TODAY, ART exhibitions are becoming more interactive and digital than they have ever been. We are now faced with installations that aren’t just encased in a frame on the wall, but are expanding across all four walls and even the floor. With the projected images constantly changing from the interaction between people and the artwork, viewers can use their senses of sight, hearing, and touch to experience the artwork. teamLab, an international art collective* since 2001, is an interdisciplinary group of specialists that aims to discover the relationship between the self and our natural world. With architects, engineers, artists, computer graphics (CG) animators, mathematicians, and programmers, they create interactive art using digital technology to connect the audience with nature. This September, they opened their new exhibit “teamLab: LIFE” here in the heart of Seoul, at Dongdaemun Design Plaza.

Introducing “teamLab: LIFE”

   “teamLab: LIFE” features some of teamLab’s most recent artworks in a 1,256 square meter exhibition hall, divided into approximately eight different zones**. Through this exhibit, the artists aim to convey the volatile and delicate properties of nature, and how nature not only provides us with blessings, but also creates natural disasters. They acknowledge both the benefits and the negative implications all lives have on one another and prioritize the interconnected relationship between nature and civilization. As teamLab puts it, in an interview with The Yonsei Annals, “Living in the city, you feel as if there is a border between yourself and the world. But the world is something we should be involved in. It may be just a bit, but the world is something that changes due to your existence. We believe that there is a borderless, continuous relationship between us and the world.” As you enter the different zones projecting unique artworks, with flower buds blooming and stems glowing gold at the end of your fingertips, you will feel more alive.

One single continuous wave

   Midway through the exhibit, you will find yourself pulled into a big wave. Black Waves: Immersive Mass consists of one single continuous wave, with neither a beginning nor an end. The water’s movements are computer-generated, with carefully calculated and drawn particles. You will encounter a narrow passageway with the “black wave” surrounding you on both sides. As you walk through the path, amidst the connected and unified single wave, you will feel as though you yourself have become a part of the seamless body of water. With the fluctuating endless waves around you, you will find it extremely difficult to believe that you are standing in a mere indoor exhibition hall. The waves will sweep away your burdens, leaving you feeling light as you immerse yourself in this exquisite digital installation.

A year’s worth of seasonal flowers in an hour

   One of the last artworks you will see in the exhibit is Universe of Water Particles, Transcending Boundaries. This installation shows a continuous waterfall, and is shown along with Flowers and People, Cannot be Controlled but Live Together—Transcending Boundaries, A Whole Year per Hour, which exhibits a year’s worth of seasonal flowers over a period of one hour. The two installations, considered by many visitors as the highlight of this exhibit, together tell a story about the perpetual cycle of life and death. Audience interaction heavily determines the images that would appear in front of you. For example, if you touch the flowers on the walls or step on the flowers on the floor, the petals will fade away; however, if you stand still, the flowers will grow around you and continue to bloom. Although the waterfall and the flowers are of different artworks, they interact with each other to create various images for the viewers to admire. When the waterfall hits the flowers, the petals gradually scatter away from the foreground. The water’s movements are also computer-generated, using the same techniques as the ones used in creating Black Waves: Immersive Mass. When you stand under the waterfall, it recognizes your presence and changes the flow of water. Your movements and interactions together determine your very own unique experience of the installation. Through these pieces of art, teamLab aims to explore the continuous relationship between humans and the world. They shed light on the coexistence of nature and people in an ecosystem that is often neglected in today’s highly urbanized society. With flowers blooming and scattering all around you with the gentle and calming sound of water falling, you’ll be able to recognize how delicately interconnected we are with the natural world.

The borderline between art and entertainment

   While the artworks in “teamLab: LIFE” invite you to return to nature, visitors of the exhibit appear to be preoccupied with something else entirely. Throughout the exhibit, you will notice people waiting in lines to take the perfect photo of themselves standing in between waves or posing right under the waterfall. Nowadays, taking photos and uploading them on social media has become an inseparable part of appreciating art exhibits. The consumers’ heavy social media usage has led exhibition industries to depend on social media for their marketing strategies, promoting “take your new profile picture here,” “get your in-saeng-syat*** now!” to name a few. “Although the sound of taking pictures may disturb other viewers, this heavy reliance on social media helps make exhibits more approachable,” said Kim Eun-a, the new media promotion manager of the National Museum of Contemporary Art, in an interview with Yonhap News. On the other hand, some professionals have also expressed their concerns on how this social trend shifts exhibits further away from the artists’ original artistic purposes. As Han Jung-hee, the director of Daelim Museum of Art, puts it in an interview with Yonhap News, “Having good ‘photo zones’ should not be the primary concern; instead, having meaningful messages in the artworks should be the priority when creating a ‘good’ exhibit.”

   “teamLab: LIFE,” with beautiful artworks that are both interactive and aesthetic, has gained a lot of popularity since it first opened in September. This exhibit differs from other art exhibitions in that it is organized by “Culture Depot”, an entertainment agency that manages top South Korean actors. With many celebrities and public figures having visited this exhibit, including actress Jun Ji-hyun and Shinsegae Group Vice Chairman Chung Yong-jin, it has since gained widespread social media publicity****.

   This social media publicity as well as the exhibit’s aesthetic installations, have attracted lots of viewers; the visitors would have to stand in line for around an hour for their turn to enter the exhibit. When their turn finally arrives, they would expect to enter a quiet and peaceful exhibition hall, but this is not the case. Even inside the exhibit, the viewers will be faced with a huge, bustling crowd, with everyone trying their best to get a complete and clear view of the artworks for their photos. The continuous camera shutter clicks and the sounds of chit-chats filling the closed exhibition hall pull the visitors away from fully appreciating the meaningful art installations teamLab has to offer.

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   “teamLab: LIFE” tackles the concepts of perpetual cycles, ecosystems, and our relationship with the natural world. With many visitors crowding the exhibit every day, it is easy to get carried away and only focus on the artworks’ surface-level beauty. However, we should always aim to fully appreciate the works in front of us—and more importantly, to acknowledge that we are alive in this moment, and that “LIFE” is, in fact, beautiful.

*Art collective: refers to a group of artists who work together, usually under their own management, towards the same goal

**Dong A News

***in-saeng-syat: Korean term referring to the best picture one could take in one’s life

****The Korea Times