::... 10th flashconference May 08, Stuttgart..:: the 10th flashconference 2008 in stuttgart ::..

Imaginary Forces:
An Architecture of Play

Experience Design: The Playground

Imagine a future where the forces that drive design, technology and architecture resemble “Transformer” robots, a blooming flower or a Bill Viola installation. Imagine spaces that blend the physical with the digital creating enormous cinematic environments, as well as ultra-personal and highly interactive experiences that fit in the palm of your hand. These are the 21 st Century playgrounds of exchange and entertainment.

Taking on an architectural approach, typography takes on the behavior of transformative robots to create a teaser for the recent Transformers feature film (click on picture to enlarge)

Traditionally, electronics were integrated into buildings in order to support air-conditioning systems, televisions and Internet infrastructures. In their next iteration, electronics will be used to support truly interactive environments. Changing themselves to adapt to their inhabitants, they can create and express unique and personalized experiences and stories.

Experience Design is the process of creating such spaces. It seamlessly integrates cinematic storytelling, motion graphics content, emerging technologies and architecture through a highly collaborative and multi-disciplinary process. Bringing together designers, animators, architects, thinkers, filmmakers, producers, writers, technologists, programmers and futurists from disciplines ranging from graphic design, architecture, hardware manufacturing, software development, gaming, advertising and film production, Experience Design becomes a catalyst for collaboration and innovation.

For the HBO Store in mid-town Manhattan , Imaginary Forces and Gensler architects designed a fully immersive media experience. Seamlessly integrating LED, LCD and projection technology, the space becomes a platform for highly choreographed HBO-based shows

The goal of Experience Design is to create unique , intelligent , memorable experiences that are curated for their visitors.

Unique , because as we immerse ourselves in the web, we come to these spaces with greater expectations. These new environments offer interactivity through new media. By taking the familiar and unexpected and making it new, expectations are subverted and an impact is created. These physical destinations - whether they are stores, offices, hospitals or places of entertainment – will be the new destinations of the future.

For this guerrilla marketing installation, IF and Lexus' agency, Team One, designed a life-sized interactive hologram of a Lexus car in New York City and Los Angeles. (click on picture to enlarge)

Intelligent , because only a smart space understands how it is being used and how to respond to its visitors. An environment that has an awareness of its inhabitants can curate information and design both personalized stories and community experiences.

This interactive table and pivoting wall system, designed in collaboration with architect George Yu, provided IBM's business centers with new ways of thinking about intelligent working environments. (click on picture to enlarge)

Memorable , because everyone loves to play and create memorable experiences, and every place wants to be remembered.

The Lake of Dreams spectacle was created in collaboration with Steve Wynn and his creative team for his new Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas. Mixing water, digital media and robotics, it is a multi-sensory event on an architectural scale. (click on picture to enlarge)

Experience Design: Imaginary Forces

Imaginary Forces [IF] has been in the practice of cinematic storytelling from its conception in 1996. Its birth was triggered by the opening title sequence for David Fincher's film Seven . It served as the first of a vast body of work in IF's Entertainment division, which has since expanded to include a huge range of work on films such as Indiana Jones , Mission Impossible , Minority Report , the Blade Trilogy and Transformers .

For Stephen Spielberg's film Minority Report , Imaginary Forces worked in collaboration with Futurist John Underkoffler to design and develop the interface of the future. (click on picture to enlarge)

Bringing the art of telling complicated stories simply to the small screen was a short and natural transition. Over the last decade, IF's Broadcast division has generated main opening title sequences, network re-brands and commercials for clients such as Lexus, Nike, Nokia, Smirnoff, Samsung , USA and Lifetime Networks.

Imaginary Forces designed the graphics, directed Tiger Woods and created a virtual environment scene in this spot used for Niketown in-store advertising.

With Hollywood in our DNA and motion in our heart, we took our knowledge of cinematic storytelling, motion graphics, branding and marketing, and combined it with our strong affection for emerging technologies and a passion for the unknown to embark into Experience Design.

Today we approach the design of interactive environments as a cohesive methodology, bringing together experts in diverse disciplines at the conception of any project. We develop ideas that extend into and beyond the screen to imagine and re-imagine how media experiences are created, how they are generated, scheduled and delivered, and how they seamlessly integrate into their environments.

In collaboration with Greg Lynn Form and UN Studio, IF transformed traditional screens into eight giant ice cream shaped balloons. (click on picture to enlarge)

Driven by ideas, media content and technology are embedded into the fabric of a space as a brick into a wall, blending the virtual with the physical into a state of poly-reality. Inspired by everything from high to pop culture, we are constantly looking to blur and cross those boundaries.

Designed for the New York 's Museum of Modern Art exhibit “Design and the Elastic Mind,” IF designed an immersive media experience that contemplates the possibilities of an architecturally considered virtual environment. (click on picture to enlarge)

To find out more about these and other Imaginary Forces' projects, please visit us at http://www.imaginaryforces.com/ and on http://www.flashconference.de/