Take a stroll through a next-generation, fully interactive, digital-art garden: the leading immersive light show in Japan is yours to enjoy through October at 1881 Heritage, TST
A fully interactive, digital-art garden has sprung to life in the heart of the urban jungle: Naked Flowers is showing through October 27, at 1881 Heritage, TST. Created by visionary Japanese digital art collective NAKED Inc and led by the legendary Ryotaro Muramatsu, the exhibition sets out to reinvent the familiar, give it new value, and wow audiences. NAKED Inc uses the very latest technology to create next-generation, highly theatrical, virtual experiences, and brings a 27-year understanding of immersive space construction.
There are eight glorious digital-art spaces to explore within the Naked Flowers exhibition each revealing the beauty, fragrance and universal language of flowers.
The experience begins at the ‘Big Book’: a massive, page-turning installation that marks your entrée into a world where the secrets of various flowers are revealed. From here on in, all exhibits are multisensory, and you will be invited to interact with them through sight, touch and movement. Get ready to watch in wonder as walls, floors and even pieces of furniture bloom before your very eyes.
Petals spill forth from the ‘Big Book’, providing a glimpse of the digital wonders to come, and leading you into the venue via an immersive ‘Flower Path’. The whimsical path – a surreal tunnel of petals – lights up as you walk along it, and snowflakes fall.
Moving into the ‘Big Flower Garden’, a bank of larger-than-life flowers awaits, making a dramatic introductory statement, and filling the space with their gorgeous fragrance. Petals fly across the walls, drawing you gently into the adjacent ‘Wildflower Garden’. Here in the fourth participatory space, you can interact with the digital artwork to make flowers grow, and watch while they bloom and glow. There’s also the opportunity to become one with your surroundings, dancing and weaving among the flowers as a butterfly.
The next three spaces form the heart of the exhibition, where the inner workings of flowers are revealed as giant blooms appear on the walls, seemingly spurred into life by your presence. In the ‘Mozaic Flower Garden’, interactive displays provide detailed information about each flower featured in the exhibition. In ‘Microscopy of Flowers’, flower cells are put under the microscope. As you zoom in on the interactive walls, the inner structure of flowers opens up; mirrors rotate in all directions, creating a dazzling kaleidoscopic effect. In cherry blossom-filled ‘Ousai Garden’, the lifecycle of flowers is dissected: when you approach a wall, flower seeds appear, sprout and transform into plants.
The Naked Flowers experience draws to a close with ‘Dandelion’, a statement digital art piece with a profound and timely meaning. Dandelions transmit their seeds to every corner of the globe and can be said to connect the world. For this reason, Muramatsu and his team are intent on planting/ installing ‘Dandelions’ in venues across the globe to represent a collective wish for world peace. As you blow on the dandelion clock and make your wish, the seeds float gently to the ground to bloom into a new flower.
Naked Flowers has been shown across Japan since 2016, and the Hong Kong exhibit marks its international debut. From its roots in video production, NAKED Inc now stands at the forefront of art-related technology and is expanding into the immersive entertainment market not only in Asia but also in Europe and the US.
FURTHER OPPORTUNITIES FOR INTERACTION
In order to maximise viewing pleasure, only 200 people are admitted to Naked Flowers per hour, so you are well advised to book in advance. There is also the option to rent the entire exhibition space for private events (of at least two hours, maximum 200 guests) and private dinners (7pm to 10pm, maximum 30 guests). Here the opportunities for interaction really open up as the venue lends itself to events of all kinds – children’s parties, work trips, hen nights, proposal dinners. The venue is also pet-friendly at certain times, so you are limited only by your imagination.
While there is the option to bring in outside catering (and furnishings) for private events, the Naked Café Bar is a permanent fixture set just outside the main exhibition space. Various snacks and beverages are on offer, many of them floral-themed, and an interactive table takes centre stage – place your drink on it and watch flowers bloom across the surface.
Naked Flowers is brought to Hong Kong by Nothing Much and Peeps Studios: two burgeoning marketing and entertainment companies, headed up by local entrepreneur Paul Kohli and visual artist MJ Lee, a Discovery Bay resident since 2001.
True to his DB roots. MJ has secured an exclusive discount for Around DB readers eager to purchase tickets to see Naked Flowers. Adults (12 years and above) HK$50 (discounted from HK$180); children (3 to 11 years and full-time students) HK$130 (discounted from HK$150); children under three years, disabled guests and the elderly (65 years and above) free of charge. Meet you at the Naked Café Bar!