Snibbe Studio and Snibbe Interactive are proud to release a new iOS music app, born from a collaborative venture between our sister studios. The app reveals a feature length interactive treatment to the incredible new Philip Glass Album REWORK_ with eleven visualizations of his music remixed. The album, made in collaboration with Beck, was released last month and features other artists including: Tyondai Braxton, Amon Tobin, Cornelius, Dan Deacon and Johann Johannsson.
This epic collaboration is just the beginning of things to come.
Here at our studio, in San Francisco’s SOMA district, we anticipate that 2013 will be the year of new creative collaborations, not only between our studios but also amongst other pioneers of machine vision and touch-based technologies. Sharing our insights through meet ups, collaborations and the occasional Christmas party, are all great ways to mature these fledgling technologies into full bodied interactive languages.
To learn more about the app, read Snibbe Stuido blog for details. You can also purchase the app here.
We are very proud of the interactive walls, floors and displays we’ve developed for hospitals and clinics throughout the country. Recently, Microsoft’s Kinect for Windows team was so inspired by our work at Alex’s Place, a children’s oncology unit at the University of Miami, that they produced this heartwarming video about the clinic and the power of our Character Mirror powered by Kinect for Windows. Watch the video above and check out the Kinect for Windows blog to read more about it.
In the Studio, we often find ourselves talking about the transformative power of gesture and touch technology in our work and daily lives, which people are beginning to call Natural User Interface. In October, our very own Scott Snibbe was invited to speak on a panel at the Seattle Interactive Conference that addressed these same themes and asked the question: where is this technology going? There are some very interesting answers and the Kinect for Windows team writes up a great summary on their site. You can read more about the event here.
For more information on how to make the Kinect work for your needs, contact us.
This launch joins the already available versions on Apple and Android, fulfilling our cross-platform goals. This app allows multiple fingers and players to use gravity, and anti-gravity, to create a cosmic world full of multi-colored particles in all shapes and sizes. There will be a second version released in December that will jam along to your favorite musical tracks.
Grant Stevens (Business Development) and Zheng Yang (Immersive Media Engineer) were fortunate enough to show off this app during a boat cruise in Seattle. Thrown in conjunction with the 2012 Build Conference it was a fun party with many of Microsoft’s top app developers demonstrating their products for Windows 8. Gravilux is popular as an app and installation as we previously made an appearance with Gravilux at the Calvin Klein fashion show in Seoul.
Our Creative Director, Graham Plumb, spoke at the Digital Out-of-Home Interactive Entertainment Association (DNA) conference in Los Angeles earlier this month. His panel titled “Maximizing Social Media in Leisure Facilities” highlighted the strategies to maximize social media in entertainment locations, such as amusement parks, hotels, and shopping malls. Graham drew upon Scott Snibbe’s paper, “Social Immersive Media” (CHI, 2009) to discuss the design principals that create successful immersive experiences.
Interactive Digital Strategy using Snibbe Interactive's SocialShare Kiosk
A perfect example of maximizing social media to share a physical experience is our Social Share Platform. It allows users to share a video of their interactive experience with their online networks.
At the DNA conference we revealed a strategy becoming strong with our top clients, the “360 Degree” approach that takes into account the user engagement before, during, and after people are onsite, by leveraging apps and social media that draw people in, and then engage them later. With the 360 Degree approach, engagement becomes less about the technology used in the interaction and more about story and relationships. In an age where we can all take out our mobile devices and instantly connect, it is more vital than ever that the interaction is meaningful and relevant.
For more information on how to connect with our Social Share Platform, click here.
However, this is information we are allowed to leak! Snibbe Interactive is thrilled to showcase our latest permanent installation in the La Concha Motel Lobby of the Neon Museum in Las Vegas, opening on October 27th. The exhibit features two large interactive kiosks with LCD monitors, displaying our InfoTiles technology with hand-tracking capabilities. Visitors gesture with their hands to move a selector box and choose a tile on screen. The tile flips over to reveal information about the Neon Museum in the form of text, images, or video. This experience keeps visitors entertained and engaged as they interact with various tiles to learn more.
The Neon Museum is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving iconic Las Vegas neon signs. They have collected over 150 signs that date back to the 1930s. This museum project has been in the works for the last 15 years and everyone in town is excited to finally reveal this historic and cultural landmark to the world. Tours and ticket information can be found here.
For more information on how to brighten up your space with an InfoTiles kiosk, click here.
Snibbe Interactive's Creative Director Graham Plumb @ East Bay Center for the Performing Arts
Snibbe Interactive puts on its dancing shoes this Saturday, September 29th for the debut of our latest permanent interactive installation at East Bay Center for Performing Arts in Richmond, about 16 miles Northeast of San Francisco. The interactive comprises of four street-facing 42” LCD monitors displayed in the windows of the recently renovated Winters building.
Inspired, in part, by Scott Snibbe’s large scale video installation Transit, at LAX, this public art piece amps up the experience by adding an interactive element. “Our new piece at the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts is a kind of x-ray view into the heart of the center, showing people from the outside the kind of joy and play going on inside with music, dance, and performance. But more than that, it also draws passers-by into that play, with magical interactivity, taking a person’s movements and gestures, and sprouting ribbons that wind through the silhouette performances of the actual people who teach and learn there,” says Scott Snibbe, interactive artist and CEO.
This project is part of a larger vision by Richmond city officials and local organizations to socially engage the community and celebrate its diversity. Historically, Richmond, especially the Iron Triangle neighborhood where the Center lives, is known for high levels of poverty and violence. With the renovation of the Center and the addition of our interactive art piece, the city hopes to provide opportunities for the youth to explore their creativity and restore community pride to all residents. This effort has even caught the attention of the San Francisco Chronicle!
Close up of Performers in Interactive Display
The unveiling will happen at 6pm during the Richmond Arts in Motion street fair along MacDonald Ave. The street fair runs from 1-8pm and features dance and music performances, food trucks, and activities for kids.
For information on how to get your own groove on with an interactive display, click here.
Last spring, The New Museum of Contemporary Art teamed up with Calvin Klein, Inc., to throw a stunning one-night-only bash of high fashion and interactive art mixed with glamorous celebrities on the rooftop of the iconic Seoul Station in Seoul, Korea. Scott Snibbe was one of three interactive artists commissioned to heighten the celebration which featured Calvin Klein’s new fall collection. A bright interactive wall made shooting stars that defy gravity was the best choice for interactive entertainment and we developed a custom installation (read: InteractiveHaute Couture) which featured our Gravilux app.
Gravilux is played with on an iPad, iPhone or Android phone but for this event we projected a stunning interactive star field on a large wall surrounded by an exhibition Calvin Klein’s innovative and minimalist fall line. Throughout the evening, guests could control the visuals via an interactive touch interface nearby. Celebrities decked out in Calvin’s Klein clothing attended the show including Lara Stone, Chloë Moretz and actress Kate Bosworth, who wrote about it in the August issue of Vogue.
You can expect Snibbe Interactive to make another stylish appearance at an upcoming launch of a well known fashion house that will feature our socially immersive interactive retail display. We may be self defined interactive tech geeks but we dress up pretty nicely when asked.
Two members from our team, Alan Shimoide (Director of Engineering) and Grant Stevens (Sales and Strategic Development) were fortunate enough to attend the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) in Toronto, Canada last month. This conference is held every year and brings together all of Microsoft’s partners around the globe to showcase innovative ways to use Microsoft technologies. Since we’re all about innovation here at Snibbe Interactive, we took this opportunity to demonstrate our award-winning SocialMirror Coke Kiosk and adjacent SocialShare component using the Kinect.
WPC is the only event of its kind, allowing companies from all over the world in various industries to cross paths and engage on an enterprise level. Alan and Grant rubbed elbows with top companies in advertising, education, and government as well as those in our own field. Snibbe was one of the first companies to adapt the Kinect to commercial gestural exhibits and displays last year, and is a partner and distributor for the new, more powerful, Kinect for Windows SDK. We are a member of the Kinect for Windows Advisory Council, the Technology Adoption Program (TAP) initiative, and we are developing products using Microsoft’s PixelSense technology on the Samsung SUR40.
We are a little jealous here at Snibbe Interactive as our award-winning Coke Pouring Interactive Kiosk is currently on-site at the 2012 London Olympic games, while we are all stuck here watching from home or the studio at an eight-hour time delay.
The kiosk is in the Coca-Cola Hospitality Center at Olympic Park where its largest partners and vendors are able to interact and send their experiences to the cloud via our SocialShare adjacent component. Players use their arms, hands, head, or legs (for those with Gabby Douglas flexibility) to collect and pour a stream of refreshing Coke into a clear glass.
Microsoft advertising and its relationship with Coca-Cola brought us this Olympic Branded Kiosk opportunity. We were selected because of our unique solution to utilize K4W, creating an interactive commercially branded experience for Coke Cola Bottling Consolidated Company and now for Coca-Cola Corporate.
When Coke Cola Bottlers Consolidated Companies (CCBCC) came to us for a fun interactive game they could use for a promotional opportunity we brainstormed about how we could play with the soft drink in an imaginative way that was also mobile and completely plug and play. We decided on an interactive display to inspire a social game that gets people moving and uses your body to direct a virtual stream of Coke Cola into a glass. Coke Pouring Kiosk uses our SocialMirror™ technology in a simple game that invites open ended play and attracts attention. Shoppers can share their experience, via our SocialShare™ Kiosk to friends and families in their social networks.
The Communicator Awards in Corporate Imagery & Gaming
SocialMirror™ Coke Kiosk won two awards; one for Excellence in the Corporate Image Category, and another Award of Distinction in the Gaming Category. The Communicator Awards is the leading international awards program recognizing big ideas in marketing and communications so this is a nice complement. We are blushing… Thanks Communicator Awards!
