Instagram-friendly teamLab: Future Park in Hong Kong – what to expect in the interactive art exhibition by Japanese digital art powerhouse
- The pop-up art display at Megabox by Japanese digital artists teamLab is sure to interest children and the Instagram crowd
- However, if you have already seen teamLab: Supernature in Macau, it has bigger versions of four of the six displays in the Hong Kong show
Founded in 2001, the Japanese digital art powerhouse teamLab has been wowing audiences around the world for years with its creative spectacles, with Asian locations including Singapore, Shanghai and Macau hosting permanent installations.
In 2021, it made it into Guinness World Records after its Borderless: Mori Building Digital Art Museum, which opened in June 2018, received 2.2 million visitors in 2019 setting the record for the most visited museum (single art collective).
Hong Kong is finally getting a taste of what all the fuss is about, with a teamLab pop-up exhibition opening on July 9 at Megabox in Kowloon.
The show, called “teamLab: Future Park”, is a 10,000 sq ft (930 square metre) “educational project” that encourages audiences to create art collaboratively.
TeamLab’s fusion of technology and art creates an experience that invites visitors to become a part of the artwork.
Light Ball Orchestra is a room full of bouncy balls that change colour and make drum noises according to your movement.
Sketch Town is a digital world of buildings and vehicles drawn by visitors that are scanned and projected onto a large screen. A monster will appear once in a while to destroy the town but, using a touch screen, you can fight back by activating the elements on the screen – a sure-win with children and adults alike.
Hopscotch for Geniuses: Bounce on the Water will probably be an Instagram favourite. A combination of light and movement, the exhibit invites participants to hop on a projected water surface, creating ripples of colourful light.
Sliding through the Fruit Field is a playful installation with a slide surrounded by a field of fruit that bursts into fireworks as participants glide down.
In a section called A Table where Little People Live, you can see a miniature world inhabited by tiny digital beings that visitors can interact with, moving digital clouds to put out a fire, or helping to lay the table for a meal.
There isn’t much that is “educational”, although there is a section called Graffiti Nature, Beating Mountains and Valleys, Red List that highlights the links between species in our shared ecosystem.
Compared to South Korean studio d’strict’s “Arte M”, at K11 Atelier in North Point, an equally large-scale immersive offering which opened in October 2022, the teamLab experience is more interactive and likely to get children squealing with pleasure. However, “Arte M” is more seamless and immersive thanks to the sheer scale of its screens.
Like a similar installation in Macau, the teamLab installation features carpeted inclines and valleys with projections of animals roaming across the space. And it is participatory: there is an area with tables for participants to colour in an animal on a provided sheet to be scanned into the system and featured in the artwork.
For all that, this temporary exhibition does offer an opportunity for Hong Kong residents to immerse themselves in the interactive world of teamLab in a way that they can’t on Instagram.
“teamLab: Future Park”, 13/F Enterprise Square Five, MegaBox, 38 Wang Chiu Road, Kowloon Bay, Mon-Fri 2pm-10pm, Sat, Sun and public holidays: 10am-10pm. July 9, 2023 to Jan 14, 2024. Tickets on sale via Trip.com.
