German multimedia design studio flora&faunavisions has created an “interactive space for discovery and emotions”, says the founder Leigh Sachwitz of their The Magenta Moon initiative, located at Berlin’s Leipziger Platz. The studio’s goal was to create a playful and intuitive walkthrough installation as a means of sparking important conversations around sustainability, technology and media.
The Magenta Moon experience is composed of various workshops, talks, maker spaces and an interactive escape room for individuals to participate in. With the main feature of the initiative being the mesmerizing Magenta Moon Garden full-immersion installation.
The exhibit is comprised of three distinct visual environments: Sunrise Garden, Moon Garden and Magenta Moon. Each environment transports the spectator into a magical immersive experience, with intuitive, interactive real-time elements, while highlighting social, political and climate realities. The installation is especially designed with an easy-to-approach manner, suitable for a wide audience regardless of their media literacy skills.
The Moon Garden is designed with immersion and safety in mind, featuring a large-scale interactive media installation that blends natural garden elements with 60’s inspired architecture, highlighting current vital issues and topics. The Moon Garden is at its most dazzling by moonlight, as users enjoy the sensation of being immersed in glowing blossoms and calming fragrances. The captivating interactive experience creates a welcoming escape from the hustle and bustle of everyday life.
“The enchanting Moon Garden reveals its magic by moonlight: blooms open and glow, accompanied by soothing fragrances,” says flora&faunavisions. “The shifting, but predictable patterns of interactive sculptures and objects satisfy both mind and eye, making the Moon Garden a great refuge from the everyday bustle – a place for regaining strength and feeling safe and in control.”
Visitors are invited to create virtual gardens, whilst smelling, tasting and picking real plants available on display. All the senses get to experience the interactive installation through its hybrid design, combined with digital and analogue facets.
Gigantic wall projections fill the entire Leipziger Platz space, with poetic videos that react to visitor movements in real-time through the use of radarTOUCH laser scanners. Visitors are able to participate in an interactive game that spans across the themes of media literacy, digitisation and sustainability.
The escape room offers anyone with basic reading skills an opportunity to learn how to identify fake news from real facts, as well as gaining insight into various factors such as diversity, climate change, future of education and new technologies. The sounds and harmonies used throughout the installation allow the visitor to compose their own downloadable soundtrack as they make their way through Magenta Moon. Such an initiative is a great way to highlight how individual actions have a direct impact on their future.
“The interactive moments highlight a sense of autonomy – It’s up to me what happens – I can do something to shape my own future,” says Sachwitz. “There’s no alternative to real-life encounters. But hybrid concepts that blend digital aspects with safe live experiences can offer new scope and space for such moments. And serve as hopeful symbols of how to create a sense of normalcy in uncertain times.”
Visitors can walk safely through the installations, with measures put into place to avoid touching the art works and respecting social distancing. The Magenta Moon interactive initiative was open to the public at Berlin’s Leipziger Platz between October 17th – November 1st, 2020 and was commissioned by the German telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom.
