Theater Room: “Voyage: Beyond the Unexplored”

Both the discoveries made through humanity’s long history of planetary exploration and the vast uncharted territories that still stretch across the cosmos are brought to life in breathtaking high-definition CG, grounded in scientific observation data and expertise, forming a fully immersive visual experience. Visitors are transported on a “journey through space” that bridges the known and the unknown. Inside a theater space designed to evoke the lounge of a spacecraft, audiences come face to face with celestial vistas, cosmic phenomena, and the frontier of the unexplored just beyond the windows. Guiding this voyage is musician Ichiko Aoba. Her intimate and gentle voice, set against the overwhelming grandeur of the cosmos, weaves a poetic narrative through destinations including the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and its moon Europa, and finally beyond the boundaries of our solar system. The work draws on NASA’s scientific observation data and the expertise of astronomer Junichi Watanabe, who personally supervised the project, to envelop rigorous scientific knowledge within cinematic visual beauty. The work awakens a new sense of wonder and discovery by evoking the ever-expanding frontier of the unknown while drawing a parallel to the uncharted territories within each viewer’s own inner world. The longing for the unknown that exists in the world around us; the exhilaration felt when a door to unexplored territory is opened; the act of imagining worlds yet unseen — the work aspires to quietly stir the sensibilities of audiences of all ages, from children to adults, leaving them with a lingering sense of wonder to be savored long after the experience ends.

Innovation Hall: “Sky: Cloud Journey”

This work transforms the ever-shifting, endlessly captivating expressions of the sky into a dynamic immersive experience: sea fog at dawn, shafts of light piercing through the clouds, an endless expanse of cloud sea, cumulonimbus towers rumbling with thunder, the colors of dawn and dusk, and the boundless blue sky above. A wide range of meteorological phenomena, including the sea of clouds, cumulonimbus formations, crepuscular rays, and more, are rendered with meticulous detail under the supervision of cloud researcher Kentaro Araki. Visitors glide above a sea of clouds as if taking a stroll through the air, then venture deep into the interior of a towering cumulonimbus. They then encounter the microscopic world where ice crystals grow into snowflakes, before transforming into hail and eventually raindrops. In this work, 4K video surrounds the approximately 8-meter-high space on all sides and underfoot, enveloping visitors’ entire field of vision in sky. A 12.2-channel spatial audio system, combined with atmospheric effects of mist and wind*, further evokes the sensation of being wrapped inside a cloud. From the mist-covered surface of a morning sea to a sunset sky; from the macro world of clouds to the micro world of ice crystals. Weaving together the cycles of clouds across multiple dimensions, the work invites audiences to feel the beauty, delicacy, and power of the natural world. *The mist effect is only available during specially scheduled installation sessions.