teamLab visualizes flows of energy in new digital works at pace gallery

Dissipative Figures by teamLab

Lines swirl and expand across the screen in a new series of dynamic digital artworks unveiled by teamLab at Pace Gallery in Geneva. Titled Dissipative Figures, the five monitor-based works speak to the transmission of energy that occurs between the body and its surroundings, particularly when in motion, such as a flock of birds flapping their wings in flight or a human body running through space.

The works are made of countless lines that flow dynamically in expressive densities. The lines do not depict the human figures or birds themselves, but rather visualize their movement by expressing their influence on the surrounding airflow, such as the rush of wind from the wings of 1000 birds or the movement of air as runners pass each other.

teamLab, Dissipative Figures – Human, 2022, digital work, 4 channels, continuous loop © teamLab

main video: teamLab, Dissipative Figures – 1000 Birds, 2022, digital work, 4 channels, continuous loop © teamLab

In Dissipative Figures – 1000 Birds (2022), invisible birds swoop, flap, and collide in a surge of energy delineated only by the tidemarks of their movement through space. Likewise, in Dissipative Figures – Human (2022) the diaphanous imprint of an anonymous figure moves across the length of the eight screens. Presented together, these brand-new works explore a central tenet of teamLab’s artistic philosophy: that to be alive is to be inseparable from the world, sustained by perpetual flows of energy inwards and outwards.

teamLab, Dissipative Figures – 2 Humans, 2022, digital work, 8 channels, continuous loop © teamLab

‘Life is like a vortex created in the ocean. A vortex forms and exists in a flow of matter, and the boundaries of its existence are ambiguous. Although a vortex is steady, it is constantly moving and swelling like a powerful life-form. The vortex cannot maintain a stable structure on its own; rather, it is created and sustained by water that continuously flows inwards and outwards,’ teamLab comments. ‘The same is true of life. It consumes external matter and energy as food and discharges it, sustaining its ordered structure as the energy dissipates. In other words, life does not exist by itself. It is the environment that is continuous with it that maintains the structure of life.’

Dissipative Figures is on view from June 9 – July 2, 2022, at Pace Gallery as part of teamLab’s solo exhibition titled, teamLab: Existence in an Infinite Continuity.

exhibition view, image by Julien Gremaud courtesy Pace Gallery