, as it will never reoccur again. How cool is that?
Water is formed by millions of water particles which we would never be able to see it with our own eyes. teamLab made it possible, visualising the waves of how they move and behave with drawing lines and projecting them on a 3D space with full-length mirror. Now thanks to teamLab, we are able to see the movement of the wave in front of us. It was a fantastic experience and for one moment I thought I was inside the waves. The barrier between the viewers (me here) and the waves literally disappears. It felt so different to how I view the actual waves in life, but the experience was so real at the same time.
So which one do you like more? Why?