teamLab Coming to Academy Museum of Motion Pictures

ArtNet is reporting that teamLab, the 400-person Tokyo-based immersive media collective, is to create an installation at L.A.'s Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. Meanwhile teamLab has halted previously announced plans for an outpost at Brooklyn's Industry City "in order to reconsider its US game plan."

teamLab's installations have drawn huge crowds and fanboys touting them as immersive art. (The New York Times: "But unlike the genre's current celebrities James Turrell or Doug Wheeler, who use immersion as a vehicle for contemplation, teamLab's works are multi-channel orchestrations that involve light, sound, video, digital sequences and virtual-reality environments that amalgamate into a technological wonderland, all the while cemented in the realm of art.")

The alternate view is that teamLab is just another pop-up museum. Perhaps "immersive illustration" should be a term. Or "immersive narrative art." (Was Kerry Brougher on board with this? Or was it the last straw?)

teamLab might actually be a good fit for the Academy Museum. Their environments are moving pictures, hinting at the future of the medium. If they're not "real" art, neither are most movies.

The Academy Museum will be insanely popular when it opens. Add to that the teamLab crowd, and you have to wonder how hard it's going to be to score a ticket. It's said that teamLab's Tokyo space drew 2.3 million visitors its first year, with many traveling from overseas.