Considering digital art museums in the era of mass extinction: exploring digital zoos and aquariums through posthuman thinking

ABSTRACT

This paper discusses the possibility of digital art museums, which have recently been gaining popularity, examining how they function as new educational facilities for enlightenment in the age of mass extinction. It then considers two digital amusement facilities of teamLab. These digital installations change the traditional asymmetrical relationship humans have with animals and plants, for example, by forming a pseudo-parent–child dynamic, thus creating an interactive and cross-species connection based on equality. Moreover, compared to conventional zoos and botanical gardens, which exhibit animals and plants in pursuit of realism, digital museums create virtual natural environments based on a nonrealistic orientation and can become models for sustainable museums. Moreover, they can be places for the inheritance of lost memories by reconstructing extinct animals and plants and transmitting their digital data to the next generation. One problem with these digital amusement facilities; however, is the aesthetic and romantic modeling of digital creatures, which reflects anthropocentric consciousness as well as the maintenance of a panoramic and divine perspective. It is difficult to create a digital museum that deconstructs this much-desired divine perspective. Concerning these problems, a new model for an ecologically sustainable digital museum as an educational facility is discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Digital art museum
• posthuman
• teamLab
• enlightenment
• education

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by a KAKEN grant (19K00487) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, as well as the research fund of the College of Commerce, Nihon University. The two reviewers’ insightful advice and suggestions were of great help in revising this paper, and I would like to express my gratitude to both of them.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 For more information on the history of teamLab, see official website: https://www.team-lab.com/about/. Also see the studies, Miyatsu 2017, 21–65; Inoko and Uno (猪子 寿之, 宇野 常寛) 2019; Masuko 2020, 57–61.

2 The teamLab Borderless exhibition has been functional from 2018 to August 2022, and the new teamLab Borderless is expected to open in central Tokyo by 2023.

3 For more on Story of the Forest, see the official Website in The National Museum of Singapore, https://www.nhb.gov.sg/nationalmuseum/our-exhibitions/exhibition-list/Story of the Forest. Refer also to the introduction on the teamLab website (https://www.teamlab.art/jp/w/story-of-the-forest/). Also see the studies, Kasai 2018, 66–69; Inoko and Uno (猪子 寿之, 宇野 常寛) 2019, 120–129.

4 For more information on this work 世界は、統合されつつ、分割もされ、繰り返しつつ、いつも違う [United, Fragmented, Repeated and Impermanent World], see: https://www.teamlab.art/jp/w/ufri/

5 See teamLab's website for more information on Sketch Aquarium: https://www.teamlab.art/jp/w/aquarium/

6 The Web site of The Seas with Nemo & Friends, see https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/attractions/epcot/seas-with-nemo-and-friends/

7 About Shin-Enoshima Aquarium, see the Website: https://www.enosui.com

8 For more information on this spatial installation by Lozano-Hemmer, Zoom Pavilion (2015) see, https://www.lozano-hemmer.com/zoom_pavilion.php

9 About Zukan Museum Ginza, see the following official website: https://zukan-museum.com

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by JSPS: [Grant Number (19K00487)].

Notes on contributors

Asuka Yamazaki

Asuka Yamazaki, Ph.D. is associate professor of European Theater, Art, Literature, and German Language Teaching at the College of Commerce, Nihon University, in Japan. Among her publications are The Development of an Actor’s Cosmopolitan and Enlightened Identity: Their Intermediate and Educational Function of Building a Peaceful World and a Prosperous Urban Culture (Königshausen & Neumann, 2022), Das deutsche Nationalbewusstsein des 19. Jahrhunderts und Richard Wagners Tristan und Isolde (Königshausen & Neumann, 2013), as well as “On Rhetoric Education in Leibniz’s Theory of Prince Education” (Leibniz Studies 6, 2020) etc.