Infinium Room – Interactive Audiovisual Experience

Cour Content and EAMotion created an interactive representation of the infinite for all ages at the Adventure Science Center in Nashville.

Nashville’s Adventure Science Center approached Cour Content and EAMotion to create an all-ages exhibit that could be consistently engaging. Knowing the client did not want to be locked into something static, the team recognised they’d need to programme flexibility. They aimed to be able to curate, build, and rotate a library of experiences that could stand alone or be activated to complement existing programming today or ten years from now.

As Mike Kluge, Creative Director and Notch Designer at Cour Content, put it, their team wanted to focus on “infinite possibility” in a way that wasn’t overly literal or didactic. They also wanted to use an elliptical approach to allow space for guests to fill in the blanks. So, they set out to create an installation that would “feel” like infinity on a visceral level.

The team created both passive and interactive elements. The passive components comprised pre-rendered video assets sequenced with Resolume and Ableton. Ableton played back eight channels of audio and a timecode that synced the video assets and audio together. Christian Thomas of Live Stems designed the Ableton playback system, which included a custom iPad layout that allowed Adventure Science Center staff to choose different experiences.

For the interactive components, the team built pressure sensors into an LED floor with the help of developer Nate Turley. Said sensors turned into a binary black-and-white video texture–a value representation of an activated LED tile–through TouchDesigner. The team then fed the texture into a Notch block as an interactive input for visuals.

“Notch allowed for quick ideation, so once we landed on a concept we loved, we packaged it up into a Notch block with each experience on different layers and were able to switch between them via a TouchDesigner system. Combining TouchDesigner’s data and media server capabilities with a Notch content engine makes for an interaction designer’s dream.”

Mike Kluge, Creative Director & Notch Designer, Cour Content

Additional press coverage:
NewsChannel5.

Client: Adventure Science Center
Production Company: EAMotion
Production Design: EAMotion
Creative Direction: Erik Anderson, Emily Pierce, & Mike Kluge

Notch Designer: Mike Kluge
Video Director: Mike Kluge
Lighting Designers: Erik Anderson & Kenny Gay
Animators: Mike Kluge, Matthew Delisi, Mollie Tarlow, & Lauren Cierzan