First look: Mori Building Digital Art Museum teamLab Borderless to open June 21

Written by
Kirsty Bouwers
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UPDATE (June 7, 2018): Discounted tickets for the first few months are now on sale through this dedicated website, at Lawson or 7-11. Tickets are ¥2,400 for high school students, university students, and adults; ¥1,000 for children. These early sale tickets are valid for a pre-specified date between June 21 and July 31, and are available on a first come, first serve basis. The museum is also extending the opening hours until August 31: 11am-8pm Monday to Thursday, 11am-10pm Fridays and the day before holidays, 10am-10pm Saturdays, and 10am-8pm Sundays and national holidays. The museum is closed every second and fourth Tuesday of the month. 

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The news of 'ultra-technologists' teamLab getting their own museum, courtesy of the Mori Group and with a little help of Epson, sent waves of happiness through the Insta-happy and art-loving community. And then things went silent for a little while, with virtually no new details available besides 'it'll open this summer'. 

Luckily, we now have the opening date, prices, installation details and even some sneaky insider pics of the new museum. Set to open on June 21, 2018, entry will cost a rather steep ¥3,200 per person (¥1,000 for children in elementary/middle school), but believe us, it's worth it – if not just to pay for their electricity bill. Don't forget the space is 10,000sqm, and they seem to have used every single inch of it with the help of 520 computers and 470 projectors. Expect to spend a good few hours wandering around and interacting with the 40-odd installations. 

Teamlab museum

The two themes of 'nature' and 'communication/interaction' feature strongly in all their work, which range from a 'rice field' with pods you can walk through and a scenery that changes with the seasons, to floral digital walls where the flowers disperse or fall when you touch them. It's all about bringing the art and the viewer together; as a representative for teamLab put it, 'there's not just a single vantage point. You become the centre, and the artwork changes with you'. Everything radiates from your perspective. 

But that's not all: the artworks being digital, they don't always stay in one place. This means that some fish may just swim over and transform the next room, while crows may strike down and scare away some dancers. The possibilities are endless, as nothing is played on loop.

There's also an interactive mirror room. Light bulbs glow and change colour when you get close, and considering you're actually allowed to enter the room and stand in the middle of it all, it's a fully immersive (read: selfie) experience that may just beat Yayoi Kusama's Infinity Rooms. We predict #teamLablightbulbs to be the next big thing. 

The teamLab museum encourages you to really get involved – and get active. Their 'Athletic Forest' is full of activities that require you to bounce, climb, move and swing your way through the art, adding to it and transforming it in the process. You can even draw your own 'animal', scan it, and then it'll start swimming or dancing along the walls. Everyone can be an artist here.

For a more calm, sit-down experience, you can have a cuppa at their 'tea house'. Inspired by the Japanese tea ceremony, they'll be serving matcha, but it won't be the teamLab museum if there wasn't anything digital going on. Thus, your matcha comes with a digital flower projection, which blooms in your cup until you move or drink it. 

The massive space has almost too much to take in for one visit, and when you step back onto the streets of Odaiba, you might feel like you have just returned from an alternate reality. We certainly did. Can't wait to see it for yourself? Ticket sales information is set to be released in late May 2018.

For more information, check out the museum's official website.

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