2013.05.09 Thu
We held a creative exhibition with cooperation from Fukuoka City on April 13 (Sat.) and April 14 (Sun.) 『The Cave』- teamLab Exhibition Fukuoka 2013 –
Held at Canal City Hakata, the event featured an installation artwork by teamLab, an internationally recognized group of engineers with highly advanced technology.
In this article, I’m going to report on the event with some backstage information.
As the event was a two-day surprise event, the preparation started in the middle of the night.
They had to finish the construction of the event site by morning.
First, they set up a big building (4 m in height x 5 m in width x 10 m in depth) to create pitch darkness necessary for the exhibition of the installation artwork under the open sky.
The total length of truss used for the building reached 100 m! They then placed custom-made lightproof sheets on the top of the building as a roof. Six hours had already passed at this point since they started the construction.
As they set up projectors and computers, and performed testing, they saw the dawn break but still continued their work. The hardest one among all these operations was the setting up of five projectors. Mr. Yoon from teamLab engaged in the setup for hours, fine-tuning the boundaries among projected images and lens distortion.
(The picture above shows the operating room.)
The big building “The Cave” was finally completed. It presented a quite spectacular view from above.
Finally, the event started!
In the event, teamLab exhibited a new installation artwork and one of their popular artworks titled “Hana-wa-kurenai 2005”. Three other laboratories, all based in Fukuoka, also participated in the event.
B-DASH Lab. led by the up-and-coming artist VJ TKMi (Takumi), and the collaborative team of anno lab andinvisible designs lab. presented their installation artworks beautifully in the dark.
“Fukuoka x teamLab” by teamLab
“Hana-wa-kurenai” by teamLab
“cosmoscollider” by anno lab x invisible designs lab.
This installation artwork utilizes “Kinect”, a controller-free interactive game system. The image starts moving in different directions in response to the movement of users’ hands.
“Youkoso, Kinmirai. Bokura-no-Kyushu-e (The Near Future, Welcome to our Kyushu)”
This is an interactive installation artwork that shows fireworks-like images in response to the movement of users’ handclaps. I could hear the audience clap their hands even though I was outside the building.
This kind of installation art event rarely takes place outdoors.
The event exhibited internationally-appreciated high-quality artworks for free, and attracted more than 1,300 visitors for two days.
I hope that there will be more and more emotionally engaging art events like this everywhere in town.
