HONG KONG.- Phillips will offer teamLab’s Universe of Water Particles, 2013, in its 20th Century & Contemporary Art & Design Evening Sale in Hong Kong on 26 November. This is the first time that a digital artwork by teamLab has ever been offered on the international auction market and Phillips, a company dedicated to contemporary art and digital innovation, is proud to be at the forefront of this endeavor.

teamLab is a Tokyo-based interdisciplinary art collective whose practice seeks to navigate the confluence of art, technology, design, and the natural world. Rooted in the traditions of Japanese art, teamLab’s works explore human behaviour in the information era and proposes innovative models for societal development.

Jonathan Crockett, Head of 20th Century & Contemporary Art, and Deputy Chairman, Asia: “We are excited to bring a work by the Japanese artist group teamLab to the international auction market for the very first time. This sensational and breath-taking installation continues the East Asian scholarly tradition of landscape painting, transforming this ancient and revered subject matter into a contemporary narrative using modern-day technology. As we advance into the digital age Phillips is delighted to give prominence to works by contemporary artists who draw inspiration from contemporary society, alongside works in conventional media by established artists from the 20th century.”

Exhibited widely in important international shows in recent years, Universe of Water Particles depicts an ever-evolving, virtual waterfall in an immersive, three-dimensional virtual space. The materiality of water is expressed as a continuum of water droplets that flow and fall in accordance with computer-calculated movement, and the sinuous lines of the waterfall form their virtual trajectories based on the interaction between the water particles. Universe of Water Particles is one of the best representations of the group’s concept of ultrasubjective space, a term that refers to a distinct form of spatial depiction in pre-modern Japanese painting, in which oceans, rivers, and other bodies of water were expressed as series of curvilinear lines to convey movement and simulate life. By distorting objective space and time, Universe of Water Particles leads viewers to explore how pre-modern people perceived nature in art, in a new, subjective experience of the natural world founded on the technology of today.