Next up in digital art: teamLab brings its interactive installations to Paris

'Universe Of Water Particles on Au-dela des limites' by teamLab. — AFP Relaxnews

Immersive art enabled by digital technology is enjoying somewhat of a heyday, with new venues and shows around the world creating dynamic viewing experiences. Among the key purveyors of these immersive installations is teamLab, whose latest endeavor launches this month in Paris.

The examples of immersive digital art installations popping up internationally are numerous, and varied, but what many offer in common is a family-friendly, 360-degree experience.

The multi-sensory traveling exhibition Van Gogh Alive – The Experience just came to an end in Dubai, surrounding viewers in more than 3,000 Van Gogh images via giant screens and covering walls, columns, ceilings and even the floor, all set to a classical score.

In Paris, such art experiences now have their own permanent venue following the April opening of the digital art venue Atelier des Lumières, whose inaugural exhibition is a colourful, immersive show of light and music that journeys into the art and lives of Klimt and Schiele.

The art collective teamLab takes a different approach, pooling the skills of a multidisciplinary team to create its own original, interactive digital art experiences. At this year's inaugural NGV Triennial, for example, the group created a room-filling installation that swirls to create a vortex around visitors using digital technology.

This month, teamLab is next setting up shop in Paris's La Villette for the interactive exhibition Au-delà des limites, which build on the concept of a 2017 exhibition in London that is said to have sold out almost instantly.

Works include an enormous virtual waterfall reaching 11m high that appears to spill down and flow through the exhibition space, splitting around visitors' feet; another dynamic work depicts a seasonal year of changing flower blossoms over a period of an hour.

As teamLab explains, there are "no clear boundaries" between the works, meaning that, for example, those flowers may scatter due to the influence of a neighbouring work.

As interest in these immersive experiences grows, so does teamLab's reach: the collective is soon set to open an entire museum in Tokyo along with urban developer Mori Building. MORI Building DIGITAL ART MUSEUM: teamLab Borderless will feature more than 10,000sq m of floor space devoted to its immersive, multidisciplinary art when it opens in early summer. — AFP Relaxnews