Beginning today, you can now walk through a universe. And control it with your smartphone. “Crystal Universe” is the latest immersive installation by Japan’s artistic tech wizards TeamLab and it’s currently on display in Tokyo.
Multiple LEDs were installed in room housed within the Pola Museum Annex in Tokyo. The real-time interactive art work consists of a seemingly infinite number of light particles positioned in three-dimensional space.
“The Viewer of the art work can enter and walk around in the three-dimensional light space,” says TeamLab. “When the viewer enters the space they will cause a change that will affect the lights in the entire space, and that change will continue to cause change indefinitely.” In other words, it’s like Aristotle’s theory of causation meets TeamLab’s manipulation of digital lighting. “While the light continues to change across the entire universe space, the universe that the viewer causes change in will constantly be created with the viewer at its center.” Got it?
“Crystal Universe” is on view at the Pola Museum Annex from August 21 – September 27, 2015. The museum’s hours are 11:00am – 8:00pm and entry is free.
August 25, 2015 at 10:53 pm
Amazing and beautiful!
September 1, 2015 at 1:14 am
Wow. You name-checked Aristotle and got away with it.
As I read the Pola Museum Annex page about the exhibit, they’ve got 60,000 separate stranded, color-variable LED light elements. If each one is individually controlled, that’s a programming challenge but manageable.
The real nightmare would be wiring that mess to 60,000 digital dimmer channels to power the LEDs up and down in a controlled sequence. And we haven’t talked about motion and color design yet. =8-0