Aomori Museum of Art | teamLab

Through the artwork, Matter is Void, teamLab explores the notion of ownership.

This is an NFT artwork. There is only one NFT of this work, but it does not make it exclusive. Anyone and any number of people can download and own the artwork itself. In other words, whether or not someone owns the NFT of the work, it cannot be distinguished from the downloaded artworks and they are all real.

The artwork displays the words chosen by teamLab, Matter is Void. Only the NFT owner can modify these words, and those same words will be reflected in the artwork downloaded by people around the world.

Depending on the words chosen by the owner of the NFT, the value of the artwork will change. If the words rewritten by the owner of the NFT possess value, more people may choose to own the artwork; and if the words do not possess value, people may no longer choose to display the work. There may be great value in rewriting the words of an artwork that many people look at, and conversely little value in rewriting the words of an artwork that is not displayed anywhere. Depending on the words chosen by the owner of the NFT, the value of the NFT will also likely change.

Once the original words are modified, even if the owner of the NFT decides to change them back to “Matter is Void”, the words will appear differently from the original; the initial Matter is Void, once modified, will not be able to be seen in its original state ever again.


The letters of the words in this artwork continuously revolve and rotate. Depending on the angle we may be able to recognize the letters as they continue to rotate, and there will be moments when we can recognize the meaning of the letters as a whole, but once again, they will become indiscernible and the words lose meaning.The way in which the words revolve is visually perceived as moving simultaneously clockwise and counterclockwise, and depending on which movement is consciously followed, the words can appear to be moving in either direction.

We do not perceive the world we see, we see the world we perceive.
Spheres made of accumulated rays of light.The light radiates from the center in infinite fine rays, creating its spherical shape. The light source remains motionless, yet the countless lines emitting from it wriggle continuously.
The spheres have no surface boundary, and the perception of the boundary between the artwork and the body is ambiguous. When you try to touch a sphere, your hand goes into the sphere as it does not have a physical boundary. 
What is this sphere? Why do the rays of lines wriggle?Our world is within us.
And if we perceive these spheres made of accumulated lines, the world we perceive will expand, and we may see the spheres of accumulated lines in our daily lives. As the world you perceive changes, the way you see the world goes on to change.

Although self and nature seem distinct, they are actually a single entity, inseparable from each other. The opposite of division is not unification, and we might  realize that existences that appear to be distinct are actually part of a single whole.The blessings and threats of nature, as well as the blessings and threats of civilization, are continuous. Neither is there a source of absolute malice, nor can it all be dismissed idealistically. Nonetheless, we seek to affirm life in all aspects. Life is beautiful.
In this artwork, 生 (sei), the character that signifies life, is written three-dimensionally using Spatial Calligraphy. Spatial Calligraphy is a form of calligraphy drawn in space that teamLab has been exploring since it was founded. The artwork reconstructs calligraphy in three-dimensional space to express the depth, speed and power of the brush stroke, and that calligraphy is then flattened using the logical structure teamLab calls Ultrasubjective Space. The calligraphy shifts between two and three dimensions.
The space of a traditional artwork, framed by a lens or perspective, appears to be on the other side of the artwork’s surface: the surface becomes a boundary, and the space where the viewer exists is separated from the artwork space. However, one of the characteristics of Ultrasubjective Space is that the artwork surface does not become a boundary. Thus the space in which the artwork exists, transcends the boundary of the artwork surface and is perceived as though it exists three-dimensionally in the same space where the viewer stands. The artwork space is continuous with the viewer’s physical space.