Dreaming At TeamLab Borderless

Since Japan reopened its international border in October 2022, international arrivals have returned with a vengeance. Japan has always been a popular destination, but with the Japanese yen at its weakest in thirty years, this is perhaps the best opportunity to visit Japan. When I realized we would be in Tokyo for three and a half days, I immediately thought of a way to maximize our visit. It did not take long for me to realize that almost every first-time visitor visited one of the two TeamLab exhibitions in Tokyo. What is TeamLab? Why is it suddenly one of the top attractions in Tokyo?

The entrance of TeamLab Borderless at Azabudai Hills.

TeamLab is a Japanese tech-art collective. Co-founded in 2001 by Toshiyuki Inoko and other artists, the team comprises not only “traditional” artists but also hundreds of programmers, animators, and architects. The group's objective is to infuse technology into immersive art. The team began with small-scale works with single monitors and gradually evolved into large-scale immersive pieces. I first heard of TeamLab when we visited Amos Rex in Helsinki. I was disappointed as we missed their special exhibition there by a few weeks. The footage of the exhibit was amazing, and it worked perfectly with Amos Rex’s unique subterranean architecture.

While I am generally fond of large-scale digital arts, what made TeamLab exciting was how they disrupted the art business. Unlike traditional artists, TeamLab integrates its business vertically by controlling its artistic vision, production, and venues. This allows them to manage their expenses and revenue streams without relying on traditional galleries. For the first time, these artists could go direct-to-consumer with their mass market appeal. They can curate their in-house museum and replicate their digital works across the globe, from Beijing to Jeddah. The commercial success was truly astonishing.

I could think long and hard about whether we should visit TeamLab on this trip. Given that we would only be in Tokyo for three days, there is no shortage of great sights to visit. Spending three hours in a digital museum gave me pause, particularly because TeamLab has several active outposts worldwide. At ¥4,400, this was not only the most expensive museum we visited in Japan but also one of the most difficult attractions to get tickets for. For the date that works for our itinerary, only a few spots were left at the end of the day.

Tokyo has two different TeamLab venues: TeamLab Planet and TeamLab Borderless. TeamLab Borderless was in Tokyo’s Odaiba district and was the collective’s original marquee exhibition. However, in 2022, the exhibition had to be closed down due to urban development and was replaced by TeamLab Planet in the nearby Toyosu district. Responding to surging demand, they reopened TeamLab Borderless at a new location in Azabudai Hills, closer to central Tokyo. This new museum was only inaugurated in February of this year, making it the hottest ticket in town.

Picking between TeamLab Borderless and TeamLab Planet is a popular topic online, and each has its advocates. We picked Team Borderless because of its central location. Not only is Azabudai Hills close to central areas like Shibuya, but the neighborhood is also adjacent to the iconic Tokyo Tower, Japan’s red-and-white version of the Eiffel Tower. Tokyo Tower was one of the few landmarks I remembered from my first trip abroad in 1992. Seeing this landmark again reminded me just how time flies.

The underground food hall of Azabudai Hills.

Azabudai Hills is Tokyo’s newest mixed-use development. It consists of an office tower, an observation deck, a luxury hotel, and a mall. Designed by Pelli Clarke & Partners, the 4.4 billion development is an ostentatious display of Tokyo’s wealth. This is also where Aman Resort debuted its first “affordable” brand: Janu. Well, the cheapest room there was 1,000 USD a night. The ultra-high-end shopping mall is a wondrous place to gawk at the finest purveyors of Japanese foods. Everything is presented with the same attention and care as jewel stores. I could only imagine how wealthy you got to be to make this your daily grocery store.

It took us quite a while to find the entrance to TeamLab Borderless. In typical Japanese fashion, the entry procedure is orderly and efficient. After dropping off our backpacks in the lockers, our ticket was scanned, and we were then escorted into a holding area where the museum's rules and etiquette were spelled out. The rules were nothing unusual, mainly to be mindful of other visitors when moving around the dark space. The popularity of TeamLab apparently attracts numerous social media influencers, often without regard for others.

After ascending a dark staircase, we arrived at the exhibit's first room. To be honest, I was a little disappointed. The room comprises a series of tall walls resembling a perpendicular canyon. The projections on the walls and the floor are visually overwhelming, with flowers blooming and petals falling everywhere. It was an immediate sensory overload; the imagery was so busy that it almost gave me a headache immediately. It was far from the place of contemplation I imagined of TeamLab.

This exhibit is entitled “Flowers and People, Cannot be Controlled but Live Together—A Whole Year per Hour." Although it may not be the most mesmerizing work on display, it is key to understanding TeamLab’s ethos. At its heart, the team is most interested in human interaction with nature. The projection was not a recorded video but a real-time computer-generated rendering based on the viewers’ movement. The plants grow and blossom abundantly until the visitors touch them. It is a metaphor for human influence on nature, which is core to TeamLab’s message.

We didn’t spend much time in this first section as I was eager to scout other exhibits. The first room we came across was dark. The work is entitled "Light Sculpture,” which turned out to be my favorite exhibition in the whole museum. It comprised a room full of rotating high-power projectors. The field of projectors works in perfect synchrony. With changing colors, the projectors created a dazzling array of moving patterns and colors. Even though the room was jam-packed, people stood in absolute silence. Everyone was enthralled by the ever-evolving field of light. Except for mobile phone screens, being here is a transcendental experience unlike anything I experienced in an art museum.

TeamLab’s Light Sculpture reminds me of the works of American artist James Turrell. Both create a deeply meditative and awe-inspiring space. While Turrell’s works are often sirene, Light Sculpture is fast-paced and dynamic. The installation includes more than fifteen “episodes” of different designs. From swirling vortexes to chromatic spheres, Light Sculpture creates an indescribable perception of depth. The front edge of the visitor platform is also enveloped by the light itself. Unfortunately, the massive crowd meant the immersion effect was less noticeable. This may be why the early morning slots are the first to sell out.

Even without a large crowd, the Light Sculpture is still marvelous. Watching the synchronized movement of the projects is mesmerizing but also terrifying. The automatic movement of all these mechanisms reminded me of the killer machines of Squid Game’s infamous “Red Light Green Light” game. Perhaps this is a commentary on humans' innate fear of autonomous robots. On a more practical level, I had to wonder about the astronomical maintenance cost and what it takes to keep all the equipment in tip-top shape.

*Light Sculpture: Entrapped Nucleus of Life.*

Each “episode” is set to a corresponding soundtrack and transitions seamlessly from one to another. Overall, we must have spent about half an hour in the room. The most magical moment for me was the episode entitled “Light Evaporating with People.” Projectors converged to create a series of floating spotlights drifting toward visitors gradually. Upon touch, the spotlight evaporates out of thin air. The design intention seems to echo that of the first exhibit. It seems to be the only interactive episode of Lighting Sculpture. If not for the closing time, I would have stayed here longer. This room alone warrants the cost of admission.

The next room is probably one of the most popular among visitors and a marquee work of TeamLab’s permanent collection. The cavernous hall has an artificial hill for lounging. The main exhibit is “Moving Creates Vortices and Vortices Create Movement.” The exhibit's main feature is a digital waterfall cascading down to the hill and the flow. Similar to a physical waterfall, the digitized water particles flowed around visitors. The speed of visitors' movements accelerates the flow and creates a vortex, as it would in the physical world. This was truly an interactive experience and a favorite of young visitors.

As the name TeamLab Borderless suggests, a major feature of this exhibition is how one artwork flows from one space into another. This setup encourages visitors to linger or return to the space they have already visited. Like nature, the arts have no borders and are ever-evolving. Many recommend this exhibition over TeamLab Planet, where visitors are asked to follow a specific route and prohibited from backtracking. However, because there is not a defined route at TeamLab Borderless, I was a little worried about missing a room or two.

Speaking of flowing artworks moving from one room to another, my favorite is “Walk, Walk, Walk: Search, Deviate, Reunite.” It could be best characterized as a digital parade of Japanese mythical figures, such as feudal-era merchants, hopping rabbits, and bipedal frogs. Fans of Hayao Miyazaki’s films may recognize some of these characters from Spirited Away. As visitors touch these anthropomorphic figures, they would react by turning their heads or changing the directions of the parade. Just like visitors, the path of this parade is unpredictable.

From this point, we lost track of the museum's layout. TeamLab is probably not the best place to bring a big group; tracking more than one or two people simultaneously was difficult. There were instances where I lost track of Brian and Joe. Since many artworks flow from one room to another, it was not obvious whether we had been to a specific room. It could be a little bit of a sensory overload at times. I wonder whether anyone ever asked for a time-out zone inside the museum.

Not all exhibits made much sense to me; a few looked like a fancy version of our student project in architecture graduate school. One such exhibit was “Memory of Topography.” The room is gently sloped and is populated with hundreds of round pedals that could sway as visitors walk past it. The clumsy me knocked over a couple. Of course, the video projection here was interactive, but it seemed a little one-dimensional to me. Maybe I did not spend enough time there to see the transformation.

Another exhibit, “Microcosmoses: Wobbling Light,” is perhaps the weirdest room. It has a complex series of winding tracks with glowing crystal globes flowing down them. The movement was slow, and the globes operated like autonomous robots. At the time, it wasn't easy to realize what was happening. We were unsure whether we had permission to touch anything to activate the sensors. It was not until I saw the official video that I started to appreciate the dream-like landscape designers aimed for. I suppose we were in too much of a rush to appreciate this magical "stillness.” TeamLab devises the term “Cognitive Sculpture” to describe this new art form.

Another crowd favorite is “Infinite Crystal World.” The giant room is outfitted with thousands of LED lights hanging from the ceiling. They are arranged with military precision and form an amazing LED light field. This grid of light begins to form amazing patterns and dacens. After staring into the light for a few seconds, the three-dimensionality of the room starts to wrap and eventually disappears. We eventually became a character in the film Matrix. The pulsing light through space made me feel like I was flying through space without taking a step.

The most unique aspect of Infinite Crystal World was how participatory the artwork was. Through TeamLab’s official app, visitors could submit particular patterns to be “thrown” into the immense sculpture to be rendered with spectacular effects. The room's mirrored surfaces extend the sculpture into infinity. What was most amazing about this installation was how simple the setup was. It was amazing how a few relatively crude LED tapes could create such an impactful visual statement.

Strictly speaking about aesthetics, the most beautiful pieces of TeamLab Borderless are those traveling along the long corridors. My favorite is “Black Waves: Flowing Beyond Borders.” This piece is a digital rendering of a rising sea. Most visitors would immediately recall the stylistic similarity with Hokusai's iconic masterpiece: The Great Wave off Kanagawa. While immensely powerful and awe-inspiring, the waves are also fragile and ephemeral. Of course, observant viewers might consider the work a commentary on the rising sea level brought forward by climate change.

*Crows are Chased and the Chasing Crows are Destined to be Chased as well: Flying Beyond Bord*ers.

When it came to popularity contests on social media, the most popular exhibit was probably the “Bubble Universe.” This is the one room with a relatively long queue at the entrance. The infinity mirrored room is nothing new, but TeamLab did a great job of blurring the four corners of the walls. The mirrored floor creates a weightless and magical environment. However, the women were reminded of the danger of unintended exposure under the dress. Often referred to as the “lantern room,” the Bubble Universe is like a Moroccan bazaar on steroids. Like other exhibits, it is interactive. While I understand its popularity, I consider it less interesting than other works in the museum.

*Bubble Universe: Physical Light, Bubbles of Light, Wobbling Light, and Environmental Light - One Stroke*.

Given how TeamLabs has expanded into a global brand, it is important to consider how TeamLab's works are influenced by Japanese aesthetic traditions. To many, the most important character of their works is the concept of ephemeral transience. Most of their works are computationally rendered in real-time, so they are ever-evolving and interactive. Many believe this characteristic is rooted in a Japanese tradition called wabi-sabi (侘び寂び). Derived from the Buddhist teaching, wabi-sabi sought beauty within natural imperfection and permanence. The slow pace of change and passage of time are innate in nature and the universe.

Wabi-sabi's ultimate objective is to bring humans into harmony with Nature. Ironically, TeamLab utilizes the latest digital techniques to heighten the interaction between humanity and the universe. Without the need for overtly Japanese iconography, TeamLab was able to reimage Japanese aesthetics to the new generation of museum-goers. While observant visitors may extract the didactic messages from each piece, the works could be enjoyed on their own artistic merits. I think it is too tempting to dismiss TeamLab because of its mass appeal. Love it or hate it, TeamLab may be the next frontier of 21st-century art-making.

Ultimately, we spent about two and a half hours at TeamLab Borderless. If it had not been for Brian and Joe’s severe jetlag, we could have easily spent another hour inside. Officially, there are over fifty works on display, but it was almost impossible to keep track. The visit to TeamLab Borderless felt like a hypnotic session. For a short time, we could remove ourselves from the hustle and bustle of the world’s biggest metropolis. While I would not go as far as many by proclaiming TeamLab Borderless a must-visit, it is certainly an experience to remember.

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