There is an art exhibition at Mall of Georgia, but it’s far from any traditional show. TeamLab, a Japanese art collective recognized for their advancements in the digital art practice, has unveiled a 3,761 square foot, interactive hi-tech playground in the Village through July 31. The exhibition, titled teamLab Future Park, is a series of deeply immersive environments designed to foster educational play and collaboration through digital art. As its first official opening on the east coast, the installation is offering innovative opportunities for Mall of Georgia visitors to actively participate in the artworks.

“TeamLab is at the forefront of the growing digital trend that combines the aesthetic elements and creativity of art with the awe-inspiring advancements of technology,”  said Joe Piccolo, mall manager at Mall of Georgia. “We’re thrilled to be the region’s first venue to offer such an authentic, out-of-the-box  learning experience to our great community of families.”

With influences from both ancient Japanese art and contemporary works, teamLab's installations are multi-channel orchestrations that involve the use of light, sound, video, digital sequences and virtual-reality environments, resulting in a technological, yet artistic wonderland. The exhibitions are a powerful testament to the development and rising interest in the field of digital artistic expression as well as its ability to cultivate creativity and curiosity through technology. 

“The Future Park exhibition will be a truly unrivaled experience for guests, and we’re honored to share the educational innovations of our expertise with the Gwinnett community and beyond!” said Toshiyuki Inoko, founder of teamLab. “Our hope is that this installation challenges traditional thinking of what makes something a work of art, and stimulates a different kind of experiential learning using highly interactive elements in technology, creativity and imagination.”

TeamLab Future Park focuses on promoting collaborative experiences for children through creativity and play. Guests can explore a digital playground through seven different living “works,” which use technology to nurture individual creative freedom within cooperative environments. With hands-on participation as the foundation of each work, children are encouraged to engage with each other and with the art itself to create a combined visual masterwork as part of a larger team. Utilizing technology’s capacity to promote education and influence relationships, teamLab Future Park emphasizes pattern recognition, tactile learning, spatial perception and the importance of teamwork.

The seven immersive works include:

            Sketch Aquarium

This installation explores the magic beneath the waves in a digitally-rendered aquatic world. A favorite among all ages, the immersive Sketch Aquarium  allows guests to create drawings of sea creatures and watch them come to life in a virtual ocean. This dynamic artwork constantly grows and evolves as more visitors draw and add different images of sea creatures. The busy sea creatures swim around and interact with each other, and guests can even feed them by touching fish food bags on the screen.

            Create! Hopscotch for Geniuses

This immersive work  is a fun game of discovery that tests the skills and imagination for guests of all ages. Attendees are invited to design their own customised hopscotch game in this installation by arranging circles, triangles and squares on an electronic tablet. These shapes are then projected onto the floor. When children land on the same shapes in succession, they will trigger beautiful colors and sounds that reverbrate throughout the space. Special connections exist between the shapes – guests will have to practice playing the game to discover what they are.

           Sketch Town

Sketch Town encourages adults and children alike to cooperate and inspire one another to meet the challenges of this urban setting installation. Sketch Town, a shared space, allows guests to create their own town landmarks by coloring paper drawings of buildings, cars, planes and even fantastical vehicles like spaceships and UFOs in a morphing town that grows and evolves. Children can interact with the townscape by touching individual components to alter their behavior.

            Sketch Town Papercraft

Guests can turn their 3-D Sketch Town crayon drawings of cars and buildings into papercraft patterns. By assembling the patterns, their pictures are transformed into an original 3-D papercraft model to take home and enjoy.

            A Table Where Little People Live

This installation features an interactive tabletop with “little people.” Children can sit or stand around the table, and they are encouraged to interact with the little people by placing objects on the screen. As each object is introduced, the movements of the little people change, causing them to jump, climb and even slide.

            Light Ball Orchestra

Guests of all ages use beachball-sized globes of multicolored light and sound as instruments in this electrifying, one-of-a-kind orchestra. Attendees can touch any ball to change the color and sound of the balls around it, creating a resonating effect throughout the dazzling environment. Children and adults will enjoy creating a playful and dynamic space with other visitors, as their participation with the Light Ball Orchestra sends out ripples in different directions to interact with each other. Guests will work together by pushing, bouncing and rolling the balls to continuously change the composition, color and sound of the orchestra.

            Connecting! Train Block

This installation allows attendees to design their own transportation network. Guests will first use physical wooden blocks to design and connect an evolving system of roads, rivers and railways to keep the ever-increasing traffic flowing smoothly. Then, as more blocks are connected on the table, more cars and trains appear, forming a bustling townscape. Children can play and interact by placing the blocks in different positions to create a town collaboratively with other guests.

Tickets to experience teamLab Future Park at Mall of Georgia are available onsite or online at bit.ly/MOG_teamLab. To guarantee admission and avoid long wait times, the mall highly recommends purchasing advance tickets online. General admission is FREE for children ages 0-2, $8 for children ages 3-13 and $12 for adults. Adults are not permitted to enter the exhibit without children. A discounted ticket rate of $10 is available to senior over 65-years-old and to students over 14-years-old with a valid student ID. Group rate admission for 10 or more people is $10 per adult and $6 per child. The exhibition will only be available at Mall of Georgia through July 31. Exhibition hours are as follows:

Hours:

Monday – Saturday: 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.

Sunday: Sunday: 12 p.m. – 6 p.m.*

*teamLab future park will also be open on Monday, July 4 from 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.

**Please visit simon.com/mallofgeorgia to confirm hours of operation.  

About Mall of Georgia

Mall of Georgia, the largest mall in the Southeast, features more than 200 stores, including anchors Von Maur (coming fall 2016), Belk, Dillard’s, JCPenney and Macy’s. “The Georgia Walk” through the mall features murals, artifacts, displays and themed courtyards showcasing state history and heritage. Various dining options provide an assortment of flavors and cuisine from casual eateries to fine dining restaurants, including Marlow’s Tavern, Tin Lizzy’s Cantina, P.F. Chang’s China Bistro, The Cheesecake Factory and more. For entertainment offerings, shoppers can also enjoy the Regal Cinema 20 & IMAX, a 20-screen, 3-D Imax theatre located on the third level, and The Village Pavilion, an outdoor, 500-seat amphitheater located in The Village. For a mall map, store listings, directions, mall events and job listings, please visit simon.com/mall/mall-of-georgia. Connect with Mall of Mall of Georgia on facebook.com/MallofGeorgia, twitter.com/ShopMallofGA and instagram.com/shopmallofga. 

About Simon

Simon is a global leader in retail real estate ownership, management and development and an S&P100 company (Simon Property Group, NYSE:SPG).  Our industry-leading retail properties and investments across North America, Europe and Asia provide shopping experiences for millions of consumers every day and generate billions in annual retail sales. For more information, visit simon.com.

About teamLab:

teamLab (f. 2001, Tokyo, by Toshiyuki Inoko) is an interdisciplinary group of ultra-technologists whose collaborative practice seeks to navigate the confluence of art, technology, design and the natural world. Rooted in the tradition of ancient Japanese Art and contemporary forms of anime, teamLab operates from a distinctly Japanese sense of spatial recognition, investigating human behavior in the information era and proposing innovative models for societal development. teamLab’s works are in the permanent collection of Borusan Contemporary, Istanbul; The Asian Art Museum, San Francisco; The Asia Society Museum, New York; Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; and Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. They have been the subject of numerous exhibitions worldwide; in 2015, a projection work was exhibited on the façade of the Grand Palais, Paris.