I remembered my very first trip to the Art Science Museum, Future World: Where Art Meet Science last year. I was awestruck.
This exhibition was created in collaboration with teamLab, a renowned interdisciplinary art collective.
Flowers and People, Cannot be Controlled but Live Together – Transcending Boundaries, A Whole Year per Hour
teamLab, 2017, Interactive Digital Installation, Sound: Hideaki Takahashi
This artwork is always changing. A whole year of seasonal flowers from cherry blossoms to winter flowers bloom, wither and scatter all around the interactive space within a period of an hour. When I stood in the space, self-absorbed in the environment felt like time stood still for myself, whereas the “nature” around me appears and disappears. It may perhaps be holding a sign of the nature’s ephemeral quality.
An important thing to note, this particular interactive art was not pre-recorded nor was on an animated loop. It uses a programme which monitors the interaction between the viewer and the installation and hence produces a result. In this instance, if I stood still, flowers around me would bloom, whereas if I had walked around and touch the flowers, they would scatter and disappear. Thus showing the fragility of nature. Hence the experience for each and every viewer is unique and could not be replicated. The underlying message mayhaps is the cycle of life and death (born, grow, bloom, scatter, wilt) where the experience of one human is not the same as another…
“I hope people will keep coming back because the experience will be different every time.” quote by teamLab’s founder Toshiyuki Inoko
teamLab’s concept and theme were strongly based on the aim of transcending /removing boundaries of art. As stated from their website “In the mind, there are no boundaries between ideas and concepts, they are inherently ambiguous and influence and interact with each other.”
With a digital platform in this millenial generation, art is able to transcend physical and conceptual boundaries. Digital technology allows interactive art to be created and break free from the static frame and go beyond the boundaries. Elements from one work can fluidly interact with and influence elements of the other works exhibited in the same space. In this way, the boundaries between art pieces dissolve.
Putting these underlying motivation and inspiration it pushes me to think deeper what interactive art can do and hence I wish to learn more about it through this course.
