When articles about a revolutionary new digital art museum started showing up on my Google Alerts for “Things to do in Tokyo”  I got really excited. 

We had visited the Atelier des Lumineres in Paris, billed as one of the best new things to do in the City of Light and loved it.  Magical experience.   (Here’s my blog post about that encounter.) 

So, the opportunity to see something similar In Tokyo grabbed my interest, especially since we had a trip to Japan on the calendar.   It sounded terrific.  

We were not disappointed. 

Billed as Tokyo’s Most Instagrammable spot, we encountered moving flowers, flowing water, rice fields, lanterns, animals, tea pots, laser like lights. It’s Impossible to catalog all the images, but that’s the point.  

Called Borderless, the huge installation by teamLab covers 110,000 square meter space and uses 520 computers and 470 projectors to create the experience that overwhelms the senses.  

It’s named Borderless for good reason. It’s all changing. The art has no frames or borders.    One moment you view purple flowers that merge  into a burst of sunflowers and then a bird, no a flock of birds with streaming trails fly by.   A lush forest turns into a dramatic graphic light show.  Turn around and there’s a waterfall.    The art moves in and out of rooms and down the  labyrinth of hallways.  Totally disorienting.    

The second floor is devoted to children with spaces to create urban communities complete with a digitally projected train chugging along the wall.  Add a few flying pink elephants for fun.  We had as much fun as the kids in these spaces.  All ages enjoyed the space with the huge balloons. 

The children were encouraged to create art which was projected on the wall where the creative creatures and plants  swooshed and swerved, mixing with contributions from the other children.    Endless possibilities 

We did find that Borderless was less “art” focused than the Klimt version in Paris.  Someone on Trip Advisor called it “Artsy Disney complete with the long queues.”   They were right. It was probably more entertainment than art, but fun and exciting and stimulating none-the-less. 

They were right about the queues.  We discovered them after having a challenging time just finding the Mori Building on the outskirts of Tokyo.    We gave the taxi the address but he struggled.  We drove around the area for a bit because the entrance to the building was hidden in the middle of a huge block of buildings.   Fortunately a lovely Japanese lady who passed us walking to work, took us along and guided us to the right spot.

There we found a line, but nothing like the lines we saw when we emerged two hours later.  If you go, get your ticket for the opening time online and then go early.  You won’t be sorry. 

There were multiple rooms and floors and we easily got lost making our way around the various image packed spaces.    Not only did they have different themes, but the fluid show kept changing.  There were no boundaries between the people and the art work. Often they fused together in the imagery. 

Is this the future of art? 

Who knows? It’s unlikely to replace the masterpieces at the Louvre or fascinating works at MOMA or the local arts at home.   However, it was certainly stimulating and memorable and for a couple of hours I didn’t think about anything but what I was experiencing.  

According to an article posted in 2018, a teamLab production  is coming to Brooklyn sponsored by Pace Gallery.    I did a search and couldn’t find anything to confirm this, but I am going to keep my eyes open.  I’d happily go again.  

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