Key #39: Through The Looking Glass

The entry title is not just a reflection on the above picture but, mostly, a tribute to the role literature plays in shaping many of Japanese attractions. Some of them, such as Osaka Castle or Kyoto Costume Museum, are either related to a particular book, or even directly based on it. Others epitomize a whole genre. For instance, Miraikan looks and feels like it was transported straight from a Sci-Fi novel - and a structure with a mysterious name, TeamLab Planet, is steeped in Fantasy.

Counterintuitively, the difference between those two genres boils down to a comparison between "what" and "how". Science, as well as technology, is practical. It's easy to see the advantages of using robots, exploring space, traveling around the globe in less than a day or, say, connecting to someone continents away without leaving one's living room. The only real question is "how" to achieve all that and much more - and each successful answer wows the world and draws endless attention.. Fantasy is an exercise in imagination, and its results often beg a question: "what" is that?! That, for example

While it's really tempting to try and find the answer, it's important not to - and TeamLab Planets helps its guests to void their minds and fill the void with sensual experiences. Every nook and cranny of the place, every square millimeter of the interactive exhibition helps to enhance and sharpen the senses. To start with, everybody is required to leave their shoes in a locker and walk barefoot for the whole duration of the visit. The walking surface keeps changing from one exhibition room to another, and none of the variations is routine. Water, immaculately smooth glass, grass and a...something that one alternately sinks into or bounces off - each room requires a different mode of walking/gliding/floating, and provides a completely different corporeal sensation. While so engaged, one moves through a corridor of light 

and fluorescent, multihued darkness

dances around giant balloons 

and is hypnotized by a whirlwind of falling petals. All that before stepping outside to be greeted by a living and breathing garden.

If the Planets' exhibition were a joke, that garden would be its unquestionable punchline. It looks like a painting whose sheer variety of shapes and colours almost overwhelms one's vision.

It takes some time to get used to the intensity and concentrate on individual flowers. Just when the sensory balance is finally restored, the flowers start growing the moment one touches them or even passes by close enough...

As if all of the above weren't enough, one stumbles onto a bench upon leaving the building.

 Just in case some glutton feels like eating a piece of cake after finishing off a 10-course meal..