Body/Mind/Change is an art installation developed as an immersive and interactive extension of the exhibition David Cronenberg: Evolution. Eerie and disturbing, the experience extends digital gameplay into physically immersive storytelling.
Details
Client
TIFF Bell Lightbox
Project
Body/Mind/Change: David Cronenberg
Size
1,000 sq. ft.
Scope
Exhibit Design
Location
Toronto, ON, CA
Year Completed
2013
Impact
Responses to the AI Simulation
250,000
Engagement with Simulation
3x the expected number
Personalized PODs Printed
100's
2 Awards Total
AAM MUSE
2014 Jim Blackaby Ingenuity Award
AAM MUSE
2014 Honorable Mention in the category of Games and Augmented Reality
The Goal
For the Body/Mind/Change experience, TIFF, Canadian Film Centre’s Media Lab and artist Lance Weiler conceived a fictional Los Angeles-based biotech company to create POD (Personal On-Demand), a biotechnological “recommendation engine” implant designed to help its human hosts effortlessly discover their needs, loves and desires. The experience featured a digital presence and physical installation designed by R&P at the TIFF Bell Lightbox 4th floor gallery. Visitors would participate online and be presented with three increasingly strange and distressing simulations to calibrate the personality of their PODs. These artificial intelligence companions would later be 3D printed for display. The display space was to be designed to enhance and extend the digital into the physical, reminiscent of a Cronenberg film.
The Design
Presented with the idea of the B/M/C game, R&P conceived the installation as a fictional biotech laboratory within the TIFF gallery space. R&P proposed using the transformation from digital to physical as a central piece of the experience utilizing scientists (actors in lab coats) at work hatching new PODs with 3D printers made to look like incubation chambers. Visitors look in through metal shelving units with mason jars mounted to the underside of each shelf, lit with internal blue LEDs. The jars house the PODs while they ‘grow’ to maturity—a simple display system for the 3D printed sculptures that give them an eerie life-like presence. They were similar to cadaver-filled specimen jars or the biomorphic implants that feel reminiscent of a Cronenberg film. The room is completed with a mirrored back wall to give the illusion of a larger active laboratory space. Furnishings were made of either metal or white plastic to create a sanitary, medical appearance.
The space was created with a medical clinic theme. The reception area provided a history of POD product development, and an overview of clinic services. CFC Media Lab provided the wall graphics to match the online and mobile platforms while R&P ensured they met environmental graphic accessibility standards. The reception desk and matching BMC Lab signage is designed using a dark black shiny finish to give it a foreboding futuristic look and feel.
The Result
Body/Mind/Change was disturbing, mind bending and successfully reminiscent of a Cronenberg reality. Award winning for its ingenuity, the transition from digital to physical space pushed new boundaries.
TIFF: David Cronenberg’s Body, Mind, Change
Details
Client
TIFF Bell Lightbox
Project
Body/Mind/Change: David Cronenberg
Size
1,000 sq. ft.
Scope
Exhibit Design
Location
Toronto, ON, CA
Year Completed
2013
Budget
Undisclosed
Overview
Body/Mind/Change is an art installation developed as an immersive and interactive extension of the exhibition David Cronenberg: Evolution. Eerie and disturbing, the experience extends digital gameplay into physically immersive storytelling.
Impact
Responses to the AI Simulation
250,000
Engagement with Simulation
3x the expected number
Personalized PODs Printed
100's
2 Awards Total
AAM MUSE
2014 Jim Blackaby Ingenuity Award
AAM MUSE
2014 Honorable Mention in the category of Games and Augmented Reality
The Goal
For the Body/Mind/Change experience, TIFF, Canadian Film Centre’s Media Lab and artist Lance Weiler conceived a fictional Los Angeles-based biotech company to create POD (Personal On-Demand), a biotechnological “recommendation engine” implant designed to help its human hosts effortlessly discover their needs, loves and desires. The experience featured a digital presence and physical installation designed by R&P at the TIFF Bell Lightbox 4th floor gallery. Visitors would participate online and be presented with three increasingly strange and distressing simulations to calibrate the personality of their PODs. These artificial intelligence companions would later be 3D printed for display. The display space was to be designed to enhance and extend the digital into the physical, reminiscent of a Cronenberg film.
The Design
Presented with the idea of the B/M/C game, R&P conceived the installation as a fictional biotech laboratory within the TIFF gallery space. R&P proposed using the transformation from digital to physical as a central piece of the experience utilizing scientists (actors in lab coats) at work hatching new PODs with 3D printers made to look like incubation chambers. Visitors look in through metal shelving units with mason jars mounted to the underside of each shelf, lit with internal blue LEDs. The jars house the PODs while they ‘grow’ to maturity—a simple display system for the 3D printed sculptures that give them an eerie life-like presence. They were similar to cadaver-filled specimen jars or the biomorphic implants that feel reminiscent of a Cronenberg film. The room is completed with a mirrored back wall to give the illusion of a larger active laboratory space. Furnishings were made of either metal or white plastic to create a sanitary, medical appearance.
The space was created with a medical clinic theme. The reception area provided a history of POD product development, and an overview of clinic services. CFC Media Lab provided the wall graphics to match the online and mobile platforms while R&P ensured they met environmental graphic accessibility standards. The reception desk and matching BMC Lab signage is designed using a dark black shiny finish to give it a foreboding futuristic look and feel.
The Result
Body/Mind/Change was disturbing, mind bending and successfully reminiscent of a Cronenberg reality. Award winning for its ingenuity, the transition from digital to physical space pushed new boundaries.
