Flowers Bloom in an Infinite Universe inside a Teacup
teamLab, 2016, Interactive Digital Installation, Endless, Sound: Hideaki Takahashi
Make tea, and flowers bloom inside the teacup. If you pick up the teacup, the flowers scatter and spread outside of the cup. Flowers bloom infinitely as long as there is tea. The tea in the teacup becomes an infinite world in which the flowers continue to bloom. Drink in the infinitely expanding world.
The artwork appears for the first time when there is tea in the cup; when the tea is gone, the artwork disappears with it. Tea is a transformative liquid, and the amount of tea in the cup will change the size of the tea’s surface. Accordingly, it will also change the size of the flower. If tea is spilled from the cup, flowers will also bloom in the spilt liquid.
Throughout the year, each month’s seasonal flowers will bloom.
The artwork is not a pre-recorded image that is played back: it is created by a computer program that continuously renders the work in real time. The interaction between people and the installation causes continuous change in the artwork: previous visual states can never be replicated, and will never reoccur. The picture at this moment can never be seen again.
