Ocula Report Havana Biennial 2019: Constructing the Possible 17 Apr 2019 : Federica Bueti for Ocula I first visited Havana in November 2016, a few days after Fidel Castro died, and just under a year before Hurricane Irma hit Cuba in September 2017. Since then, much has changed, including the hand-painted signs that punctuate the journey from the airport to the city centre, which today do not celebrate the revolution so much as the 'Unidad y...
Ocula Conversation Andrew Stahl and Guo Xiaohui The exhibition Beyond Boundaries at Somerset House in London (12 March–2 April 2019) marked the historic contributions of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing (CAFA) and the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, on the occasion of their 100th and 150th anniversaries, respectively. Spread across several rooms of Somerset House's...
Ocula Report The National 2019: New Australian Art 13 Apr 2019 : Elyse Goldfinch for Ocula The National 2019: New Australian Art features work by 70 contemporary Australia-based artists split across three venues: the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), Carriageworks, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA) (29 March–21 July 2019), as curated by Isobel Parker Philip, curator of photographs at AGNSW; Daniel Mudie Cunningham,...
teamLab is an artist collective comprised of approximately 400 'ultratechnologists' including but not limited to artists, mathematicians, architects, designers and engineers. Based in Tokyo, with outposts in Singapore and Shanghai, teamLab was founded by Toshiyuki Inoko in 2001 with the aim to change the relationship between people and the spaces they inhabit. teamLab believes in digital technology's ability to expand the possibilities of art and experience. The collective's work is characterised by the creation of immersive installations in which the physical and the digital world merge together.
In each unique installation, teamLab attempts to alter the viewer's perception of space using technology. The collective takes advantage of light, sound, kinetics and even smell to draw the viewer into their fabricated world. In the exhibition DMM.PLANETS Art (16 July-31 August 2016), which covered around 3000 square metres, teamLab focused on the presence of the viewer's body in the space and their capacity for sensorial experience and interaction. The installation was made of different 'planets', and each planet had its own unique environment, including smell. Such immersive installations allow the viewer to live out different experiences of space and go beyond normal perceptions of the world.
By the infinite possibilities made accessible through digital technology, teamLab's art aims to break free of physical confines; in the digital realm, an artwork can be as big and as imaginative as is within the creator's power. However, teamLab does not only utilitise the full range of the digital realm, it also digs back into history, adopting a wide range of influences—the collective draws on both traditional and contemporary structures of representation and performance. For example, for the 2013 Singapore Biennale (26 October 2013-16 February 2014), teamLab presented the immersive installation, Peace can be Realised Even Without Order. To view it at the Singapore Art Museum, one needed to receive admission through a door. Inside, the room beyond the door was lit only by the work—an interactive animated set of holographic dancers in traditional Japanese clothes. As the viewer walked through the dancers, motion sensors allowed the installation—the dancers—to react according to the movement. The viewer became participant in the dance as well as observer of it.
teamLabImpermanent Life, at the Confluence
of Spacetime New Space and Time is Born, 2018 Digital work, 4-channel, continuous loop
teamLabEver Blossoming Life II - A Whole Year per Year, Gold, 2016 Digital work, endless, 4 channels
teamLabFlowers and Corpse Glitch, Set of 12, 2012 digital work, 2 min (loop), 12 channels
Ocula Report The Lowdown: shows to see during Gallery Weekend Beijing 16 Mar 2018 : Bowen Li for Ocula To coincide with the second edition of Gallery Weekend Beijing, taking place between 23 and 30 March 2018, various institutions have brought out the big guns, including a list of international artists from Sarah Morris to Paul McCarthy. Galleries are also gearing up for the weekend, from Liu Wei showing at Long March Space, to Richard Deacon at...
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Ocula Report 'Mission [Spacexart]: Beyond Cosmologies' And 'Chronicle 1995' At The Museum Of Contemporary Art, Tokyo 29 Jul 2014 : Annabel James for Ocula Too many Tokyoites miss the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (MOT) altogether. Beyond both the Ueno museums and the network of newer art spaces in Roppongi, this institution of first-class exhibition facilities, a vast pubic art library and one of the most significant global collections of contemporary Japanese art takes you by surprise in Old...
Ocula Conversation Toshiyuki Inoko Founder, teamLab, Artist Collaborative, Japan At the Singapore Biennale in 2013, the standout artwork was by the digital artist collaborative, teamLab. The work was situated within the Singapore Art Museum behind a closed door that was subject to restricted entry. Once you had obtained admission beyond the door, you entered a blackened room lit only by the work itself. The work,...
Related Press The Elemental Intersection of Art and Technology Jump Start : 21 January 2019 The intersection of art and technology may appear to be a modern phenomenon on the surface, but this relationship is as enduring and universal as the discipline of art itself. Not only does technology have the ability to disrupt current practices in the art industry, but it can also challenge our understanding the world around us, and efforts to...
Related Press The NGV Triennial's Most Fun Work is a Digital, Phosphorescent Whirlpool Broadsheet Media : 9 January 2018 In an empty, dark room in the NGV this summer, you’ll find dozens of people wandering around in circles looking at the lights on the floor. It’s a digital simulation of the movement of water – like wading through phosphorescent pools. Visitors drag beams of light around with their feet while overhead an ambient, choral soundtrack plays.
Related Press A Point of Encounter for Asia-Pacific: Sydney Contemporary 2017 art fair – highlights round-up Art Radar : 13 September 2017 While the cancellation of the biannual Melbourne Art Fair in 2015 appeared to some as a sign of the instability of the Australian commercial art market, for Sydney Contemporary it was good news. The fair opened on Thursday 7 September 2017 with a host of returning local and international galleries from across the Asia-Pacific region and closed with...
Related Press Living digital forest and future park TEAMLAB ArtAsiaPacific : 18 August 2017 Can art—specifically, digital art—effectively raise awareness about our environment? TeamLab's Living Digital Forest and Future Park at Pace Beijing attempted to do so, and their dazzling presentation attracted long queues at the gallery's doors. Around the world, the Japanese multi-disciplinary art collective has several shows running...
Related Video & Audio TeamLab's installations at Enoshima Aquarium in Japan Designboom : 13 August 2015 From now until 25 December 2015, visitors to the Enoshima Aquarium in Kanagawa, Japan are immersed in a field of digital nature projected onto the Big Sagami Bay tank filled with aquatic life. The installation Flowers and Fish by Japanese studio teamLab depicts botanical forms, leaves, and petals slowly floating across the surface of the water...
