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Archive for the ‘events’ Category

InfoTiles in WIRED Times Square Store

Friday, December 16th, 2011

Titan tech magazine WIRED reprised its annual holiday pop-up store in New York City’s Times Square, featuring among others, Snibbe Interactive client Dell Computer.It’s not just a shopping destination, as WIRED’s site explains, “it’s an interactive experience that allows you to touch, test and tinker with the most ‘wired’ products out there for the digital  gentleman, gadget girl, gastronaut, smarter upstarter, adventure capitalist, maker, or culturazzo in your life.”In keeping with the “interactive experience” WIRED envisioned, Dell turned to Snibbe Interactive to provide a customized installation of our popular InfoTiles interactive wall display to showcase their WIRED-worthy products.

“Their customization was interesting in that they added videos hidden amongst the tiles that, when activated, brought up animated shorts of new Dell products and corresponding characters like an ‘inventor’ or a ‘genius,’” says exhibits manager Patrick Wilson. “They’ve done it in a real sleek look with a really pared down color palette. It’s all blacks and blues and whites, which fits in well with the technology showcased at the WIRED Store.”

After WIRED’s pop-up retail experience runs it’s course, Dell’s InfoTiles will likely travel next to Texas where Dell is headquartered.

“The beauty about this sort of installation is that it’s not only customizable it’s portable and can be used in a variety of settings and updated with new content to match new venues and promotions,” says Wilson.

Scott Snibbe explores education and apps at TEDxLondon

Wednesday, December 7th, 2011

In this interesting talk from September’s TEDxLondon, subtited “Education Revolution,” Snibbe Interactive founder Scott Snibbe reminds that “math was invented to model nature.” He explored this and other notions while working on Bjork’s critically-lauded iPad app and album project Biophilia. In this video, Snibbe recounts the creative process as well as demonstrates the live integration of the app into Bjork’s interactive onstage performances.

“Sometimes education misses the poetry, motion and wonder of the natural world,” says Snibbe, who points to the possibilities of iPads and apps as a means of combining educational initiatives with entrepreneurial pursuits. He added wryly, “I pledge to continue making art that tricks people into learning about science.”

Telling a Story Through Interactive Design

Thursday, November 3rd, 2011

Snibbe Interactive founder Scott Snibbe recently spoke at the San Francisco campus of the California College for the Arts in an evening dubbed “What Does an Interaction Designer Do?”

In essence, an interaction designer is a storyteller.

“Every person’s life is a kind of hero’s journey. Every person was born, every person is going to die and when you can look at people like that, you have so much more love and compassion towards them,” said Snibbe in a post-panel interview.” I think that’s what’s missing a little bit in this kind of online world. It kind of flattens the world.

Snibbe suggested finding a way of crafting stories for individuals, which, counter-intuitively, can be achieved by subtracting information rather than sharing too much, too soon.

“By only sharing small bits of information you piquing curiosity and you tell a story,” said Snibbe. “Stories often begin by knowing how things turn out, but then your curiosity is engaged as to how you got there.”

What’s your story?

3 Ways Interactive Displays Succeed (and Ring the Bell!)

Monday, August 1st, 2011

Interactive Display beats Highstriker“Step right up!” the carnival barkers would, well, bark to induce suckers to test their strength with ye olde hammer and bell game. The so-called “highstriker” attraction was a fixture in the carnivals and theme-parks of yore, until the 1930s when Popular Mechanics revealed most of them were “fixed.” Hustling he-men aside, the reason highstrikers were so popular (and still occasionally cameo in our culture) is for the same three reasons a successful interactive displays work today.

They’re both…

Physical – But instead of the blunt force of a mallet, an interactive exhibit uses a far more elegant form of engagement – the movements of the visitor’s entire body. Using invisible sensor technologies, a visitor can move unencumbered and elicit myriad effects depending on the exhibit (see examples). Such interactivity short-circuits the rational mind and reinforces an emotional connection to the experience. Ding!

Emotional – An interactive display delights and inspires by responding directly to its user’s actions, which creates a feed loop of positively reinforced results – the more your interact with it, the more satisfying the experience becomes (unlike the highstriker, which makes your muscles as sore as your ego). Like real life, which isn’t fixed with a set outcome (like no bell), an interactive exhibit is always changing, producing infinite variations while responding to the user’s image, silhouette, gestures or masculine displays of upper body strength (okay, maybe not the last one).

Social – Whereas the bell-ringers are likely showing off to their date or peers, an interactive wall like Snibbe Interactive’s SocialScreen, for example, encourages a group dynamic, which is more constructive than it is competitive. In fact, the more people interact with an exhibit, the more dynamic it becomes. Try this with the highstriker hammers and it’ll look like a game of polo gone tragically awry.

What’s more, the rewards of engaging with an interactive exhibit are far more satisfying than, say, the stuffed animal one might win. Visitors gain a shared memory that connects them and their friends and colleagues with an experience that deepens their relationship with the exhibitor’s brand or event — as well as to each other. Step right up and ring our bell!

Snibbe Interactive and Björk’s Biophilia

Tuesday, July 12th, 2011

Snibbe Interactive is proud to announce our production of interactive multimedia and concert visuals for Björk’s new Biophilia tour. The Biophilia live show has its world premiere as part of the Manchester International Festival, with Björk’s first live concert performance in nearly four years. Björk continues performances at Manchester through July 15, and then goes on to a three-year world tour of six-week residencies in eight different cities. In each city Björk will perform Biophilia twice a week, using interactive apps to play live a set of custom built musical instruments.

The video and stage visuals produced by Snibbe Interactive evoke an atmosphere similar to being inside an app itself, with eight screens mounted surrounding a central stage. The immersive concert environment also includes floor projections with cymatics imagery of vibrating sand; a collapsing galactic “reverse big bang” that envelops Björk; a 24-woman Icelandic choir; and famed percussionist Manu Delago. Live imagery from interactive iPad apps, and music and instrument control from these apps, blend seamlessly with the stage performance. In addition to original animation and video, Snibbe worked with several brilliant animators including MacArthur award-winning bioanimator Drew Berry, abstract animator Stephen Malinowski, and cymatics artist Meara O’Reilly.

In Manchester and subsequent locations, the venues also host a series of music-education workshops in collaboration with local schools to emphasize Björk’s integrated vision for Biophilia of Music, Technology and Nature.

Press release from Nonesuch Records

Björk at the Manchester International Festival

New York Times review of Biophilia by Jon Pareles

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Bjork photographed in Manchester on 23 June 2011. Photo by: Carsten Windhorst / www.frpap.com / info@frpap.com
Björk beneath Drew Berry’s Hollow animation

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Icelandic Choir performs under Stephen Malinowski’s animated score

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Björk in her amazing spliced mini-dress/evening gown with Scott Snibbe at rehearsals

All photos by Carsten Windhorst/Press

How our Interactive Word Wall Made Shanghai Speechless

Friday, November 5th, 2010

“Chinese audiences absolutely love the Dream Lantern interactive. Especially kids, it’s a big hit with them!” – Christian Lachel, ICP Creative Director, BRC Imagination Arts

Working with BRC Imagination Arts, Snibbe Interactive created a customized Word Wall experience for Information and Communications Pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai Expo, sponsored by China Mobile and China Telecom.

The two interactive walls show colorful ICT Power™ characters flying across the screen. As visitors to the expo walk in front of the walls, the characters drop 3D animated dream lanterns. Using their shadows, people can interact with the wall to catch and collect the lanterns and release fireworks. Visitors can later retrieve a personalized video of themselves interacting with the ICT Power™ characters that can then be shared online via SocialShare. If a picture is worth a 1,000 words – the Word Wall is truly exponential.

Floodgate Investments uses Interactive Wall to Launch new Fund

Monday, April 12th, 2010

Snibbe Interactive created a customized InfoTiles SocialScreen for the recent launch of founder Mike Maples Jr.’s Floodgate Fund. By creating a large interactive wall, entrepreneurs and investors at the launch event in San Francisco were able to interact socially and physically to understand Floodgate’s investments in companies like Twitter and Digg, and also to understand the fund’s unique “Super Angel” approach to investing.

Ann Miura-Ko, Partner in Floodgate said, “We couldn’t have found a better way to get a brand message across in a social setting. The interaction conveyed our brand message directly from the display to the attendees, allowing me to focus on the high level interactions with our guests.”

For more information, read the press release from April, 2010.

See Snibbe Interactive at IAPPA in Las Vegas this week

Monday, November 16th, 2009

IAAPA

Snibbe Interactive will be exhibiting this week at the The International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions Expo in Las Vegas (IAAPA 2009). Scott Snibbe will be there in person to meet with clients and visitors, and we’ll be demonstrating several SocialScreen products, customized for entertainment applications. Come visit us at booth number 5105 at the Las Vegas Convention Center from November 17-20.

iaapa preview

Stanford talk on Social Immersive Media

Wednesday, October 28th, 2009

Watch Scott Snibbe’s talk on Social Immersive Media at Stanford University’s Seminar on People, Computers, and Design organized by Professor Terry Winograd last May. The talk gives an in-depth presentation of a theory and practice of Social Immersive Media – augmented reality that focuses on social interaction – with specific applications in museum exhibits, and marketing, and art. The Academic CHI Paper on which this talk is based won best paper of the conference in 2009:

UX Week Talk Video now online

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009

Watch Scott Snibbe talk about Social Immersive Media including applications in museums, commerce, education, and art at UXWeek 2009 on their blog or below:

Scott Snibbe | UX Week 2009 | Adaptive Path from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.