*Credit teamLab, ​Black Waves: Lost, Immersed and Reborn​ , 2019, Digital Installation, Continuous Loop, ​Sound: Hideaki Takahashi. © teamLab, courtesy Pace Gallery.

‘teamLab’ is a multidisciplinary art collective founded by Toshiyuki Inoko in Japan in 2001; its work is developed in the field where art, science, technology, design, and the natural environment come together. Its work is based on the collaborative practice of several hundred professionals including artists, programmers, engineers, digital animation creators, mathematicians, and architects. Far removed from the traditional notion of the author signing his or her work, the collaborative work of this multidisciplinary team constitutes one of the group’s pillars for generating its sophisticated immersive spaces.

Self-proclaimed as “ultra-technologists” for their use of technology as a tool for expanding our knowledge and experience, the teamLab collective seeks to expand the possibilities of art through digital technology, and to generate new ways of relating with the environment through its works. The notion that there is no separation between us and nature permeates all of its works, which seek to reduce the limits between the interior and exterior worlds with immersive environments, merging the spectator with the work. This exhibition will show how digital technology has made it possible for art to transcend physical limits.

TeamLab member artists are the greatest exponent of a radically contemporary visual language and an unprecedented technological level, where the influence of ancient Japanese culture is also evident throughout its work. Far from being a paradox, tradition and innovation coexist in a totally organic manner.

The teamLab exhibit, which will be on display until June 9 on the fourth floor of the Espacio Fundación Telefónica, will bring together three audiovisual installations that work with the architecture of the room:

1.Black Waves: Lost, Immersed, and Reborn (2016) is the installation that occupies the largest part of the exhibit. Inspired by Japanese artistic tradition, its waves bring to mind The Great Wave off Kanagawa painted by Hokusai in 1830.

After calculating the interaction of thousands of particles with each other, a 3D computer-generated space expresses its movement in a large body of water that gives rise to a continuous wave. The resulting space generates an attraction in the spectator who feels submerged in the force of the waves and becomes part of a whole in the same way that the particles do. The space incorporates more than thirty projections on an area of reflective walls and floors, generating a powerful immersive effect where the visual re-creation of water, as a key element of the natural environment and life, is the protagonist.

*Credit: teamLab, ​Flutter of Butterflies Beyond Borders, Ephemeral Life born in Au-delà des limites, 2019, instalación en La Villette, Paris. Imagen aproximada de la instalación en Espacio Fundación Telefónica. © teamLab, cortesía de Pace Gallery.

2. Flutter of Butterflies, Born from Hands, (2019). An interactive piece where butterflies emerge, swarm, and disappear through contact with the visitor.

The work responds to the interaction with the public, who by touching the walls make hundreds of butterflies appear and disappear, thereby suggesting the fragile balance between human beings and nature. The work also evolves in real time, in a continuous transformation that depends on the surroundings, and that ensures that the beautiful patterns generated by the butterflies are never repeated. With this piece, teamLab transcends the physical and temporal limits of conventional art. Thanks to the masterful use of digital resources, it not only manages to present a work in permanent evolution that extends beyond the space, but also establishes a bond between the people who contemplate it, while the action of each spectator affects the result of the piece .

3. Enso – Cold Light, (2017) is a re-interpretation of the Zen practice of painting a thick-stroke circle with a single brush stroke.

In its concern to explore the roots of Japanese culture from a contemporary language, teamLab has worked since its beginnings around traditional calligraphy, evolving it to what they call spatial calligraphy. The depth, speed, and strength that each brush stroke contains on the paper is intensified in an extraordinary way when transformed into a three-dimensional form in motion. In Zen, the Enso symbolizes enlightenment, strength, elegance, the universe, and emptiness; and the circle symbolises the moment when the mind is freed so that the body or spirit can create. By suspending the ink circle in space in such a way that the viewer can see it from different points of view, the observer feels as if they are practically merged with the stroke.

TeamLab manifesto on digital technology

The teamLab collective argues that digital technology can open up new artistic horizons, and that digital art can create new relationships between people.

• It liberates the artistic expression of the material gives it the ability to transform itself. Before the public accepted digital technology, informative and artistic expressions had to be presented in physical format. During most of humankind’s history, creative expression has developed statically through media such as canvas and paint. The arrival of digital technology frees human expression from all physical restrictions, thus making it possible for it to exist independently and to evolve freely. In addition, by interacting with the environment, visitors can cause permanent changes in a work. In teamLab interactive works of art, the movement of the audience, or a simple presence, transform the piece, thus blurring the limits between the audience and the work. The audience becomes part of the work. The relationship between a work of art and a person turns into a relationship between a work of art and a collective.
• The intangibility of digital technology liberates art from the physical plane. In addition, it surpasses all limits thanks to its freedom of transformation. The use of digital technology can be used to spread beauty. By creating an interactive digital work of art, its presence and that of others turns into a transformational element of said work, thereby creating a new form of relationship between the people who share the same space. The use of digital art in a single environment creates a space where visitors can feel a connection with other people on the planet.

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