Designboom_ Art collective teamLab lands on Samaliyah Island in Abu Dhabi to present numerous vibrant, multicolored light sculptures and site-specific, interactive installations for their Mangrove Island exhibition at Manar Abu Dhabi. The public art initiative of Abu Dhabi aims to spotlight an exhibition of new commissions and site-specific light sculptures, projections, and immersive artworks by local and international artists. It is here that teamLab chooses to plant three of their immersive light installations in Mangrove Island which the visitors are encouraged to witness and experience from December 21st, 2023, through January 30th, 2024.

Samaliyah Island becomes the temporary home of teamLab’s Mangrove Island of technicolor light installations, starting with Life is Continuous Light. Visitors pass through the illuminated mangrove forest, and as they walk on, the forest glows even brighter and produces a tone. The light emitted by the series of trees spreads out until the last tree glows in the dark and hums the same soft tone. A continuous and unicursal Spatial Calligraphy is also drawn in the forest where several strips of light intersect and rotate in multiple layers before they eventually disappear.

Resonating Microcosms – Solidified Light Color comes through too. Here, Softly dented translucent orbs autonomously, as if they were shunned in outer space and descended from the void as neon comets. These glowing orbs are responsive too. When an ovoid is pushed by a person or is blown by the wind, it radiates bright-colored lights and emits a sound as it repositions itself into its place. Imagine a sea of ovoids that does this, responding to one another while emitting the same light and sound.

teamLab’s exploration of the humming and moving ovoids continues in Mangrove Island as the team ushers in Forest of Autonomous Resonating Life onto Samaliyah Island at Manar Abu Dhabi. Here, the life-size glowing eggs stand on their own and change their light color at a rhythmic pace. A sound specific to a certain color rings out softly, and the changes occur when the ovoids are blown over by the wind or the visitors tip them over while they snake through the maze.All night at Mangrove Island, the technicolor interactive installation at Manar Abu Dhabi pleases the visitors’ eye for visuals.

Then, teamLab also brings over Pillars that Dance with the Wind onto Samaliyah Island. The installation, which was recently unveiled for the first time at teamLab’s Botanical Garden Osaka earlier in 2023, consists of pillars that yet again interact with the visitors. They move together with the wind that blows on Mangrove Island, like inflatable air dancers. Here, teamLab dives into the concept of the birth of a structure born from flow, creating order out of chaos.

An interpretation of the sun in the dark springs in Giant Solidified Spark, a sphere made of accumulated rays of light, a metaphor for the perception of the world not as a reality but as a world people are capable of perceiving. The light spreads behind from the center in infinite fine rays, slowly forming a spherical shape, before the light source remains motionless and its rays wriggle continuously. When people try to touch the sphere, teamLab says that their hand passes through the shape since the interactive installation has no physicality.

The Universe of Fire Particles on the Island sews the single thread of fire since flames take center stage for this light installation at teamLab’s Mangrove Island. Projected onto a surface, the flames, a shifting hue between yellow and orange, dance and sway like a light source in the dark, offering a temporary brightness to the visitors of Manar Abu Dhabi. Visitors to teamLab’s Mangrove Island at Manar Abu Dhabi are also afforded over 35 site-specific commissions and light sculptures, projections, and immersive artworks from other artists and teams during the duration of Manar Abu Dhabi, which lasts until January 30th, 2024.