Here's how you can step inside the art by immersing in this art exhibition in Mumbai

Flowers and People… is a digital ecosystem where blossoms bloom and wither in response to human presence. Pics/courtesy Art House at NMACC

Imagine an art exhibition where a portrait machine captures your fleeting presence, mirrors look back at you, flowers bloom beneath your feet, lightweeds sway to the the wind, and, in the end, you walk away with a page from the artwork itself.

Conceived and organised by experiential art venture Superblue, Second Nature spans four floors of the Art House at NMACC, bringing together immersive installations by Random International, teamLab, AA Murakami, Simon Heijdens and Es Devlin. Each work responds dynamically to both its surroundings and the people moving through it, exploring one of the defining questions of our time: how is technology reshaping our relationship with nature, ourselves, and one another?

Nirvana is a reinterpretation of an 18th-century Japanese painting where the perspective shifts with viewers' movement

"The works are designed to be immediately engaging," says Superblue co-founder Mollie Dent-Brocklehurst, "People respond first with their senses and emotions, then gradually uncover the deeper layers." Though some of the installations are nearly two decades old, they feel strikingly contemporary. "What was once experimental has become eerily familiar in a world where technology permeates everyday life. Rather than offering answers, Second Nature encourages reflection. It invites us to pause, play, question their surroundings, and perhaps leave seeing both technology and themselves a little differently."

Presence and Erasure features a "portrait machine" that captures visitors' images briefly, mirroring the fleeting nature of digital existence

The journey begins with London-based collective Random International, whose three installations explore identity, memory, and surveillance through responsive mirrors, photography, and light. At the heart of the floor is Presence and Erasure, a "portrait machine" that captures visitors' images that then disappear moments later, mirroring the fleeting nature of digital existence.

Our Future Selves transforms reflections into shimmering three-dimensional points of light, while Audience features mirrored sculptures that abruptly stop and collectively turn towards anyone entering the room.

"Our work is really about our emotional relationship with technology," says Random International's co-founder Hannes Koch, "We're interested in what it means to be constantly observed by machines. The sculptures are, in a sense, looking back at you."

Rather than judging technology, the artists invite visitors to confront their own reactions to it. "We're not trying to tell people whether technology is good or bad. That's not our role. We want to make people aware of the condition we're living in. There's a strange mix of delight and discomfort when you suddenly recognise yourself through facial recognition. You can feel genuinely happy to see yourself reflected, but there are always strings attached to that experience."

The second floor shifts the conversation from technology to ecology through three immersive works by Tokyo-based collective teamLab. Here, nature doesn't simply surround visitors. It responds to them, dissolving the boundary between people and the environment.

At the heart of the floor is Flowers and People, Cannot Be Controlled but Live Together, a digital ecosystem where blossoms bloom and wither in response to human presence. Stand still and flowers flourish beneath your feet; move away, and the landscape changes again. Inspired by Japan's satoyama, where forests and human settlements coexist, the work reflects the collective's belief that people are not separate from nature but an integral part of it.

"For more than 25 years, we've explored one central question: how do humans relate to the world around them, and how do we perceive it?" says Artist Toshiyuki Inoko. Nearby, in Resonating Microcosms, solidified light invites visitors to touch glowing ovoid sculptures that illuminate and emit sound, creating an ever-changing symphony of colour and light. Completing the floor is Nirvana, a reinterpretation of an 18th-century Japanese painting that abandons fixed perspectives, allowing visitors to reconstruct the artwork through movement.

The third floor imagines a future where technology behaves less like a screen and more like nature itself. Through the works of Simon Heijdens and AA Murakami, the gallery becomes a living environment shaped by weather, movement and chance. Heijdens' Lightweeds transforms digital plants into a living ecosystem that grows and shifts in real time using weather data collected outside the building.

"I wanted to bring nature back into a man-made environment," says Heijdens. After studying how plants grow, he translated those behaviours into software. "Weeds inspire the work. A blade of grass pushing through a crack in the pavement says far more about nature than a perfectly cultivated park. It speaks of growth, decay and the constant cycles we're all part of."

For the artist, the work is also a response to increasingly controlled modern life. "The more perfect we make our spaces, with air-conditioning, artificial lighting and constant connectivity, the more detached they become from the natural world," he says. "I wanted to reconnect these interiors with an unplanned, living timeline."

Alongside it, AA Murakami's New Spring produces delicate, mist-filled blossoms that drift through the gallery before dissolving the instant they touch human skin, transforming the fleeting beauty of spring into a poignant reminder of nature's fragility.

The exhibition culminates on the fourth floor with British artist Es Devlin's Screenshare (2025), created specifically for NMACC. A monumental screen built from 365 sketchbooks documents the artist's creative process over the past 25 years, while a film of dancer Dam Van Huynh performing alongside footage of his younger self reflects on memory, time and change. In its final act, we were invited to tear away a page and take it home, scattering Devlin's personal archive into a collective history shaped by everyone who passes through the exhibition.

For Head of Curatorial at Superblue, Margot Mottaz, "The hope isn't that people leave with definitive answers. Instead, the exhibition encourages quiet introspection. Perhaps they'll notice how often they reach for their phones, pay closer attention to a tree outside, or become more aware of how technology quietly shapes their everyday lives. That's where Second Nature truly begins."

WHEN: Till January 10, 2027
WHERE: Art House, NMACC, BKC