teamLab explores ‘borderless continuity’ in evolving worlds of perception

teamLab redefines the artwork as a borderless experience

 

teamLab constructs environments that challenge the idea of the world as a collection of separate entities. Instead, the collective proposes what it describes as a ‘long, fragile yet miraculous, borderless continuity’, a condition in which boundaries dissolve and relationships take precedence. Their installations are not conceived as isolated objects, but as immersive fields that bloom through time and presence. As teamLab tells designboom, their work can be understood as ‘the experience itself’, shifting perception away from fixed forms toward a more fluid awareness of connection.

 

Within this framework, the viewer is never external to the work, but becomes part of its structure. Interaction is not an added layer but a defining condition, where ‘the artistic work is made up of both the art and the viewer’, teamLab explains. This reciprocity transforms not only the artwork itself, but also the relationships between those who encounter it. The presence of others becomes perceptible within the work, such that ‘if the effect of another person’s presence on the art is beautiful, that person’s presence itself may be seen as beautiful’.

 

This expanded approach is currently unfolding across a growing global network of exhibitions, from Tokyo and Shanghai to Jeddah and Abu Dhabi, as the collective continues to develop large-scale, permanent environments. Now, the interdisciplinary creative group is preparing to bring this model to Europe for the first time, with teamLab Borderless Hamburg set to open soon within the UBS Digital Art Museum in HafenCity (find designboom’s previous coverage here). 

 

At the same time, the collective extends the notion of experience beyond physical presence. Reflecting on memory and absence, teamLab suggests that ‘in that moment, doesn’t a form of beauty arise that transcends physical absence?’, pointing to a more expansive understanding of perception that includes recollection, imagination, and emotional resonance. Beauty, in this sense, is not confined to what is directly seen, but emerges through continuity across time and experience.

Crows are Chased and the Chasing Crows are Destined to be Chased as well, Flying Beyond Borders © teamLab

 

 

from perpetual transformation to a digital garden

 

Working through digital media, teamLab develops artworks that resist fixity, installations that evolve continuously, shaped by an ongoing exchange between viewer and environment, where interaction can ‘continue forever’. In contrast to more conventional notions of permanence, they propose another understanding of eternity, one grounded in transformation, like ‘waves of the sea or a vortex,’ teamLab describes. Digital technology becomes a material condition that allows expression to ‘change form freely’, enabling artworks to exist as dynamic systems.

 

Despite their technological foundation, references to nature remain central to their thinking. Rather than reproducing natural forms, the international art collective seeks to evoke a bodily sense of connection that is often diminished in contemporary urban life. The team shares with us that their works aim to ‘allow people to feel the continuity of nature and the world with their bodies’, using light, sound, and networks as non-material elements. Technology is not positioned in opposition to nature but as a means of reconnecting with it, suggesting that what they create may be understood as something closer to a ‘garden’.

Flowers and People, Cannot be Controlled but Live Together – A Whole Year per Hour © teamLab

 

 

collective creation and the beauty of continuity

 

This method is inseparable from teamLab’s interdisciplinary structure, which brings together artists, engineers, programmers, and scientists in what they describe as ‘collective creation’. Knowledge circulates across the group as ‘transferable knowledge’, accumulating through continuous experimentation. Authorship becomes secondary to the work itself, as they emphasize that ‘what matters to us is not who made it, but the output itself’, privileging the emergent qualities of the final environment over individual contribution.

 

Scale plays a crucial role in intensifying these relationships. teamLab often develops projects in direct response to specific spaces, using the flexibility of digital media to expand across surfaces and volumes. This adaptability allows installations to grow in complexity and immersion, while supporting a key principle of their work, that ‘the more people there are, the more beautiful it becomes’. In these environments, the artwork operates as a social system, shaped by density, movement, and interaction.

 

Ultimately, what teamLab seeks to leave with the viewer is not a singular image, but a shift in perception. They hope that visitors come to feel that ‘the continuity of all the works is beautiful in itself’, expanding the boundaries of what can be understood as beauty. Often described as dreamlike, their environments instead open onto a state in which ‘the boundaries between the self and the world become fluid’, a condition where the individual dissolves into a shared, continuously unfolding whole. Find our full interview with teamLab ahead. 

Forest of Flowers and People © teamLab

 

 

discussing with teamlab

designboom (DB): Your work invites viewers into environments that continuously change in response to them. What kind of way of seeing or experiencing the world are you aiming to reconstruct through these environments?

 

teamLab (TL): We believe that people tend to separate the world into independent entities with perceived boundaries, and our work challenges this by emphasizing that everything exists in a ‘long, fragile yet miraculous, borderless continuity’. Through our artworks, teamLab aims to explore the relationship between humans and the world, seeking to transcend boundaries in our perception. Indeed, as you pointed out, teamLab’s work can be understood as ‘the experience itself.’ Some of our works embody this quality. We hope that after people come and see the artworks, it expands how they perceive the world. Everything in this world exists in continuity. We hope people realize that continuity itself is beautiful and life-affirming.

Universe of Water Particles on a Rock where People Gather © teamLab

 

 

DB: How do you think participation changes the meaning of an artwork?

 

TL: One characteristic of interactive art is that the existence and behavior of the viewer can influence the art, thereby blurring the line between art and viewer. In other words, the artistic work is made up of both the art and the viewer. One consequence of this is a shift in the relationship between art and viewer as well as between the individual viewer and the group. This changes the relationship between an artwork and an individual into a relationship between an artwork and a group of individuals. The result is that the art gains the ability to influence the relationships between the viewers standing in front of it. And if the effect of another person’s presence on the art is beautiful, that person’s presence itself may be seen as beautiful.

 

At the same time, beauty exists even when no one is there. For instance, we sometimes recall the beauty of a deep forest encountered in our lives and find ourselves lost in thought about that place. In that moment, doesn’t a form of beauty arise that transcends physical absence?

Microcosmoses: Wobbling Light and Environmental Light, 2024, Interactive Installation, LED, Endless, Sound: teamLab O teamLab, courtesy Pace Gallery

 

 

DB: Your environments evolve, respond, and sometimes even remember. What interests you about creating works that exist in time rather than as fixed objects?

 

TL: We want to show that digital technology can provide a new possibility for art. Videotape appears to be finite but we can transform video work into an endless form using technology. In terms of the relationship between the works and the viewer, viewers can influence the work and vice versa, and this can continue forever. We want people to experience the ‘futuristic something’ which already exists. Before people started accepting digital technology, information and artistic expression had to be presented in some physical form. Creative expression has existed through static media for most of human history, often using physical objects such as canvas and paint. The advent of digital technology allows human expression to become free from these physical constraints, enabling it to exist independently and evolve freely. We believe it depends on how one defines ‘eternity.’

 

One way is to capture a momentary radiance within a physical substance, like a stone sculpture, and preserve its form forever. Another way is to find eternity within a continuity of natural phenomena that are constantly changing yet perpetually reborn, like the waves of the sea or a vortex. For us, digital technology is strictly a material and a tool. To express ourselves through these media is nothing less than confronting the reality of phenomena that never cease to change. Digital technology allows artistic expression to be released from the material world, gaining the ability to change form freely. The characteristics of digital technology allow artworks to express the capacity for change much more freely. Viewers, in interaction with their environment, can instigate perpetual change in an artwork.

Crows are Chased and the Chasing Crows are Destined to be Chased as well: Flying Beyond Borders, 2013/2018-, Interactive Digital Installation, Endless, Sound: Hideaki Takahashi © teamLab, courtesy Pace Gallery

 

 

DB: There is often a strong reference to natural phenomena in your projects, yet everything is digitally constructed. How do you approach this relationship between nature and algorithm?

 

TL: We believe that the relationship between humans and nature is something that each of us must realize and discover over a long period of time in nature. However, in our modern and urban lives, it is difficult to experience being surrounded by and at one with nature. We have no desire to copy nature through digital technology, but we believe that digital technology and its use in creating artistic expression will enable us to perceive more widely the relationship between humans and nature, which we have lost touch with in our daily lives. Rather than reproducing nature itself, we want to create works that allow people to feel the continuity of nature and the world with their bodies. We believe that technology is not in conflict with nature, but has the potential to complement it.

 

Digital technologies such as sensing, networks, light and sound, are non-material and have no physical impact on the environment. By using such non-material digital technologies, nature can be turned into living art, without harming it.

We do not see any irony in using technology to portray nature and its forms. When artists painted nature, they used paint and steel, the most advanced technologies of their time, to make sculptures or representations of natural objects. What is the difference between that and what we are doing with digital technology? In thinking about this, what we are creating may be something akin to a ‘garden.’

 

DB: Your practice brings together artists, engineers, programmers, and scientists. How does this interdisciplinary structure influence the way ideas emerge and take form?

 

TL: teamLab’s creativity is based on multidimensionality, where members with different specialties create together by crossing their boundaries, as well as their transferable knowledge, a type of knowledge that can be shared and reused. As a result, teamLab generates what we call ‘collective creation’, the creation of something of higher quality by a group, thus strengthening an entire team. An individual person may not be directly involved in the project but their shareable knowledge might be. This continuous process of creating and discovering the transferable knowledge at a high speed yields the power of the group. It is organizations like this, able to uncover vast troves of knowledge, that differentiate themselves. One could say that this organizational structure was born because ‘there was no other choice.’ What matters to us is not who made it, but the output itself – the finished work. We are only deeply interested in the expression that results from that process. Knowledge can be uncovered in all parts of the creative process. If small, detailed, yet versatile knowledge is shared by a team, this will develop into a strength, leading to new projects or the improvement of present artworks. This results in an overall improvement in the quality of our creations.

 

Creating art is always difficult. Our artworks are created by a team of hands-on experts through a continuous process of creation and thinking. Although the large concepts are always defined from the start, the project goal tends to remain unclear, so we need the whole team to create and think as we go along. Once the large concept of the artwork is set, we gather specialized members related to the work and think more finely. The big concepts are always defined from the start, and the project goal and technical feasibility also go hand in hand. This is why the goal of the artwork becomes more clearly defined as the team progresses in its work. teamLab members have a variety of different interests and opinions. In many cases, we have nothing in common. There is no cohesion at all. However, we are all connected by the fact that we want to create a work or an exhibition that no one has ever seen or experienced before. The toughness and dynamism of the team’s production process lies in the fact that these disparate directions collide in the process of creating the work, and at the same time, the work is completed as teamLab.

The Way of the Sea – Colors of Life

 

 

DB: Your installations range from intimate moments to vast, enveloping environments. How do you think about scale when designing an experience?

 

TL: In most cases, we look at the space and then work on the artwork, rather than creating an artwork then searching for a space. This is because one of the advantages of digital technology is that it is less dependent on space than physical materials. For example, you could project an artwork made with digital technology on a 6-meter-wide wall, or you could project it on a 60-meter-wide wall. Though, of course, the 60-meter wall would create a more immersive experience. In that sense, it can be said that we are creating (selecting and curating) the artwork while making use of the characteristics of an exhibition space. Of course, it would be wonderful if we could create an entire space from scratch.

 

No longer limited to physical media, digital technology has made it possible for artworks to expand physically. Since art created using digital technology can easily expand, it provides us with a greater degree of autonomy within the space. We are now able to manipulate and use much larger spaces, and viewers are able to experience the artwork more directly. At the same time, many of our works are based on the idea that ‘the more people there are, the more beautiful it becomes.’ To realize this kind of experience, a certain scale becomes essential.

Black Waves: Crystal World, 2024, Digital Installation, Continuous Loop, Sound: Hideaki Takahashi © teamLab, courtesy Pace Gallery

 

 

DB: If we think of your environments as systems in motion, constantly shifting through interaction, what do you hope remains with the viewer after they leave?

 

TL: We hope they are moved by the experience in some way, and that it provides an opportunity to explore what we ourselves try to explore through our works: the relationship between the self and the world and new perceptions through art. I hope that people come out of the museum thinking that the continuity of all the works is beautiful in itself, transcending the question of which individual work is the most beautiful.

 

Until now, only independent entities have been regarded as the object of beauty. However, I believe that the expansion of the notion of the object of beauty, such as the continuity itself being beautiful, will lead to expanding the way people perceive the world.

 

DB: Your environments often feel like entering a state rather than observing a work. In what ways do you think these experiences relate to dreaming?

 

TL: Our environments may evoke something akin to dreaming, not necessarily the dreams we see while sleeping, but a state in which the boundaries between the self and the world become fluid. Released from material substance, art created through digital technology can make visitors physically part of the work. The medium can be transformative and the intentional movement and behavior of people can cause visual changes in the artwork. With immersion of the body into the artwork, the boundary between the self and the artwork becomes ambiguous. And, through that experience, the boundary between the self and the world begins to disappear. Because our presence and the presence of others can cause change in the shared world of the artwork, it is possible that we will feel ourselves and others meld with the world and become one body.

 

For example, in our exhibition teamLab & TikTok, teamLab Reconnect: Art with Rinkan Sauna in Tokyo, 2021, visitors could experience art in their finest mental state. By taking alternating hot and cold baths, visitors open their minds, experience an ever-expanding physical sensation, and become one with the art. Recognizing that the mind, body, and environment are the wholeness of our being, we reconnect to the world and time. By transforming the state of the visitors themselves, it becomes easier for them to immerse themselves and become a part of the artworks. The experiences we create may differ slightly from the definition of ‘dreams we see while sleeping.’

 

If there are people who find our spaces to be ‘dreamy,’ perhaps it is simply because we ourselves are far too romantic.

Crows are Chased and the Chasing Crows are Destined to be Chased as well: Flying Beyond Borders, 2013/2018-, Interactive Digital Installation, Endless, Sound: Hideaki Takahashi © teamLab, courtesy Pace Gallery

Universe of Water Particles – Born in the Darkness, Return to the Darkness, 2024, Interactive Digital Installation, Sound: Hideaki Takahashi © teamLab, courtesy Pace Gallery

 

project info:

artist: teamLab | @teamlab, @teamlab_borderless

 

This interview is part of designboom’s Dreams in Motion chapter, exploring what happens when we treat our dreams and reveries as an active, radical rehearsal for impending material realities. Explore more related stories here.

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