Japanese art collective TeamLab is launching a digital art museum in Macau this month after its original opening was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Billed as a “body immersive” experience, the 5,000-square-metre museum with 8m-high ceilings will be filled with ever-changing artworks reflective of TeamLab’s mission to explore humans’ connection with nature in the digital age. Visitors to the museum – called “TeamLab SuperNature” – can expect a kaleidoscope of colours and interactive installations that flow and meld into each other and react in real-time to their movement and actions. “With the advent of digital technology, human expression was freed from physical materials,” says Toshiyuki Inoko, founder of TeamLab. “We do not require an irreversible bonding to physical material to express ourselves. Because of digital technology, which we call digital art … it became easier for human creation and nature to coexist.” The theme of the museum at the Venetian Macao is “the continuity of yourself and the world that you perceive”, Inoko says. It will showcase three groups of art in sections labelled “Artworks”, “Future Park” and “Athletics Forest”. The “Artworks” section will feature large-scale pieces visitors can literally walk into, including a set of clouds that aim to challenge the conventional notion of “the physical”. “Even though you can recognise it as a white mass, as something tangible, the boundaries between the surface of the artwork and the visitor is very ambiguous,” Inoko says of the piece titled Massless Clouds Between Sculpture and Life , which will be unveiled later in the year. “You can’t really tell if you’re touching or not.” The section will also see the premiere of Light Sculpture – Plane , which uses planes, or surfaces, made up of laser rays of light to create 11 separate light shows. Other exhibits in the “Artworks” section include The Infinite Crystal Universe , a dazzling room full of colour-changing LED lights that expresses the universe through accumulated light points spreading infinitely in all directions. “Future Park” is part of TeamLab’s educational project and amusement park themed around co-creation. This “school of the future” encourages visitors to learn about the world through collaboration and shared experiences. In this section, the collective hopes to turn individual creative acts into co-creative activities through installations such as Sketch Ocean , in which guests draw sea creatures that come to life on the digital screen. TeamLab describes the “Athletics Forest” section as a space where humans learn to recognise the world “using their entire bodies with the brain and body as one set”, Inoko says. It is based on the concept of spatial awareness and thinking of the world three-dimensionally. In Multi Jumping Universe , visitors jump on a trampoline made of a special material that displays a digital, moving image of sprawling galaxies. Guests can create planets by bouncing on the same spot, or trails of stars by running around. The entire display mimics the life cycle of a star. “In the conventional setting of a museum, people would be very unhappy if you run or move around. We’re trained to stop our bodies to look at art,” Inoko says. “We wanted to create a situation where you move your body physically to be able to recognise or perceive the world.” Founded in 2001 by Inoko and a group of his friends, TeamLab is a team of architects, computer graphics animators, mathematicians and engineers whose creations aim to blur the boundaries between the human body and art. The self-described “ultra-technologists” use light, motion sensors, projectors and sound to evoke the beauty of the natural world. TeamLab opened its first permanent museum in the Mori Building in Tokyo in 2018, which has drawn more than 2 million visitors. “TeamLab SuperNature”, its third permanent museum, is set to soft open on June 15. The collective aims to transcend the boundaries of human perception and recognise the continuity that people would otherwise not see, Inoko explains. “However, at the end of the day, what we want is people to come and enjoy,” he says with a laugh. “Only if you enjoy art can you expand your notion or your understanding of beauty, and only by expanding or exploring the notion of beauty in a larger scale can we change the way we look at the world.” “TeamLab SuperNature”, soft opening on June 15. Admission: Daily, 10am-10pm, closed the second and fourth Tuesday of each month, HK$238 adults, HK$168 children. Tickets online at www.cotaiticketing.com