Multimedia studio Moment Factory captured the imaginations of visitors in their home city of Montreal with their immersive art experience, sharing the project with a global audience as part of Australia’s annual Illuminate Adelaide event this June. Though the Canadian team were operating from the other side of the world, disguise’s collaborative tech platform, disguise Cloud with Mapping Matter, allowed them to deliver a show just as dazzling as anything they’d achieved before.
A magical space to explore
A playful, interactive experience that allows visitors to determine the content that fills the space around them, Mirror Mirror was set to fill multiple rooms as part of Adelaide’s popular winter event; celebrating innovation, music, art, technology and the famous festival of lights.
“It was important to come up with a playback strategy that would allow real time audio and video as well as the pre-rendered audio, video and lighting to stay coherent and synchronized across all of our zones,” said Jeffrey Chaussé, AV Designer, Moment Factory
Guests could walk over reactive digital rivers, sending messages from their phones that would inspire displays, while also playing with digital mirrors that would skew their reality in strange and bewitching ways.
Keeping things coherent
One of the biggest challenges the team faced was ensuring the interactive elements of the show didn’t disrupt the overall experience for visitors.
With multiple rooms offering very different ideas, and a range of ways for audiences to interact with the spaces, the Moment Factory team needed to ensure everything was tied together as seamlessly as possible.
disguise’s workflow offered a simple solution, enabling the entire show to be run through on two 4x4Pro servers that could be controlled without fuss. “By minimising the amount of tech needed to run such an elaborate show, the team were able to seek the perfect balance which would maximise the audio and visual effects quality while keeping the equipment out of sight as much as possible,” says Chaussé.
With Moment Factory’s offices in Montreal half a world away from the Mirror Mirror event in Adelaide, Chaussé had a thirteen and a half hour time difference from the local technical team that would be putting the show together.
“Since it was a collaborative project, we often had to exchange data between different 3D software,” says Chaussé.
Using disguise’s Mapping Matter to map the space out in advance, and keep track of changes and developments as they happened, the team was able to collaborate between themselves by exchanging files to upload and update in the application. Where one team member left off, the other could seamlessly pick the work up. The programme was also key to creating a fluid and responsive working environment.
“As well as making it easy to import, export and share the different plans, Mapping Matter allowed us to quickly react to set design changes and adapt our workflow accordingly,” said Jeffrey Chaussé.
A breathtaking experience
Upon opening, Mirror Mirror was an immediate success with visitors. In a cold Adelaide winter, the experience provided a space to get lost in different worlds. One visitor, who was blown away by the visuals around her, said “I was walking around with my hands out in front of my body, because I thought ‘I don’t know what’s real, I don’t know what’s not real!”
Another said they felt like they were in an alternate universe. “It was so interactive as well, which was great,” they said, “and all the different colours and shapes were just wonderful!”
Mirror Mirror was an opportunity for Adelaide to see themselves reflected back in new ways – but it was also a window to the possibilities disguise’s tech offers immersive experiences in Australia, Canada, and beyond.
