teamLab Massless Beijing | teamLab

The only material substances present in this space are ordinary soap, water, and air. The bubbles are soap bubbles.
This floating, immense sculpture emerges from a sea of bubbles, transcending the very concept of mass. It neither sinks to the ground nor rises completely to the ceiling, but instead drifts in the middle of the space. The contours of its existence are ambiguous—it fragments into smaller pieces, but merges into a larger mass. Even when people fully immerse themselves in this sculpture, its existence remains intact. If broken by people, it naturally restores itself. However, when the sculpture is destroyed beyond what it can repair, it collapses, unable to recover. Even if people try to move or push this floating sculpture, they cannot do so,, and if they stir up wind, the sculpture disperses entirely. Physical human actions cannot move the sculpture.
Objects such as stones and man-made creations maintain a stable structure on their own. A stone will continue to exist even if placed in a sealed box, isolated from the external world.On the other hand, a vortex created in the ocean disappears instantly when transferred into an enclosed box. In other words, a vortex does not maintain a stable structure independently. A vortex exists within the flow created by its environment formed by water continuously from the outside to the inside and from the inside to the outside, maintained by the vortex’s ordered structure. This flow allows the vortex to shift as the surrounding currents change. Moreover, its boundaries are ambiguous, and there is no material distinction between the vortex and its surroundings.
Rather than a solid object, this sculpture is created by the order of energy generated by the phenomena of a unique environment.  Let us call this existence created by the order of energy, a "Higher Order Sculpture." The artwork is inseparable from the environment and changes along with the environment. It transcends the conventional notions of physical objects—it sustains its existence mid-air, having ambiguous boundaries, and it is able to maintain its shape even when people immerse themselves physically into the sculpture, naturally restoring itself even if the sculpture breaks.
By filling the space with soap bubbles, a distinct environment is created in which an order of energy is born. By doing so, a massive form emerges from this sea of bubbles that floats steadily in mid-air.
In modern biology, the definition of life cannot be strictly defined, but everything that is structured upon cells, capable of metabolism, and self-reproduction are labeled living things for convenience. In other words, all living things are composed of cells. All cells are enclosed by a cell membrane constructed of a lipid bilayer, with the hydrophilic part facing outward and the hydrophobic part covered within the layers. Both the inside and outside of the enveloping membrane are liquid. Soap bubbles are similarly enveloped by lipid bilayer membranes, and these membranes are structurally identical to cell membranes. However, contrary to cells, the bilayer of the bubble membrane floats in and encloses air, so the hydrophobic part faces outward, while the hydrophilic part is covered within the layers. In other words, if we consider cells to be pouch-shaped membranes in liquid, then bubbles are pouch-shaped membranes in air. This sculpture is created from substances composed in the same ways as cells, the structuring units of life-forms, and the order of energy created from this environment.
The same is true of life. It consumes external matter and energy as food and discharges it, sustaining its ordered structure as the energy dissipates. Life exists within the flow of matter and energy, and its contour, like a vortex, is ambiguous.Perhaps, life is a miraculous phenomenon that emerges in the flow of matter and energy, and its structure is the order of energy created by that flow.

A seasonal year of flowers bloom and change with time, life spreads out into the universe.
Lie down or sit still in the space and eventually your body floats and you dissolve into the artwork world.

Flowers grow, bud, bloom, and in time, the petals fall, and the flowers wither and die. The cycle of birth and death continues for perpetuity.
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 universe at this moment in time can never be seen again.

The seasons change gradually across the installation space.
A seasonal year of flowers blossom according to the changing seasons, and the place where they grow gradually moves.

The flowers bud, grow, and blossom before their petals begin to wither and eventually fade away. The cycle of growth and decay repeats itself in perpetuity. If a person stays still, the flowers surrounding them grow and bloom more abundantly. If viewers touch or step on the flowers, they shed their petals, wither, and die all at once.

The artwork is not a pre-recorded image that is played back: it is created by a computer program that continuously renders the work in real time. The interaction between people and the installation causes continuous change in the artwork: previous visual states can never be replicated, and will never reoccur. The picture at this moment can never be seen again.

In spring in the Kunisaki Peninsula, there are many cherry blossoms in the mountains and canola blossoms at their base. This experience of nature caused teamLab to wonder how many of these flowers were planted by people and how many were native to the environment. It is a place of great serenity and contentment, but the expansive body of flowers is an ecosystem influenced by human intervention, and the boundary between the work of nature and the work of humans is unclear. Rather than nature and humans being in conflict, a healthy ecosystem is one that includes people. In the past, people understood that they could not grasp nature in its entirety, and that it is not possible to control nature. People lived more closely aligned to the rules of nature that created a comfortable natural environment. We believe that these valleys hold faint traces of this premodern relationship with nature that once existed, and we hope to explore a form of human intervention based on the premise that nature cannot be controlled.

In the same flow of time as in the real world, flowers change with the seasons.Flowers repeat the cycle of birth and death, proliferation and extinction, changing along with the seasons. When people touch the flowers, they fall and die. The flowers are also influenced by other works, falling and dying due to other works.
The world of the artwork is flattened through teamLab's concept of Ultrasubjective Space. Unlike when flattening by lenses or perspective, the viewer's viewpoint is not fixed, and the viewer's body is free to move. The wall on which the world of the work is depicted does not become a boundary between the people and the work; the flowers blur the boundary between the walls, and the world of the work is continuous with the space where the people's bodies are located.

Autonomous abstraction.
The dots of light blink and change color in cycles unique to each dot. A spontaneous order phenomenon occurs between dots that are close to each other, and their hues and the rhythm at which they blink gradually synchronize. When people touch them, the rhythm of the blinking hues change and are randomized, but the dots close to each other once again cause a spontaneous order phenomenon between them.
The dots of lights emit a tone each time they blink. The tones can be heard continuously throughout the space; what sounds like music is solely created by the continuous tones produced by the blinking lights.

A spontaneous order phenomenon occurs when different rhythms influence each other and synchronize. Examples include when the pendulums of two clocks gradually begin to swing together; when many fireflies gather in one tree and all start blinking at the same time, creating a larger light as a whole; or when the cells that make up the heart synchronize and tremble simultaneously to create the pulse of the heart. This can be seen in various systems, from physical phenomena, neurophysiology, to ecosystems. Although the individual parts do not have the ability to observe the whole, the phenomenon of self-organization is the creation of an ordered and larger structure, resulting from the autonomous behavior of each individual part influencing each other. This phenomenon is also known as spontaneous order.

It is believed that entropy (a measurement of the lack of order in a system) in the universe will steadily increase (the law of increasing entropy) and that entities with form eventually collapse. Despite that, it is a wonder that the sun was created and the planets were born, that life was formed and societies exist. However, the reason why the universe, life, nature, and society continue to be maintained in spite of this may be because order is continuously formed on its own through the shared phenomenon of self-organization in the midst of disorder. In other words, the universe and our own existence are a continuous order created by the same phenomenon.

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.

Rapidly Rotating Bouncing Spheres are spheres that bounce when people step on them. The spheres rotate at high speed, but when people approach them, they stop rotating and become easier to step on.
When people bounce on the spheres, the spheres shine. If they bounce on spheres of the same color in succession, the spheres will pop and particles of light spread out into the space. If people bounce on more spheres of the same color in succession, caterpillars are born. 
The caterpillars move out of the room towards the Balance Stepping Stones in a Flutter of Butterflies space. They make their way through the Balance Stepping Stones in the Invisible World, where if people step on the Balance Stepping Stones, the caterpillars nearby are blown away.

Balance Stepping Stones are stepping stones that wobble in various ways when people step on them.

When people step on the Balance Stepping Stones, butterflies are born and they flutter around the space. When people touch the butterflies, they die.
The flutter of butterflies changes with the seasons, with the flow of time in the real world.

Multi Jumping is a flexible surface that people can jump on, and sink or jump higher than usual. 
When you stand on Multi Jumping, the surface beneath your feet sinks, creating warps in space and time. This distortion attracts stardust from the universe and births new stars. If you jump on top of a star, it begins to move, and if you continue to jump on the star it will grow and you will be able to experience the entire life cycle of the star. When the life of the star ends, it returns to stardust and becomes the building blocks of new stars.A gigantic and heavy star will eventually become a black hole that swallows up all the surrounding stars and stardust.

Soft Terrain is a very soft, three-dimensional slope. Various granules of light flow from high to low elevations along the terrain, layering onto each other and creating a stratum pattern.The ground sinks beneath people, and granules of light gather in these sunken areas. As people walk, the granules burst out and intermix, changing the stratum pattern.
The color of the granules of light change with the seasons, in the real flow of time.

All the various fish drawn by everyone swim around in this ocean.

Color in a fish on the paper provided and see the picture you have colored come to life, swimming out into the ocean in front of you together with fish drawn by other people. If you touch the fish, they will swim away. You can also feed the fish by touching the food bags.

Sometimes, the fish leave the room, transcend the boundaries between artworks, and begin to swim through the museum.

The tuna transcend the physical boundaries of the museum and swim out into the Sketch Ocean or Sketch Aquarium: Connected World  artworks in other exhibitions. Similarly, tuna drawn in other exhibitions may appear and swim into the Sketch Ocean right in front of you.

This is a musical wall where little people live.
When stamps of various shapes such as mushrooms, sheep barns, or long sticks of ice are attached to the wall, these objects appear in the world of the little people. Depending on the stamp, the little people will slide, jump, or climb on top of them. If the stamp is removed, the stamp in the world of the little people will remain for a moment longer before disappearing.Attach various stamps to the wall, and see the little people’s world transform into a completely new world.
Seeds with smiley faces come falling down from above. When the seeds hit the stamps, various notes in different pitches play depending on the type and position of the stamp they hit, eventually creating music.

When a cup of tea is poured, it begins to glow with its own unique rhythm and produces a tone. A spontaneous order phenomenon occurs between the teas close by as they influence each other, gradually syncing the rhythms of light and color of the teas.When you lift the tea to drink it, it shines brightly and the suns of the artwork Massless Suns and Dark Spheres resonate one after the other in response. As you finish the tea, the artwork enters your body and stops influencing its surroundings.
The light color of the tea is Dynamic Equilibrium Color, a new color concept by teamLab. When a person sees the tea in the cup from a distance, taking in its entirety, the color of the light does not appear to change; but when they look closely, observing the miniscule, the color of the light is actually continuously changing, and creating a new sense of time.
A spontaneous order phenomenon occurs when different rhythms influence each other and become aligned. Examples include when the pendulums of two clocks gradually begin to swing together, when many fireflies gather in one tree and all start flashing at the same time, creating a larger light phenomenon, or when the cells that make up the heart synchronize and tremble simultaneously to create the beating of the heart. The phenomenon of self-organization is the creation of a large structure with order resulting from the autonomous behavior of each individual, even though each individual does not have the ability to observe the whole. This can also be called a self-organization phenomenon.
It is believed that entropy (a measurement of the lack of order in a system) in the universe will steadily increase (the law of increasing entropy) and that entities with form eventually collapse. However, the reason why the universe, life, nature, and society are able to exist in spite of this may be because order is born by itself through the common phenomenon of self-organization in the midst of disorder. In other words, the universe and our own existence are a continuous order created by the same phenomenon.

* Location: Inside Sketch FactoryWe 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.