In his 1906 text “The Book of Tea,” Meiji Era intellectual Okakura Kakuzo interprets pan-Asian thought for Western readers. Writing in English, he declares: “The art of life lies in a constant readjustment to our surroundings.”
These words seem apt when visiting “Teamlab: Tea Time in the Soy Sauce Storehouse,” the latest work from digital art collective teamLab, which will run through March 2022. Like much of teamLab’s creative output, “Teamlab: Tea Time’’ relies on how visitors react to the environment they create.
The work is an experimental 14-seat tea room built into the basement of Fukuoka Shoyu Gallery, a storehouse from the Meiji Era (1868-1912) that’s located in downtown Okayama. Inside, glass lanterns slowly pulse red while mirrored walls and pools of water reflect light in every direction, turning the tiny space into a cosmic womb — both intimate and infinite. Tea is poured into a glass, which glows white, pulsing to a tempo of its own. If left alone, the pulses of both glass and room will synchronize. Take a sip, however, and the pulse from the glass changes color and tempo. Uniformity collapses and the cycle of spontaneous order begins anew.