Unmoored
2018
Digital app for a mixed reality experience
Exhibited in Times Square, NYC, from July 11th to September 5th, 2018
Unmoored explores a potential future of melting ice caps and rising oceans filling Times Square. Developed in collaboration with Microsoft, Unmoored allows guests to explore a submerged Times Square in mixed reality, to use their mobile phones to access an augmented reality experience.
Guests who look up in Times Square experience an incoming flotilla of boats of all kinds, making their way around existing buildings into the square — eventually creating a nautical traffic jam above. Boat age in the air; occasionally bumping into each other while waves break the silence of a surreal floating canopy of hulls. Apparitions appear, based on living species of plankton, and seem to seek connection to the human audience.
Collaborators:
Artist: Mel Chin
Producer: Microsoft / Listen
App Developer: Zengalt
Digital Asset creation:
Krista Albert, Justin Coo, Joe Gamble, Dallas Moore
Some models were created by Marine Microalgae Research Associates LLC, using National Science Foundation funding (Biological Oceanography program grant OCE-1155663 awarded to Jeffrey W. Krause), and are therefore in the Public Domain.
Sound:
Kurt Feldman, Listen
Scientific Research:
Jeanette Yen, Dave Haffner
Mel Chin Studio liaison and support:
Amanda Wiles, Audrey Zhuoer Liu, Dallas Moore
UNC Asheville digital asset prototypes:
Forest Gamble, Zach Farber, Mario Zigante, Maddie Pesce, Sam Burke, Klesa Colgrove, Wes Stroupe
Special thanks to Stanislav Bulavin of Zengalt and Sarah Ibrahim and Steve Milton of Listen