An art exhibition is coming to Mall of Georgia, but it’s far from any traditional show. TeamLab, a Japanese art collective recognized for their advancements in the digital art practice, will unveil a 3,761 square foot, interactive hi-tech playground in the Village from May 14 through July 31. The exhibition, titled teamLab Future Park, is a series of deeply immersive environments designed to foster educational play and collaboration through digital art. As its first official opening on the east coast, the installation will offer innovative opportunities for Mall of Georgia visitors to actively participate in the artworks.

With influences from both ancient Japanese art and contemporary works, teamLab‘s installations are multi-channel orchestrations that involve the use of light, sound, video, digital sequences and virtual-reality environments, resulting in a technological, yet artistic wonderland. The exhibitions are a powerful testament to the development and rising interest in the field of digital artistic expression as well as its ability to cultivate creativity and curiosity through technology.

TeamLab Future Park focuses on promoting collaborative experiences for children through creativity and play. Guests can explore a digital playground through seven different living “works,” which use technology to nurture individual creative freedom within cooperative environments. With hands-on participation as the foundation of each work, children are encouraged to engage with each other and with the art itself to create a combined visual masterwork as part of a larger team. Utilizing technology’s capacity to promote education and influence relationships, teamLab Future Park emphasizes pattern recognition, tactile learning, spatial perception and the importance of teamwork.

The seven immersive works include: 

• Sketch Aquarium: This installation explores the magic beneath the waves in a digitally-rendered aquatic world. A favorite among all ages, the immersive Sketch Aquarium allows guests to create drawings of sea creatures and watch them come to life in a virtual ocean. This dynamic artwork constantly grows and evolves as more visitors draw and add different images of sea creatures. The busy sea creatures swim around and interact with each other, and guests can even feed them by touching fish food bags on the screen.
• Create! Hopscotch for Geniuses: This immersive work is a fun game of discovery that tests the skills and imagination for guests of all ages. Attendees are invited to design their own customised hopscotch game in this installation by arranging circles, triangles and squares on an electronic tablet. These shapes are then projected onto the floor. When children land on the same shapes in succession, they will trigger beautiful colors and sounds that reverbrate throughout the space. Special connections exist between the shapes – guests will have to practice playing the game to discover what they are.
• Sketch Town: Sketch Town encourages adults and children alike to cooperate and inspire one another to meet the challenges of this urban setting installation. Sketch Town, a shared space, allows guests to create their own town landmarks by coloring paper drawings of buildings, cars, planes and even fantastical vehicles like spaceships and UFOs in a morphing town that grows and evolves. Children can interact with the townscape by touching individual components to alter their behavior.
• Sketch Town Papercraft: Guests can turn their 3-D Sketch Town crayon drawings of cars and buildings into papercraft patterns. By assembling the patterns, their pictures are transformed into an original 3-D papercraft model to take home and enjoy.
• A Table Where Little People Live: This installation features an interactive tabletop with “little people.” Children can sit or stand around the table, and they are encouraged to interact with the little people by placing objects on the screen. As each object is introduced, the movements of the little people change, causing them to jump, climb and even slide.
• Light Ball Orchestra: Guests of all ages use beachball-sized globes of multicolored light and sound as instruments in this electrifying, one-of-a-kind orchestra. Attendees can touch any ball to change the color and sound of the balls around it, creating a resonating effect throughout the dazzling environment. Children and adults will enjoy creating a playful and dynamic space with other visitors, as their participation with the Light Ball Orchestra sends out ripples in different directions to interact with each other. Guests will work together by pushing, bouncing and rolling the balls to continuously change the composition, color and sound of the orchestra.
• Connecting! Train Block: This installation allows attendees to design their own transportation network. Guests will first use physical wooden blocks to design and connect an evolving system of roads, rivers and railways to keep the ever-increasing traffic flowing smoothly. Then, as more blocks are connected on the table, more cars and trains appear, forming a bustling townscape. Children can play and interact by placing the blocks in different positions to create a town collaboratively with other guests.

Tickets to experience teamLab Future Park at Mall of Georgia are available onsite or online at bit.ly/MOG_teamLab. To guarantee admission and avoid long wait times, the mall highly recommends purchasing advance tickets online. General admission is FREE for children ages 0-2, $8 for children ages 3-13 and $12 for adults. Adults are not permitted to enter the exhibit without children. A discounted ticket rate of $10 is available to senior over 65-years-old and to students over 14-years-old with a valid student ID. Group rate admission for 10 or more people is $10 per adult and $6 per child. The exhibition will only be available at Mall of Georgia May 14 – July 31. Exhibition hours are as follows**:

May 14 – May 27* 

• Monday – Thursday: 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.
• Friday – Saturday: 10 a.m. – 7 p.m.
• Sunday: 12 p.m. – 6 p.m.

*TeamLab will open from 1 p.m. – 6 p.m. on Sunday, May 15 due to a private event

May 28 – July 31

• Monday – Saturday: 10 a.m. – 7 p.m.
• Sunday: Sunday: 12 p.m. – 6 p.m.

**Please visit simon.com/mall/mall-of-georgia/stores/teamlab-future-park to confirm hours of operation.

I have tickets for 1 family to attend the preview event!  Simply leave a comment confirming that you can attend to be entered.  The preview is Thursday, May 12, from 5-8pm.  Winner drawn tomorrow morning!

Giveaway has ended.

It’s Monday again!  We had a great weekend.  My aunt is here from New York and the kids celebrated the end of the year with their homeschool friends.  We aren’t quite done with school yet, but we are pretty close!

This week, I’m going to do our testing with my oldest 2.  If you aren’t sure how to test your homeschooler, check out my post.  Once we get that accomplished, we are on to field days with our homeschool friends and other things to wrap up this school year.  It’s been a great one!

Local readers, don’t forget this week is Bountiful Baskets week!  Tons of produce for just $15.  Find more about that on their website or on the local Athens produce facebook page.  You contribute Monday or Tuesday and pickup Saturday!  Yummy!

Here’s what I plan to make this week:

Monday: Coconut Aminos Chicken, brown rice, broccoli

Tuesday: BBQ, Chips, Beans

Wednesday: Pesto Caprese Chicken, salad

Thursday: Spaghetti and Meatballs

Friday: Eggs, biscuits, sausage, fruit

Saturday: Chicken Quesadillas 

Sunday: Skillet Kielbasa and Brussels in Mustard Sauce

What do you plan to make this week?