Mark the island of âOdaibaâ as your next art destination.
The wildly creative, 400-strong Japanese tech-art collaborative teamLab announced plans to open its first permanent exhibition space in Tokyo this summer. Called âDigital Art Museum,â (full name: âMORI Building DIGITAL ART MUSEUM teamLab Borderlessâ) the new 10,000 sq.m (107,639 sq. ft) gallery space will be established in the Palette Town section of Odaiba, a man-made islet in Tokyo Bay. Based on teamLabâs reputation for blockbuster immersive exhibitions, Digital Art Museum promises to draw legions of art loversâespecially those enamored by taking art selfies in dazzling environments.
Founded by mathematical engineer Toshiyuki Inoko in 2001, teamLab is comprised of artists, programmers, engineers, computer animators, mathematicians and architects who collectively ascribe to the descriptive âultra-technologists.â As a practice, names of teamLab members are not cited in works, they have a flat organizational structure and emphasize collaboration over individual genius. They are also very particular about the spelling of their name (small ât,â big âLâ). Their mission is to explore how humans relate to nature in an age when much of our life is governed by technology.
The darling of art blogs, teamLab has surprised art critics by the emotional resonance of their photogenic projections. âThe imagery in all three teamLab works feels clichĂŠd and sentimental, while its stated themesânature and humanityâare perhaps unhelpfully vague. But somehow, the mash-up of traditional and new, handmade and high tech, pulls you in, and you succumb to these worksâ inner logic,â writes Boston Globeâs art critic about a 2015 exhibition at the Radcliffe Institute in Cambridge, MA.
teamLab tells Quartz that theyâve decided to open their own museum because they havenât found a cultural institution solely dedicated to the thriving field of digital art. While many museums do include digital art in special exhibitions, no major art institution has a purpose-built structure with the right bandwidth and physical space to support the tech needs and big crowds of such installations. (Berlinâs similarly-named Digital Art Museum is actually an online showcase with a small, brick-and-mortar gallery in the Mitte neighborhood.) âWeâve wanted to create the exhibition that delivers the borderless artwork world, and figured we needed to establish the museum itself in order to make that happen,â explained a teamLab spokesperson in an email.

The artistic vision for the new museum is lofty: âTo tear down the borders between âone art and another,â âart and visitorsâ and âoneself and othersâ by allowing visitors to melt into the art and become part of it,â a teamLab spokesperson explains. In other words, museum goers are designed to be part of the art experience, as theyâve done in previous exhibitions. One spectacular example is the 2016 work, âWander through the Crystal Universe,â where visitors triggered a light show upon entering a room. A mobile app allows them to command different patterns and sequences and change the atmosphere in the room.
Details about the inaugural Digital Arts Museum showcase havenât been announced but teamLab says they plan to update installations annually.

Japanese property management company Mori Building partnered with teamLab in the design and curation of the new museum. They offered the massive space to teamLab as a way to draw an international crowd to the area known for shopping establishments and the 377 ft. high Daikanransha ferris wheel. âWe hope this Digital Art Museum will be the unique museum in the world and become a new destination for tourists, art lovers and museum-goers, and [that] it will reinforce the appeal and status of Tokyo,â says a Mori Building representative to Quartz.
teamLab adds that building their flagship is a kind of civic initiative to advance Tokyoâs status as a culture capital. âWe believe that the museum will lead to an improvement in the charm of Tokyo,â they explain. âWe would like to make Tokyo the no.1 city in the world.â