DROP IN THE OCEAN

New York , New York

Thinc designed a walk-through installation shaped like an oversized jellyfish. The jelly’s body creates a dome above the VR arena and long tentacle forms sweep around to create an external armature. Sound, lighting, and imagery combine to produce an ambient, immersive environment that hints at the content of the virtual experience. An off-boarding area provides an opportunity for people to decompress, reflect on their experience and, if they choose, transform their responses into active participation in the movement for ocean health.

One tentacle envelops an entry-queuing area. Anticipation will build for the VR experience through visual and auditory immersion. The tone is simple and wondrous. An ocean soundscape helps to build anticipation. Once inside the jelly and fitted with their headsets, people will step into the arena onto a spongy floor surface, designed to intensify the sense of the virtual ocean experience.

During the design process we explored the spectrum of naturalism to abstraction for the jelly form: too far in one direction and it wouldn’t read like a jellyfish, too far in the other and its anatomy would prohibit the use of the VR. In the end, we created a real synergy between the form and the technical requirements of the VR infrastructure.

This was the real challenge: creating an exuberant form to tell a story in its own right, and simultaneously be a venue for other stories to be told. Designing the fabric print was a particular challenge: we scripted a pattern that worked technically for the VR and aesthetically for the form.