teamLab Will Present a Digital Aquarium to The Newark Museum of Art

Immersive is one word you can use to describe teamLab’s work. Spellbinding, however, would be a more faithful term. Comprised of a group of artists, designers, architects, engineers, programmers and mathematicians, the Japanese art collective uses each project as a new opportunity to explore the relationship between technology and the natural world. In the past, this has translated into massive digital gardens that react to visitors movements, along with a series of monitors that project life as an uninterrupted flow of energy.

Next month, The Newark Museum of Art (NMOA) will present Animal Kingdom, a floor-through interactive exhibition that takes visitors on a virtual exploration of the earth’s three primary ecosystems: land, water, and air. The highlight of the show centers around teamLab’s Sketch Aquarium: Connected World, a wall-to-wall digital aquarium, first debuted in 2013, which casts colorful hand-drawn fish created from visitors from around the world.

“I’m thrilled to see this dynamic approach bring a sense of new life and appreciation for nature to the museum,” said Linda C. Harrison, director and CEO of NMOA. “Our hope is that these interactive experiences underscore to our beloved visitors and members that we are never too young or old to learn about the precious gifts that our planet holds.”

Also on view is an animal-matching game with ancient cave drawings, a digital recreation of three ecosystems, as well as the endangered and extinct species that once called them home. The latter presentation references Audubon’s Birds of America and was made in conjunction with Italian digital agency, OLO.

Animal Kingdom will go open at NMOA on September 23 and run through May 2024.

For more on art, Cornelia Parker’s mesmerizing installations take over Tate Britain.

The Newark Museum of Art
49 Washington St
Newark, NJ 07102