The outline of life’s existence is not the boundary of the physical body, but something ambiguous that also includes the environment continuous with it. As long as life is alive, it dissipates energy and moves the surrounding environment, such as the air. This work depicts the existence of a flock of birds through the energy the flock has given to the world. The existence called “I” is the mind, the body, and the environment continuous with them. A pebble, and things that humans have made up to now, have stable structures in and of themselves. Life, however, is different. A pebble will continue to exist even if it is placed in a sealed box cut off from the outside world, but life cannot maintain its existence when placed in such a closed box. Life is like a vortex born in the sea. A vortex is an existence within a flow, and the boundaries of its existence are ambiguous. In fact, a vortex is in a steady state, yet continues to writhe and appears like a single powerful living being. A vortex is not something that maintains a stable structure on its own; it is created by water continuously flowing from outside the vortex to inside it, and from inside to outside, and its structure is sustained by that flow. Life, too, takes in matter and energy from outside as food, releases matter, and dissipates energy outward while building an ordered structure. In other words, the structure of life is formed not by life itself, but by the environment continuous with it. Life is a miraculous phenomenon that arises in the flow of an open world, and like a vortex in the sea, it exists within an infinite continuum, with ambiguous boundaries to its existence. To be alive is to continue dissipating energy into the world and to remain continuous with the world. Work page: https://www.teamlab.art/jp/w/dissipative_birds/himeji/

Description: On a night of heavy rain, the rain falling on the grasslands becomes a work of art. Countless masses of light float in the air. Each mass of light is composed of two colors, with the boundary between the colors clearly separated as if it were solid. These masses of light, with sharply defined color boundaries unlike anything seen in nature, arise from extreme synchronization. Synchronization can be said to be the result of a synchronization phenomenon, a form of self-organization along the axis of time that creates large structures with order. When you touch a mass of light, you realize that what you had been seeing was part of the rain falling continuously without interruption. Life is like a fleeting crystal of light, a miraculous solidification within a continuum of energy that has kept flowing without interruption from a past whose beginning we cannot know. Work page: https://www.teamlab.art/jp/ew/ephemeral-crystallizedrain-field/field/

According to various studies, in forests, trees are connected to one another through networks of mycorrhizal fungi, recognizing each other and exchanging nutrients. At the center of this coexistence and mutual support are large, long-lived trees. Forest ecologist Suzanne Simard calls such large trees mother trees. When a person approaches the tree, the nearest sphere glows brightly and emits a tone. The surrounding spheres respond one after another, continuing in sequence as they glow and sound. The tree is a tabunoki, a Japanese bay tree. In the poem “Iso no ue no tsumama o mireba ne o hae te toshifukakarashi kami sabinikeri” from the Man'yōshū, the oldest existing anthology of Japanese poetry, compiled from the late 7th century to the late 8th century, the word “tsumama” is said to refer to the tabunoki. The meaning is: “Looking at tsumama on the seaside rocks, it seems to have spread its roots far and lived many years. It has become divine.” Even 1,200 years ago, people may have felt a sense of mystery when seeing roots extending far into the forest as a whole. Work page: https://www.teamlab.art/jp/ew/tabunoki-tree-izura/izura/

Description: Beyond the deep forest on the mountain by the sea, there was a valley. There, we found the remains of rain-fed rice terraces, now turned into a wetland covered with reeds. It seemed like a secret rice terrace. As I reflected on the long passage of time in which nature and human activity have continued in succession, I decided to create a work based on the traces of rice terraces hidden in the forest. Artwork page: https://www.teamlab.art/jp/ew/hidden-traces-of-rice-terraces-izura/izura/