Science advances by asking “why?”, letting our imaginations grow into hypotheses, and repeating experiments while believing in those hypotheses. “Discovery Wall” was created as a warm-up before entering the Basic Exhibition Room at the Fukuoka City Science Museum, to encourage visitors to question everything and let their imaginations run free. To inspire people to explore with curiosity—wondering “What happens if I touch this picture?” or “What does this picture mean?”—we incorporated many intriguing devices into the content, based on events in the history of science and scientific phenomena, and freely imagined by animation creators. When you touch the reliefs, science and imagination burst forth as delightful animations. Each one connects and interacts, eventually converging into the question: “Why?”

“Tail of Spacetime” was created as an artwork for experiencing the concept of spacetime. Through Minkowski’s light cone, we are always present at our current point, gazing at the horizon of possibilities expanding into the future at the speed of light. When you touch the “Tail of Spacetime” placed at the center of the work’s space, you can see, within the concept of spacetime, the trajectory of how you arrived at your present location. The space is three-dimensionally scanned by sensors placed in front, and by comparing the positions of the past and present space, it generates in real time an image that makes it seem as though your past self exists in the same space as your present self. Manipulating spacetime through visual effects has been achieved by SF films such as Back to the Future, manga such as Doraemon, and experimental works such as Norman McLaren’s Canon, Zbigniew Rybczyński’s Tango, and Michel Gondry’s music video for Kylie Minogue’s Come Into My World. But what it actually feels like had, until now, only been something we could imagine. By imagining, people can perceive the real world in a new way and transform it. The concept of spacetime is still very new, but with its emergence, the way we perceive our world has changed greatly as well. “Tail of Spacetime” is still an experience within video, but as technology continues to advance, I believe it may not be far off before it leaps into physical space. I look forward to seeing what kind of world lies beyond the ability to experience spacetime with our own skin.

Even for familiar animals, many people may never have heard the sounds they make. With that in mind, we created this content to introduce the animals at the Fukuoka City Zoological and Botanical Garden through imitating their calls. When you imitate an animal call into a speaking-tube-style microphone, the sound waveform changes and an artistic animal appears. AI machine learning is used as the technology to determine which animal the imitation corresponds to.