By A wall of flower petals bursts into a thousand fragments. A huge ball levitates in the air, turning from red to blue to purple. Hundreds of butterflies dart around a screen of tiny water particles. This is not a modern art museum, but the latest creation of Japan’s teamLab collective of engineers, artists and architects, anchored around a maze of seven saunas lit up in hues of red, green and yellow.
The Tokyo-based digital art group took over an empty lot in the city’s glitzy Roppongi district and over the last year erected a gigantic tent housing the sauna rooms and three immersive art installations. “Art is traditionally exhibited in luxurious places like palaces or museums – we wanted to create a luxurious state of mind for people to experience it,” said Takashi Kudo, a teamLab lab member at a demonstration on Saturday.
“TikTok teamLab Reconnect” opens runs March 22 until the end of August. For $44 on weekdays and $53 on weekends, visitors can dip in and out of the hot rooms and cold showers, and walk inside the artworks sporting only swimming suits. The coronavirus means seating in the biggest saunas was cut from 24 to 12 and ventilation was adjusted to meet government standards for air circulation.
