When I crossed the threshold of YoPennsylvania* pavilion in CEATEC 2025I entered not into a flashy technology demonstration, but into a deceptively simple classroom: a wooden desk, a globe, soft ambient lighting, walls that seemed intimate and familiar. However, in a few moments, that stillness began to change. The walls breathed, the shadows spread and across the virtual reality glasses Bound to my face, I was drawn into a delicate but expansive vision: star island schoola immersive installation unveiled in Expo 2025 Osakanow reinstalled in CEATEC.
In essence, star island school it’s a hybrid theatrical virtual reality installation where visitors use a glasses type device to explore a small classroom on a fictional island, subjected to a six minute sensory journey that mixes spatial transitions, music and visual storytelling. That description is simple, but the experience resists being completely reduced to it.
The classroom becomes a portal to the sea, sky, space, systems and identityunlocking The IPA vision of our future Society 5.0where the people “Live anywhere“ and they will enjoy various experiences no matter where they are.
*IPA means Information Technology Promotion Agency, Japan
Imagining society 5.0 and the future of learning
Beneath its cinematic surface, the installation is an argument – expressed poetically – about the future of society, education and mobility in a digitally augmented world. IPA expresses that this work embodies its mission to create a society in which anyone can “learn, play, work and live wherever they want” deeply rooted in local communities but connected globally.
The installation is based on the idea of digital lifesavers: infrastructure, AI, spatial identity, connectivity, translation, sustainable energy, well-beingand systemic interdependence. Thematic nodes such as AI/Agent (having another you), Spatial Identification (flying through 4D space), AI/Translation, Energy, Healthcare, Garbage/Waste, Security, Talent and Entertainment. These are not mere buzzwords, but leitmotiv through which visitors must feel, intuit and reflect.
In other words, star island school It’s less about showing off future devices than evoking a sensibility: what it would feel like when your Identity, place and ability to learn. float freely in a digital-physical continuum. It does not prescribe solutions, but it opens a poetic framework to question: what if Language barriers dissolve, waste becomes cyclical, energy becomes ambient intelligence.and Can you take your learning space with you?
Eliane prepares to enter Star Island Schoolhouse, equipped with a virtual reality headset and listening to introductory instructions at the IPA booth.
Experience at Star Island school, step by step
Here is a reconstructed narrative flow that combines what I felt during the CEATEC run with publicly documented accounts (especially from the Expo version), acknowledging some speculative interpolation:
Classroom entrance set.
I put on my glasses and entered a modest physical classroom space. The furniture – desks, chairs, a globe, perhaps a container of water – seemed solid and tactile, anchoring me in a familiar environment before something extraordinary happened.
Welcome sign and narrative
In that classroom, Ms. Ai Hashimoto appears (in the narrative) as the classroom teachergreeting visitors and inviting them to the lesson that unfolds. This places the visitor in a pedagogical framework: he is both student and witness. (This is stated in the official IPA description: “In the classroom… Ms. Ai Hashimoto begins by welcoming visitors.”)
Floating points, touch points and transitions
Inside the classroom, faint points of light (floating dots) float in the air, acting as places of interaction. Touching or looking at them triggers transitions, walls can dissolve, spatial geometry can change, and portals can open.
touching the points displayed in the virtual room opens floating windows that allow visitors know technologies and trends (Society 5.0). Furthermore, this virtual knowledge base provides information on various government initiatives such as AISI (Japan AI Safety Institute)he Uranus ecosystem, Japan Cyberstar, Manabí DX learning space for digital development, MITOU program for talent discovery.
Beyond the walls: shore, water, sky.
Little by little, the room gives way to outdoor space. I felt myself walking towards the coast, stepping on surfaces that seemed wet, an intentional effect to blur the line between illusion and reality. In those moments, the sky opens, drones or rockets may appear, the aerial views expand and you feel cosmic or atmospheric extension.
Spectacle, layers and systemic glimpses
As the transition is completed, visual motifs of energy flows, translation overlays, organic data visualizationsmaybe transparent architectural formseither branching of connective networks emerge. Fireworks, drones or rockets mark the transitions—show signs suggesting optimism and movement.
Return and reflective capture
At the end of the experience, return to the classroom. The physical whole remains, now perhaps subtly altered (for example, traces of water).
In the end I received a qr code which is linked to a Short 3D video of myself inside the school.—my silhouette, posture, movement composed in virtual space. This The reflective loop collapsed the boundary between viewer and participant.making me part of the narrative.
The link with IPA’s mission and innovation strategy
This installation is not an independent work of art: it is a strategic embodiment of IPA’s mission: to promote creators and catalyze innovation towards a future society. IPA is implementing Star Island Schoolhouse not simply as a spectacle, but as public prototype: a sensory argument for Society 5.0. By putting it on stage in high visibility venues (Expo, CEATEC)IPA bridges the gap between Politics, technology, public imagination and design..
The installation invites visitors (engineers, students, policymakers, occasional passersby) to feel possible futuresto internalize questions about Place, mobility, agency and digital augmentation.. Through this, The API is sowing cultural literacy on emerging infrastructure and supply support for creative professionals exploring speculative futures, rather than simply subsidizing technology adoption.
Creators and credits
The installation is officially attributed:
Ai Hashimoto as a cast (serving as the “master’s” guiding presence)
Kazuaki Seki as director
Hikaru Arata (WONK) for music
Special appearance by: ID, Eevee, Dodo.
These roles suggest a interdisciplinary collaboration—artists, directors, spatial and visual designers—working together to weave narrative, spatial logic and immersive experience.
To visit the Star Island Schoolhouse facility at CEATEC 2025go to IPA booth inside the LIFE 2050 pavilion at Makuhari Messe (October 14-17). The immersion session (use of a goggle-type device) advance reservation required: pick up a numbered ticket at the reservation counter at the IPA stand (distribution begins daily at 10:00 am). Tickets are issued on a first-come, first-served basis. and they are limited; each person can receive only one.
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