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Day 2 of our trip was busy busy busy! So busy in fact, that I’m splitting it across multiple blog entries. This post is essentially Day 2, Part 1.

We started our day heading towards the Azabudai Hills district of Tokyo – a new sort of “business park” full of skyscrapers and art; it was actually a stunningly beautiful, almost Cyberpunk 2077 vibe to the place.

Within a shopping complex attached to the station we found ourselves at our destination: TeamLabs Borderless – an art installation involving interactive, digital art pieces that provided a sensory experience to you! I had been to the TeamLabs Planets exhibition previously last year in May 2023, so I was very excited to see what was in store for us here. And straight off the bat, it looked like it was going to be special.

We weren’t greeted with some intense chlorine hammer to the head because of an introductory water feature (in Planets) — so thankfully we stowed our stuff away in the locker room, and proceeded into the project!

It’s hard to sort of capture how 360-degree the displays of art are. They grow, they change over time, some of them even move from room to room!

There were flowers that would shed their petals and float past us on gusts of wind, and you could follow the river of these petals flying past across different rooms. You’d see hints of creatures or little different animations here and there, it was a seriously “wondrous” experience that started prepping my mind for “what amazing things could happen” next.

The whole exhibition was very much a pleasure to see – even with all the people moving around, it didn’t feel overcrowded. They did a great job maximizing the space they had with a huge maze-like layout.

Some of the artwork had more than a connection to nature and took on more of a mystique – almost shamanistic symbolism used through pieces heavily inspired by calligraphy.

Definitely hypnotic – it’s like being immersed in a really cool screensaver (go 90s kids 😃😂)

Throughout the exhibition, you can hear crystalline sounds, in the background constantly, and you start to feel drawn to a centralised room that honestly, video won’t do it justice, but I’ll call it the “Lightfall” room. Reminiscent of a giant waterfall of light – the room changes and reacts to users standing in it, with lights, and patterns moving around them at times.

There’s way too many exhibits for me to run through – but there’s a few more highlights that were really awesome. The infinite marbles, the fish tank exhibit, and the tea house!

Throughout the Borderless exhibition – there’s heaps of nooks and crannies, with hidden doorways that lead to other exhibits and more – it’s amazing, and a very clever use of the space they have. The exhibition in total took Annie and I about 4.5 hours of wandering around to explore – and through one particular single doorway, we ended up wandering into this…

What could only be described as a clash of The Song of the Spheres meets a giant Rube Goldberg machine in a hall of mirrors that REALLY gave off the infinite hallway effect.

There was just so much happening all at once, everyone that walked into this piece, immediately slowed down as it was so disorienting. It truly evoked a feeling of being a small spec in a space that just had…. the universe happening around you!

I was gobsmacked. The spheres that moved around on rails reacted to when people were focused on them, lighting up or dimming as they moved around these rails. Staff were careful, and delightfully unobtrusive as they watched us all completely speechlessly spend our time here. Annie and I spent probably a good 40 minutes in this exhibit just following the orbs and looking around. DEFINITELY the highlight of the exhibit for me.

Occasionally, the shifting colours would dim to a sudden pitch black, for about half a second. And honestly that void would accelerate my heart rate – I have thalassophobia, a fear of the great deep endless blue ocean. This inky blackness somehow made my hyperactive imagination picture that there was some sort of dark leviathan in the dark. I would definitely lose my marbles (heh) in space.

We eventually made our way out and wandered to where a large number of kids and other attendees were making some noise. It was a cute sort of fish tank exhibit that seemed to be some sort of digital animation across it – very Spongebob-esque and a great change from the mystique of the marble madness exhibit prior.

The fish tank exhibit was a large room that showed off artwork that attendees to the display had drawn and filled out.

The artwork then gets scanned and you can watch it float around the fish tank alongside everyone else’s creations from that day!

Annie made a cute drawing of us as a Squid!

It was fun hanging out in the fish tank looking at everyone’s art pieces – I’m glad I decided to take the plunge and wait and actually interact with the exhibit, instead of just “looking at it” and moving on, which I tend to usually do. A huge thank you to Annie for egging me on to do it, it’s a core memory on the trip.

The teahouse – was phenomenal. It was a little dear for some icecream and some tea (about $20 AUD per head) – but the food is placed along a large U shaped counter that everyone sat at. A set of light tracked projectors overhead would find the food, and show botanical effects around the food.

Scoops of ice cream became seeds for plants, and bowls of tea became ponds for lilies and other flowers to bloom, their petals scattering to the wind when you moved the bowls to take a drink.

I have a few more videos with the effects but I’ve held off posting them publicly as they have conversation in them and we weren’t the only ones in the tea house.

Going to Japan soon? Check out TeamLabs Borderless!

It’s an incredible experience. One of the most intriguing experiences I’ve ever had – it’s as much a core memory of mine as the Village Bizarre exhibitions that The Rocks in Sydney used to have (this eventually grew into the event we now know as Vivid Sydney).

It’s a much more intimate, intense, and expressive exhibition than the city-wide Vivid expo, and the wonder, expression and passion of the artists and developers behind Borderless truly shines.

It was such an amazing experience, that I even forgot that one of the exhibits wasn’t even available due to maintenance – so I’ve got something to look forward to again in November, 2025 when I am back in Japan again 😂