It’s back! teamLab Borderless

Feb 28, 2024

It’s back! teamLab Borderless

When most people think of art and Japan in the same vein, images on the order of Hokusai’s Great Wave of Kanagawa spring to mind. You could tour the traditional art scene in Nippon seemingly forever, enjoying a multitude of museums throughout the metropolis. However, there was a legendary museum dedicated to interactive digital arts, and that was the Mori Building Digital Art Museum. It was located in Odaiba but sadly closed its doors a few years back. But, as of February 9th, it has made a triumphant return at its new home in Azabudai Hills at Kamiyacho station.

The new installation, created by digital art collective teamLab, opened in the covered walkway of the new Azabudai Hills Complex in Kamiyacho. Similar to the former location, it features  projectors shining bright CGI graphics streaming from a data center’s worth of computers, onto reflective surfaces that patrons can interact with in many ways. If you’re feeling a bit of deja vu; the other installation in Toyosu teamLab Planets may come to mind.

The exhibits themselves are interactive and ever-changing suites of light and sound; no two people will experience them in the same way, and that’s a good thing. Whether a virtual bouldering course that alters the light shower as you “climb,” or an incline that allows you (and the kids… especially the kids) to power slide through a virtual pool of fruit and colors, this is a very hands-on affair.

As you move throughout the complex, each exhibit melds into the next, and at times the interactions seemed to follow me. This is not by accident, as the works are designed to integrate and interact both with one another, and the patrons moving in the space. The primary goal of the exhibit is to attempt to unify the digital and biological world and explore those new connections.

While grownups contemplate the deep philosophical ideas behind every piece, the children will be bouncing, running, and crawling the walls while exploring every nook and cranny of the hall

Getting there

MORI Building Digital Art Museum: EPSON teamLab Borderless

Azabudai Hills Garden Plaza B B1F, 1-2-4 Azabudai, Minato-ku, Tokyo
03-6230-9666
Kamiyacho Station, Exit 5
https://www.teamlab.art/jp/e/borderless-azabudai/

Admission fees

Purchase tickets and check availability by visiting  https://borderless-azabudai.ticket.teamlab.art/#/.  Prices are dynamic.

DannyWithLove, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons