scale

02.13.14:

The wonderfulness of the unexpected

So, we missed our inspiration last week due to the double –storm whammy, and lo and behold, it looks like we will get to experience that again this week at the studio.  In fact, right now it looks like we are getting 2 inches of snow an hour.Therefore, we are offering four fun inspiration examples that, for us, illustrate the “wonderfulness of the unexpected” and its potential to take the ordinary and make it into the memorable.

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The first is an installation by Alois Kronschlaeger at the Mammal Hall of the former Grand Rapids Public Museum last year.

 

 

 

 

 

Here, Alois created several experiences that take the expected diorama and breaks down the barrier between visitor and exhibit. It’s as if he invites visitors into the other dimension – the one that lives just behind the glass and the museum’s walls.

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The second example is one that challenges the expected non-interactive nature of the street poster. This was the promotion for the new book, Marilyn: Intimate Exposures, that celebrates the photographs of Marilyn Monroe by Bernard of Hollywood (most famous being the “skirt” photo). Campaign by Preuss und Preuss

 

 

 

Certainly unexpected, this interactive needs no explanation on how to use and is almost impossible not to use. Interesting is how it places the visitor in the slightly uncomfortable position of deciding to interact or not. Our guess is that makes the interaction even more memorable.

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Example three is a visit to childhood for adults by a McDonalds in Peru, conceived of by Fahrenheit DDB.

 

 

 

This example of the unexpected in an ordinary setting builds on the power of scale that we have blogged about before.

 

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Finally, what would it be like if the zombie phenomenon was real? Well, New Yorkers recently got an unexpected look at that. Here is the surprise from cable channel AMC.

 

 

 

All of these unexpected experiences are designed to move people out of the ordinary to the extraordinary. Thinking about how to do this in an exhibition is extremely important. It is easy for visitors who enter an exhibition to get into the “exhibition mode” and then behavior, learning and impact become somewhat muted.

Finding ways to create experiences of “unexpectedness” is one way an exhibition can create a greater impact.

Now, of course, one doesn’t want to create a heart attack, but unexpectedness can come from content as well as experience and design.

Share with us what kind of unexpected experiences you have encountered in a museum or other setting.

 

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01.09.14:

immersive color and sound

To start our new year, we became enthralled over the holidays with the latest installation by Team Lab called Distilling Senses: A Journey through Art and Technology in Asian Contemporary Art located at the Hong Kong Arts Centre.

 

 

 

In this world of giant orbs, the visitor’s touch changes the color, but the color also changes when the orbs run into something or are affected by the behavior of other spheres around it. Watching the video, the experience appears to be truly mesmerizing.

While a cynical person might describe this as just an over-scaled techno ball room, the experience creators wanted it to communicate how the web allows for interconnectivity and information dissemination. At the same time, a space like this could provide an experiential opportunity to engage with subjects where scale or location would make it impossible to visit.

What is certainly clear is how different and how totally inviting this experience is. It’s a great example of how both scale and immersiveness create a space that draws you in more than any “literal” interpretation of the internet. While, admittedly, it is not very interpretive, it could couple with more interpretive experiences and allow museums to be more impactful.

Over the holidays, did you run across anything mesmerizing?

 

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10.02.13:

scale in the city

Over the past year, we have remarked about how the use of scale, done well, can make an experience special. This week we’ve run across three very inspiring and imaginative examples of large-scale experiences. Whether marketing campaigns, art installations, or just cultural documentation, these examples captured our imagination.

The first is the submarine that surfaced in the center of Milan

 

 

 

 

Talk about an experience! This was a marketing event by M&C saatchi Milano for the insurance group europ assistanve IT. Certainly, it suggests some interesting ideas for promoting a new exhibition or large-format film in the museum world, and it got us wondering about how one might stage this to bring a short term “content” experience into a city.

Here is a possible example. Speaking of large scale film, here is what might be “the largest film camera in the world.”

 

 

 

 

You might be able to see this in your local city/town. It is traveling around the country as part of the project ”Butterflies and Buffalo” by Dennis Manarchy. The project is to document and “preserve our nation’s (United States) dynamic cultural history”

The last example shows how an abandoned building was transformed into an imaginative setting. Here is the project “from the knees of my nose to the belly of my toes.”

 

 

 

This house, with a sliding front, can be found in Margate and was done by Alex Chinneck, a British artist.

These projects are clear examples of how scale and the context in which the scale experience occurs can heighten the impact of the experience.

Our belief is that museums need to consider breaking down their walls to bring more of their experiences directly into the world beyond the building.

What do you think? What might you pull off in the middle of the city?

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10.02.13:

Dream Big Starts Filming

 

Dream Big will be a groundbreaking film experience. For the first time, IMAX and other large-screen formats will be used to examine the science and technology of large-scale engineering projects.

Working with MacGillivray Freeman Films, ALCHEMY studio is involved in the film and educational materials as a content and creative consultant. The other partner on the film is the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).

Just as importantly, this film will celebrate as well as respect the drive to engineer solutions that solve problems or overcome challenges encountered by humans.

At the beginning of summer, the first filming occurred for Dream Big. The MacGillivray Freeman Films (MFF) production team was on hand to film the insertion of Big Bertha’s, the world’s largest tunnel boring machine cutter head, to begin digging a two-mile tunnel under downtown Seattle for a 4-lane highway.  The picture shown here was taken during that shoot and shows of the full scale of the cutter head – 57 feet in diameter and weighing 14 million pounds. Thanks to MacGillivray Freeman Films for the images.

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06.21.13:

putting you in orbit

Earlier this year, we highlighted a project by Tomás Saraceno’s called On Space Time Foam. There we were excited about how this experience allows for perhaps the closest opportunity for visitors to feel what it might be like to be inside a piece of foam. In addition, we mentioned how, very often, in creating experiences about astronomy and space, the science museum/center field does not embrace the larger-scale experiences that might provide more emotional and visceral responses.

Well,Tomás has a new work that once again demonstrates this idea. Opening today at the K21 Ständhaus (kunstsammlung nordrhein-westfalen) in Düsseldorf is his new work “In Orbit.”

 

 

 

Just looking at these images sparks the idea of allowing brave visitors the chance to walk out in the piazza, over 60 feet in the air, and experience what it might be like to be immersed in some of those classic images from science fiction film where the view swoops by planets or orbs. In addition, Tomás mentions that one can detect other visitors by sensing vibrations that propagate through the netting.

One wonders if one could riff on this idea and actually make a model of the solar system that visitors could float above, allowing them to potentially “travel” between our planet and our nearest neighbors. Perhaps this is the closest many of us will get to fulfilling a dream we might have of going into space.

What ideas come to mind for you?

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04.18.13:

A little fun!

So, every once in a while we run across an interactive that just delights and makes us say “What a fun time.” Here is one that was on display last year in Brooklyn that was too much fun.  You might have seen it. Check out Wildbytes’ “Super Heroes” piece.

One point to think about that makes this much better than any other “blue screen” experience is the immense scale of the activity.  As mentioned in previous posts, scale is often overlooked in our field’s approach to tabletop, individual or small group exhibition design.

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04.11.13:

3D Space

Often science centers and other museums look to engage people about how to understand different aspects of phenomena in three dimensional space on two dimensional displays (screens, graphics etc.).

What we often do not do is represent the three dimensional space in actual 3D space, allowing us to present the phenomena’s behavior in more powerful ways.

But since we are three dimensional creatures possibly this is the best way to understand or appreciate 3d space and what occurs there – seen or unseen.

Here are two examples that certainly one can riff on that made us think about this. The first is FLUIDIC by WHITEvoid.

 

Using 12,000 suspended spheres, a camera that senses the viewer and eight high speed lasers it creates an almost magical experience. We believe that being illuminated by laser light adds something special. Certainly a concept programmed to both enchant but to do so mimicking certain scientific phenomena could be impactful. By the way want to see this in person? Go to the Temporary Museum for New Design in Milan where it will be on display through April 14th.

The second piece that is similar but different is Submergence done by a group known as Squidsoup

 

This piece includes 8,064 spheres and LED lit. It too responds to visitors. This time though it’s possible to enter the space. Imagine explaining crystal structure, data movement or some other unseen movement through 3D space. You can see this at the Gallery ROM for Art and Architecture in Oslo, Norway

Often we fixate the on screens as the visual way to present information. What we may need to do more of is dedicate more space and create 3D spaces to represent 3D phenomena. We feel this creates an experience and opportunity that in fact is more powerful that what we have normally done.

If you know of more examples send them to us here on the blog.

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03.28.13:

time views

Something we have been running across has been videos that have been exploring what can be observed  and what becomes apparent of as one looks at a scene/event/through a compressed or extended time period.  For example:

“Departures from San Diego Int Airport Dec 27, 2012” by Cy Kuckenbake

 

The title provides a self-explanatory interpretation of six hours of aircraft departures at the San Diego International Airport. It is powerful way to make a common everyday experience incredibly amazing as well as impart the scale of a technological activity that occurs every day.

Meanwhile the film “Street” showing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art by James Nares

This slows down time while also using time as way to transect geographically the city of New York. It allows one to examine the in “moving” detail the incredible complexity of city life.

These experience point how we as experience developers and designers should at times break out of our “in the moment” experiences.

As we look at content and stories one should think how time can be manipulated to bring a new perspective and aid the impact we wish to create.

Let us know what amazing time “pieces” you know of

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03.07.13:

reshaping our planet

One of the projects we are working on here at the studio is a film that will explore engineering and the amazing achievements we can as a species succeed at, as well as the challenges that we face from what we do and the solutions engineering may provide. As part of our work we are always on the look for great ways to visualize what we now call the Anthropocene epoch. The geologic age of human influence. Here is a dramatic one  ’Welcome to the Anthropocene’

This is the work of Globaia, a organization that attempts to educate people on understanding the modern world and the issues our environment and planet faces. Here are some stills

An image dramatically showing how our civilization networks (transportaion, power, cities)  fade into the norther wilds of Canada.

 

 

The transportation, power and cities of Europe and Asia

 

Flight between North America and Europe

 

A map of energy: pipelines are orange, power lines are white, underwater cables are blue

 

These images present the yin and yang of our civilization.

 

The way we are becoming a networked planet and species and at the same time how we  are impacting every single square mile of the planet. Too often the conversations that seem to revolve around the issues we face are one sided. Rather we look at these amazing images and see on one hand the amazing achievement of how we can connect ourselves both physically and electronically sharing information and materials, building and creating incredible works. We also see the issues and impacts that this endeavor makes on our planet and realize that the price we are paying is at times too much for our world to sustain. Only together with our ingenuity and innovation can we improve on what will always be an eternal dilemma.

Feel free to send us any links that you know of or come across that depict the two sides of the coin that these images show.

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02.21.13:

creating a smile with scale

To combat the winter blahs this week our inspiration takes us back to playing with scale but with a little levity.  As we have mentioned before,  playing with scale is both an artist’s as well as a designer’s invaluable tool. While used as a sense of awe, its role in creating humor and fun – a moment of levity in a serious world or serious museum “environment” – should perhaps be explored more often. Here are two favorites that have passed by our desk this week.
The first is the great installation called “Bad Dog” (we need to admit that ALCHEMY studio has two office Labradors).

Yes, that’s yellow paint that get sprayed on the museum wall. Check out the public’ reaction through this local tv story!

This work, done by Richard Jackson, is part of an exhibition called “Ain’t Painting A Pain” at the Orange County Museum of Art, which provides a retrospective of the Los Angeles artist’s work.

The second is the piece “Calamidad Cósmica” by the artist Luciana Rondolini.

 

These giant popsicles are intended to have viewers reflect on the process of time elapsing. Of course, they also evoke the fun and memories that such items have played in one’s life. Surely an exhibit such as this would be great fun in a children’s museum or as a surprise encounter in an outside gallery.

Be sure to send us your fun encounters with scale and look for some upcoming inspirations sparked by ideas about time.

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