Kanazawa, Japan, Monday, Nov. 6, 2023 – It’s hard to even begin to describe the incredible spectacle that greeted us to Kanazawa, a culture-rich city on the Sea of Japan, home to beautifully preserved wooden houses, atmospheric geisha quarters, and mysterious temples used as a wily samurai lord’s secret defense weapons. We expected to experience the history of a city built by the Maeda samurai clan back in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. But we did not expect to find the castle grounds, and its surviving stone defensive walls, turned into a rich and moving digital art display, in turns amusing, inspiring, creepy, and beautiful, sometimes all at once. TeamLab, whose installation we saw in Tokyo Sunday (apparently everyone from BTS, to the Kardashians, Justin Bieber and U2 have also visited), is a somewhat mysterious collective of artists who produce digital art installations around the world. But this temporary exhibit in Kanazawa was much more powerful than the tourist-filled Instagram crowd in Tokyo. Crowds of hundreds of young Kanazawans climbed up the steep paths to the castle, which overlooks the city, to see spaces transformed by the magic of sound and light.

The first installation was of a famous Zen calligraphy practice known as Enso, where a Buddhist practitioner paints a circular shape using an ink brush as a form of meditation. The spontaneous act of painting embodies complicated religious concepts of impermanence and imperfection and being and nothingness, enlightenment and eternity, but this particular ink drawing was the projection of a ink painting on the massive stone walls – the image changed, and morphed, turning into fantastical shapes, before disappearing – and then it would start again.

It’s hard to even describe what it was like to walk (sometimes stumble on the uneven surfaces in the dark) through the castle grounds, watching a row of trees lit up and humming with sound and color that changed as people walked by. There were strange ovoid shapes in a grove that would change colors and shape when you touched them. One stone corridor was filled with lines of marching creatures – frogs, and rabbits and humans wearing masks – in a very disturbing and vaguely martial procession. The images never repeat exactly, yet they repeat and repeat and repeat. Especially since they are projected on a castle’s walls, with its own violent history, they felt like a depressing reminder of how we humans can’t seem to break free of the cycle of violence.

But the piece de resistance was at the end, when massive images of creatures, from tigers to birds and various animals of indeterminate species – all made of flowers – cavorted on the stone walls of the castle. There was so much to love – the Enso was moving. The egg shapes in the forest were just delightful – everyone was breaking out laughing, and children were running wild, and the adults were also acting a little childlike. Japanese, American or European – the surprised and delighted laughter sounded exactly the same. The rabbit procession simply disturbed me, while the flower-tigers were gorgeous, if still a bit threatening. Though this is just a temporary display, I hope they make it permanent – ha, listen to me! Impermanence is the point… In any case, we loved it, and we love Kanazawa.

That was yesterday. Today we visited the famous Kenroku-en and the Myoryuji, or “Ninja Temple.” But those are stories for another day. Now, we have a omakase sushi dinner to get to….