The interactive digital installation *Peace Can Be Realized Even Without Order* consists of a seemingly endless number of holograms. The figures shown in the holograms exist independently of one another, they play instruments and dance, and each individual is influenced by the sounds from the figures close to them. There is no lead figure that oversees or can influence all the other dancers, and there is also no center or order imposed on the crowd. External events can cause disorder, but then in time peace will gradually be restored.
When someone enters the installation and a figure senses the viewer, the figure responds to their presence and stops playing music. The figure passes on this information to other figures close by. After a short period of time the figure will start playing music and dance again, but this disturbance will have disrupted the harmony. If, however, the viewer stands still or leaves, the dancers will begin to re-form into one harmonious group and the feeling of peace will return.
In Japan there is a primitive festival called the Awa Dance Festival that dates back so far that its origins are unknown. Groups of individual dancers play music and proceed around the town arbitrarily. Groups play their own music as they like and dance as they like. Interestingly, for some reason the music forms into a peaceful order across the whole town. Dancers who randomly meet other groups of dancers gradually and unconsciously match the tempo of their music to the others’. This is not due to any set of rules; it just feels right and happens unconsciously. It seems that people are freed of their inhibitions, and an extraordinary peaceful feeling prevails despite the lack of any order to the dances. Perhaps this is how people in ancient times maintained a feeling of peacefulness.


Links: http://www.team-lab.net/en/all/pickup/peace_sg.html, http://youtu.be/OUQ9L5ELPwo

Sound: Hideaki Takahashi

Vocals: Yutaka Fukuoka, Yumiko Tanaka

teamLab (JP) was founded in 2001 in Tokyo. TeamLab is an ultra-technologists’ group made up of specialists including programmers (user-interface engineers, database engineers, network engineers, hardware engineers, computer-vision engineers, software architects), mathematicians, architects, CG animators, web designers, graphic designers, artists, editors and more. We create works through “experimentation and innovation,” making the borders between science, technology, art and design more ambiguous.