Digital Collective teamLab Offers Modern Approach to Viewing Art
Jakarta. Visitors can become part of the display at teamLab Future Park, a digital art exhibit being held at Gandaria City Mall in South Jakarta from now until December.
The team of self-proclaimed "ultra-technologists" behind teamLab has created dazzling displays all over the world and has permanent works in Singapore, China and Japan. The company's website highlights the fact that human creativity and collaboration will become increasingly important in the age of artificial intelligence and technological advancements.
Toshiyuki Inoko, chief executive and creative director, started teamLab in Japan in 2001. Inoko assembled a team of artists, computer programmers, engineers, animators, mathematicians and architects to design an immersive experience to demonstrate how humans and technology can interact.
The teamLab programmers have enabled the computer to respond to people's movements and give them the opportunity to add their own creations.
"What makes us different than any other art exhibition is that we come up with an interactive theme," said Salomo Jacob, vice president of Sorak Gemilang Entertainment. "Visitors can directly interact – such as touch, listen to and create a new and more dynamic form of artwork from the interaction with the displayed artwork."
Jacob said the group chose to bring the exhibition to Jakarta because of the city's lack of recreational space that people of all ages can easily enjoy. The digital art exhibit can capture anyone's attention with its bright colors and mesmerizing movement.
There are five spaces in the exhibit, each with their own theme, but all center around collaborative creativity.
"The bigger theme is a collaborative creation or co-creation, where visitors are expected to get in touch with their creative side and collaborate with other visitors," Jacob said. He said the exhibit encourages the audience to explore their relationship with nature through art and technology.
Onlookers will be surrounded by bright colors and moving shapes that respond to human input. In one area, a person's footsteps can leave blooming flowers or splashes of color. Further along, visitors can design their own lizard or jellyfish and scan it into the computer. Almost immediately, they will see their creature crawling or swimming up walls with the other creations.
Visitors can walk among elephants made of purple flower petals, see multicolored whales glide beneath their feet, slide down a fruit field, listen to an orchestra made of balls of light and watch underwater creatures swim lazily by. The effect of being surrounded by light and color is achieved through mirrors and projectors for a unique experience.
The art installation will be in Jakarta until Dec. 20. Regular admission costs Rp 200,000 ($14) on weekdays and Rp 250,000 on weekends and public holidays. The exhibit is on the second floor of Gandaria City Mall.
There will also be a second, two-day installation at the Jakarta Convention Center on Aug. 31-Sept. 1. This will have a different theme than the current one.
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