Enter the tech-powered playground of the future
Bureau Chief, UK
There are playmats where you build the roads in seconds, a ballpit where the balls are as big as you, and a drawing-board where your doodles come to life. This is Team Lab's "Theme Park of the Future" .. but it isn't really a theme park. It's an attempt to bring projection mapping, motion gestures into contact with fundamental playtime activities -- and even expand on kids' creativity. You just need a handful of projectors, some giant walls, and a scanner or two.
The entrance to the exhibition, which runs for the next few months at the Miraikan in Tokyo, Japan, is signposted with a giant moving mural featuring all kinds of animals. There's no interactive element: it's very much like any old mural in that way, but try telling that to a hyperactive five-year-old raised on iPads.
