Magic in Nature (post-teamLab Osaka) 大自然的魔法

can you recreate the magical feeling in a busy city? 城市裡也能複製魔幻力量

I visited teamLab’s Botanical Gardens exhibition in Osaka recently. If you aren’t familiar with teamLab, they are an interdisciplinary art collective that organizes immersive art experiences in many cities around the world. And the one I went to was a night exhibition located in Osaka’s Nagai Botanical Garden. It’s best to not know what you’ll expect and carry an open heart, so you can let your attention and curiosity be fully guided by the artist and let them lead you towards the lights, the sound show, or simply the botanical plants in front of you.

The botanical garden in the day is simply a botanical garden, but it is transformed into an interactive visual and audio experience at night. When surrounded by darkness, it’s quite easy to focus on the beautiful rays of colors curated by the artists who designed it. What an amazing venue to create an immersive experience! Walking around the garden, there are quite literal “easter eggs” with egg-looking light installations changing their hue alongside the music. By putting my full focus on the changing colors, I feel like the light installation is alive. And I feel connected to it. As cheesy as it sounds, I felt a magical fairy dust energy in that garden.

The lively easter eggs, pictures don’t do it justice! Pic taken when I visited teamLab Osaka on May 18th 2023

I was reminded of all the mystical fairy tale characters that existed before me: Tinkerbell from Peter Pan, the easter bunny, garden fairies, gnomes, tree nymphs, and even Snow White and the 7 dwarves… they all seem to originate from living in close proximity to nature. While it’s nice living in a busy and convenient city, I wonder how much it reduces our innate curiosity towards nature. When was the last time you appreciated the trees, the flowers, the sun, or the clouds? Do you look at a tree and wonder about its spirits? Or look at little flowers and wonder if a gnome has taken care of it? Or if a butterfly has visited before you? Or there are dwarves living in a trunk?

The experience at teamLab was very curated, yet I believe that the curiosity and awe towards nature it triggered inside me should be accessible otherwise as well. But how? Though we don’t quite have the full nature experiences in cities, let’s see how we can try to replicate a teamLab experience in our day-to-day.

Here are a few points of a successful teamLab experience:

• Participants walk into a venue knowing that they will be surprised by an immersive light and music show.

• The environment is curated and controlled (darkness with selected light beams), making it easy to focus on one or two sensations at once (vision & audio).

• The art created by the artists is simply beautiful.

• The experience is limited in time, as you are expected to make a loop around the botanical garden in about an hour or so (I personally spent two hours there 🙈)

To replicate this in our day-to-day, try doing one of the following:

1. Pick a park to spend 30 minutes in, and set an intention to explore in

   • When entering the park, pick one or two sensations to focus on. We can focus on vision & audio too.

   • Try to perk up your eyes and ears as much as possible. Look for something that surprises you.

   • In addition to focusing on what you see and what you hear, try to breathe slowly and steadily.

2. Turn your commute time into your “nature appreciation time”

   • Try to find 5 different plants during your commute time.

   • Try to find 5 different sounds during your commute time.

   • Notice your feelings after collecting the items you’ve noticed.

Though we don’t have amazing night installations all the time, we have beautiful rays of colors in the daytime blessed by the sun’s rays that touch anything it sees. The world can be an amazing light and sound show, we just need to notice it! Try setting an intention and focus on noticing what’s surrounding you — then I think even in a busy city, we can experience the magic fairy dust energy! 🧚‍♀️

And if you can, I highly recommend you to experience one of teamLab’s exhibitions. After experiencing it fully, take that and add more color to your day-to-day! 🌈

前幾個月我在大阪旅遊的時候體驗了teamLab在日本大阪長居植物園的夜間展覽，你若沒聽過teamLab的話，他們是一個多媒體藝術公司，專門創造一些讓你直接沈浸於周遭環境的展覽藝術，他們在日本有幾個常設展，而在世界各地也有不同的巡迴展。參展前，最好不要在網路上做太多功課，這樣你去的時候才會保有新鮮感～記得帶著一個開放的好奇心，才能看得到展覽人精心設計的聲光秀，或觀察到可愛的植物們～

白天的植物園單單只是一個植物園，但晚上的時候變成科技與大自然合而為一的聲光秀。在夜幕來臨時，任何耀眼的光線的到來就能馬上吸引你的目光。不知道除了植物園以外還有什麼更美的場景來製造一個聲光秀！在植物園裡散步時，有蠻多「彩蛋」的，五顏六色的彩蛋遍佈公園的一隅，雖著音樂緩緩地變換燈光，充滿濃濃的生命力，好像可以跟我對話一般。整個公園瀰漫一股魔幻的仙女降臨的感覺～

大阪植物園的展區一隅，是不是看得到可愛的彩蛋呢？（攝於2023.05.18）

這不禁讓我聯想到不同文化的神話裡有的不同的大自然相關的角色，有彼得班裡面的奇妙仙子小叮噹、復活節的班尼兔、保護花園的地精(gnomes)、歐洲神話的森林女神 (tree nymphs)、甚至有白雪公主與那七個小矮人⋯⋯這麼多神秘的大自然的想像似乎都來自於長期與大自然緊密相處的人們的想像。當我們遠離自然居住於大城市時，不知道我們的好奇心與想像力是否就也漸漸減少了呢？你記得你上次什麼時候深刻的感謝身邊的大樹、小花、暖日以及雲朵嗎？有沒有感受到大樹的靈氣？有沒有納悶花兒們是不是給地精照顧的好好的、蝴蝶上次光顧她是什麼時候？樹幹裡住著小矮人嗎？

當然teamLab的展覽是一個設計得獨一無二的體驗，但我覺得看展時對自然的的好奇心與驚奇感是在日常生活中也可以體會的。雖然在城市裡的大自然較少，但畢竟這場teamLab辦的是在植物園裡面，我相信在沒有燈光秀的時候也是可以複製當初看展的感覺的。teamLab的展成功在於：

• 觀展人是在進入植物園之前，因為先行購票、預定時間，並已經預期會對於聲光秀有驚奇感的。

• 環境是控制的：黑暗裡有特定的燈光設計，讓觀展人容易去聚焦於一兩個感官——視覺以及聽覺。

• 藝術家設計的聲光藝術真的很美、很精緻。

• 展覽時間是限時間的，大約走個一個小時就可以走完整個園區（我自己是花了兩個多小時慢慢品味的哈哈）

在日常生活中，我嘗試以下兩種方法去複製自然的驚奇感：

1. 在居住的城市裡選一個公園，並花三十分鐘去探索：

   • 進入公園時，可以選擇去聚焦於一兩個感官，例如視覺與聽覺。

   • 仔細觀察，有什麼是你預料之外的呢？

   • 在聚焦於感官的同時，試著放慢你的呼吸⋯⋯

2. 把通勤（交通）時間當作一個〈欣賞大自然〉的時間：

   • 試著認出五種不同的植物

   • 試著聽出五個不同的聲音

   • 在你找到以上的植物及聲音之後，內心有什麼感覺嗎？

雖然我們不是雖時能體驗驚人的夜間聲光秀，但白天時太陽的陽光碰到的每個東西都因而染上一身漂亮的色彩。大自然隨時都在上演一場聲光秀，只是平常我們不留意而已。嘗試一下，刻意的去留意周遭的所有細節，那在一個繁忙的城市裡，應該也可以感受的大自然的魔幻力量的🧚‍♀️

當然你如果有機會的話，我也牆裡推薦你去體驗一場teamLab的展覽，並期望你在觀展後，也能將她的色彩帶回日常生活之中。🌈