teamLab: Digitized Kairakuen Garden | teamLab

The resisting and resonating ovoids placed amongst the trees shine. The light of the ovoids and the light of the trees are autonomous: they shine brightly and then fade slowly, as though they are breathing.
When an ovoid is pushed, the color of the light it emits changes and the tone unique to that color echos. The light that originated from that ovoid resonates out to other ovoids and trees nearby. The tone resonates out continuously in the same way as the light, spreading throughout the ovoids and trees.
If a wave of light comes from the other side of the forest, it signifies that there is another person in that location. As a result, people gain a heightened sense of awareness of the presence of other people in the same space.

Flowers bloom and scatter for eternity in the decaying cavity inside the trunk of a large tree that fell due to a strong typhoon (1964). A year’s worth of seasonal flowers from the area bloom over the course of an hour, continuously scattering and changing. Flowers are born, grow, bud, bloom, and eventually scatter, wither, and disappear. The flowers are in a continuous cycle of life and death, repeating forever.
Kairakuen Garden's giant cedar forest, created in the late Edo period (1842), changes daily with the imperceptibly slow flow of time, repeating every year. It is a space where endlessly long time accumulates. This giant cedar tree was probably here before the landscaping. After it fell, the tree’s cavity became a space where time has stopped. The flowers that repeat the cycle of life and death also have a different flow of time. Here, various space-times intersect and overlap.
Our own existence is part of this continuity of life and death, repeating endlessly for an overwhelming length of time, for billions of years. However, it is difficult to perceive this in everyday life. People are unable to perceive periods of time longer than their own lives. There is a cognitive boundary in people’s recognition of the continuity of time.
The eternal birth and death of the flowers in the hollow of the fallen tree that formed over an overwhelmingly long period of time and is beyond the boundaries of our cognition for long-term continuity, may allow us to realize that the existence of life itself is part of a continuous cycle of life and death.
The artwork is not a pre-recorded image that is played back; it is created by a computer program that continuously renders the artwork in real time. As a whole, it is continuously changing, and previous visual states are never replicated. The artwork at this moment can never be seen again.

The Kairakuen Garden area has always been rich in natural springs, and the spring water collected by taking advantage of the difference in topography when the garden was built is called Togyokusen. The spring water was also used in the tea ceremony of Kobuntei house's tea room.

Enso is the Zen practice of drawing a circle with a single brush stroke. This artwork depicts an enso drawn as Spatial Calligraphy. The brush stroke is suspended in space, but the viewpoint changes to reveal the circle enso.
In Zen, enso is a circle that has since ancient times been written with canes or sticks in midair. It is said to represent enlightenment, truth, the entirety of the universe, and equality. The circle also reflects the hearts and minds of those who view it, with its interpretation left to the individual.

Spatial Calligraphy is calligraphy drawn in space, a form of calligraphy 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 pine trees and Kirishima azalea that grow in the garden before the Kobuntei house, together with the white enkianthus flower bushes, shine brightly.
The light of each tree is autonomous, shining brightly, then fading.

When people approach and stand still near the trees, the light changes color, and a tone specific to that color resonates out. The light of the tree radiates outward and is transmitted to the surrounding trees one by one, as the sound is continuously emitted. If a wave of light comes from the other side, it signifies the presence of people there. People gain a heightened sense of awareness of the existence of other people in the same space.

Among the azaleas is the Kirishima azalea, which is about 300 years old and was planted in the Edo period. It is believed to have been donated by the Satsuma Domain, and it is designated as a near-threatened species on Mt. Kirishima, its place of origin. The number of old trees is small nationwide. Kairakuen Garden was opened in the late Edo period (1842), which means that the azaleas were planted when they were already 80 years old.