International art collective teamLab has been exploring the relationship between the self, the world and new perceptions through art since 2001. The interdisciplinary group comprises various specialists such as artists, programmers, engineers, CG animators, mathematicians and architects who seek to collectively navigate the confluence of art, science, technology and the natural world. While best known for its digital art exhibitions involving light and immersive installations, teamLab has recently partnered with director Daniel Kramer to branch out and explore the scenography for the opera. For the occasion, I spoke with teamLab about their recent production ‘Turandot,’ the red thread that runs throughout their work and the multifaceted quality of their collective.
Q: How did you come to be involved in the production of an opera?
A: teamLab met Director Daniel Kramer in late 2017 and shared a vision that teamLab’s moving light artworks could be used to create architectural and sculptural light that would enhance an operatic production.
teamLab worked with Daniel Kramer for 4+ years discussing ideas and exploring concepts, interpretations, metaphors and symbolism, along with how teamLab’s visual interpretation of each scene would be realised. As Turandot is such a significant opera, with many singers on stage, it was challenging to create something new and visually exciting. teamLab Architects produced ideas and plans for the stage with simple yet powerful geometry that can be enhanced by teamLab’s digital light artworks. The revolving set uses transparent acrylic, reflective surfaces and combinations of soft white and stretchable black materials. The singers interact or appear in spaces with different visual qualities due to reflection and absorption of light.
teamLab is known for immersive experiences such as teamLab Borderless and teamLab Planets Museums in Tokyo. For Turandot, we attempted to bring this experience to opera, dissolving the boundaries between the audience and the stage, allowing the opera to occupy the audience’s space, creating the feeling that they are part of the performance.
Q: This style of scenography is entirely unseen before, especially in the context of an opera. How did it feel to combine something ultra-contemporary with an older tradition? What impact do you believe this has over the more traditional scenography we are used to witnessing at the opera?
A: teamLab uses a combination of laser, LED and projection for different scenes of the opera. The central vision for Turandot is a futuristic game show in which Turandot, the prize, gives her riddles to the male contestants. Other scenes feature a kaleidoscopic LED subconscious world that Calaf must struggle his way through whilst being pursued by the tormenting trio of Ping, Pang and Pong.
This production of Turandot is unlike any opera before it. Forty-five lasers are used to make virtual light planes and form 3D light sculptures above the stage and excite the crowd (and the audience) during a futuristic TV game show. Yet, at other times, the lasers are hazy, subtle and abstract, creating moments of pure calm and tranquillity, haunting beauty and trepidation. LED is used with mirrors to create a stunning contrast and kaleidoscopic diamond-like rooms of the subconscious, which are alluring and seductive yet suggestive of trickery and deception.
teamLab worked hard to unify the visual experience with the Turandot opera. It was not our intention to create something that would not fit comfortably with the existing art form but would, nonetheless, progress in a new direction towards a new future.
Through a new interpretation of the themes Turandot presents, we hoped to excite audiences and re-energise our love for opera and art, which takes us out of our comfort zone and allows us to see the world in a new light.
Q: You speak of how the artwork unifies with the cast. How did you manage to achieve this effect?
A: It was challenging to unify a live cast of opera singers and dancers with artworks usually presented in traditional exhibition spaces. However, as we worked with the production team, all form members were excited by Daniel Kramer’s contemporary and visionary interpretation of the opera and the teamLab artworks coexisting around them. The cast members saw how the paintings enhanced and brought new energy to the performance.
Q: The opera coincided with your other exhibition at Pace Gallery in Geneva. Are there any crossovers between the two?
A: The artworks displayed at Pace Gallery, Geneva, are not directly related to the opera. However, the different artworks within the opera and exhibition explore the connectivity of humans to their surroundings in various ways: how we are rooted to the ground yet navigate through the air; how we maintain a stable entropy within our surroundings yet are dependent upon it; and the connectivity of the various particles in the universe support our fragile existence.
Q: teamLab is a multifaceted collective. How does the diversity of your members shine through in your work?
A: A diversity of members helps teamLab explore technologies and methods of expression in ways that are impossible for one person to achieve. Our works come together through creative effort and contributions by members with different innovative capabilities. These various attributes and capabilities combine to produce the large-scale immersive experiences we create.
Since the founding of teamLab, we’ve consistently maintained a creative process through collaboration. teamLab is a laboratory created by a team, a place where the team experiments, and a space for experimental creations.
teamLab’s creativity is based on multidimensionality, where members with different specialities create together by crossing boundaries and transferring knowledge that can be shared and reused. As a result, teamLab generates what we call ‘collective creation’—creating something of higher quality by a group, thus strengthening an entire team. A person may not be directly involved in the project, but their shareable knowledge might be. This continuous process of creating and discovering transferable expertise at high speed yields the group’s strength.
Knowledge can be uncovered in all parts of the creative process. If detailed and versatile expertise is shared by a team, this develops into strength and leads to new projects and the improvement of presented artworks. This results in an overall improvement in the quality of our creations.
