Memory of Topography
teamLab, 2018, Interactive Digital Installation, Sound: Hideaki Takahashi
This artwork depicts the scenery of a rural mountain landscape that visitors can move through.
The world of the artwork changes with the real flow of time. The budding rice plants, still small in the spring, grow larger in the summer and turn golden in the fall. And with the real flow of time, the insects and flowers that appear in the artwork change as well. The movement of insects is influenced by the visitors’ behavior . And as the people move around the flow of air changes, blowing the rice plants or scattering flower petals in different directions.
The overall appearance of this work will hardly change with each year. However, as in nature, the scenery is actually changing, and you will never see the same scenery twice. This moment will never be repeated and can never be seen again. Seemingly unchanging landscapes go on year after year for eternity.
The artwork and the canvas that mediates it have been separated, and the canvas has become transformative. With the visual illusion created by the continuous dynamic movement in the work, the viewer becomes physically immersed, and the boundary between the viewer and artwork dissolves. As the shared world of the artwork changes due to the presence of each person in the space, everyone in the space begins to dissolve into the same world together.