Marriott International, Inc. is an American multinational diversified hospitality company that manages and franchises a broad portfolio of hotels and related lodging facilities.
Marriott asked Dream Space to team up and create a one-of-a-kind, revolutionary interactive art installation in one of their hotel locations.
The concept and design of the installation were based on a foundation of five core pillars:
PEOPLE – Experimenting with human interaction using immersive technologies, and embedding real-time interaction.
EXCELLENCE – Pursuit of perfection, attention to detail, and finely tuned visuals of data analytics, based on statistics provided by Marriott.
CHANGE – Art is ever-evolving, and so should this installation be. Morphing lines and particles representing a harmonic shift in time and space.
INTEGRITY – Honesty, truthfulness, and accuracy of one’s actions; moral righteousness.
WORLD – The power of global connections–and Marriott’s global network.
While the code for the installation was being written this animation was designed and created to tease what was to come. Electric lines gently and consistently travel back and forth between ‘Data Spheres’. These lines represent streams of data and connectivity between Marriott’s many properties and illustrate the positive experiences shared by Marriott’s global guests. The installation uses a network of MAC ‘Mini’ computers connected to 6 individual projectors, with a combined length of over 100ft. With seamless merging between projections, the installation appears to be one giant canvas.
We partnered with Unity and Intel, using a RealSense Depth Camera and Sensors to retrieve depth and position data. Capable of recognizing multiple users at once, this piece is truly interactive–with the actions of one user directly affecting the interaction of others in the corridor. Using unique and specially written code, and built using the Unity game engine, this piece is truly bespoke.
At its base, the “default screen” of the installation is a globe made up of dots representing data from Marriott’s global network of customers and locations. For centuries, visual displays in the form of maps and images provided a critical interface by which to better understand the world. The map here, combined with new technologies, allows humans to interact with geospatial information in more immediate and “natural” ways than ever before. As users traverse the hallway, they create a swarm of data points that proceed to follow them in their journey. These data points, representing data from the customer themselves, are constantly in motion–interacting with the data points of the map, distending, distorting, and moving the image of the globe. This provides two layers of interaction: one between the user and the installation, and one between elements in the installation itself.
