Creative Technology Brings Us Together

Amid societal strife, integrators can fuse architecture, storytelling and technology to deliver indelible experiences.

By Alesia Hendley (Republished with permission from Commercial Integrator.  For more information, go to CommercialIntegrator.com)

WHAT WAS THE FIRST EVENT to which you went after lockdown? Mine was the Van Gogh Alive exhibition. I was a little conflicted at first. I hadn’t been around more than 10 people at a time in about a year. I hadn’t been to any venues. And yet, I bought tickets to go check out an event that was showcasing art within an enclosed space.

Why did I do it? Probably because I geek out over things like Van Gogh Alive, and I’m not alone in doing so. We #avtweeps step into a space and look up to see what’s installed. We just do. I wanted to know what technology was driving those larger-than-life images. I wanted to be inspired. I wanted to feel some sense of normalcy again. Most of all, I wanted to experience it for myself — and to do so in person. It wasn’t something I could livestream or participate in online. The event created a sense of “You have to physically be here” to grasp the full experience.

While there, I took pictures. I even created a video to try to capture the experience, sharing it with those who weren’t willing to go back out into the world just yet. But, for me, there was nothing like being in that space…being immersed in art powered by AV technology. Immersive experiences drew me — and draw us — back into the world. These kinds of events bring us back to sharing experiences together. It created a sense of purpose…of community…of fellowship… of excitement through so much tragedy.

Immersive experiences help us to feel a part of something again. Van Gogh Alive took off across the country. Slowly, city by city, it helped to reunite all of us.

The Art of Engineering

Immersive experiences aren’t new. However, they have been pushed to the forefront. What’s driving this? Well, we can do a lot of things from the comfort of our homes now. We can buy clothes and food online, so why go to a store? We can experience our favorite musicians, performing live in concert, almost from anywhere in the world, with extreme high quality and without throwing ourselves into a mosh pit. Our standards for being lured from our homes have been raised.

The art of design and engineering is now being driven by out-of-the-box creativity. These days, creating spaces that people want to leave their homes for is the focus. Our industry is laser focused on making these spaces inviting, functional and immersive because those facets are the key why for people to venture out into the  world. Over the years, we’ve seen companies like Electrosonic innovate experience design by fusing architecture, storytelling and technology. If your integration team isn’t currently designing or looking to design immersive experiences that create a sense of purpose and wonder within communities and brands, they should be.

Immersive has been the past, and it’s certainly the present and the future. ISE opened up with projection mapping for thousands of people, and one of the biggest names in digital art keynoted. None of that was a coincidence. InfoComm had offsite tours to highlight immersive experience across verticals. None of that was coincidental, either.

These trends will not die off. Our collective “why” is now to design spaces with meaning bigger than the technology we sell. And it’s our job within AV to design with creativity, and to design with passion and purpose, so that people have meaningful experiences to look forward to, contrasting with the backdrop of ongoing tragedy that we see on the news every evening.

Mount-It! PRO Helps Build Larger-than-Life Experiences

Whether it’s the “Beyond Van Gogh: An Immersive Experience” exhibit or a menu board for the local cookie shop, Mount-It! PRO is proud to partner with audiovisual designers, consultants and integration firms looking to create the next “larger-than-life” digital display experience for their customers.

With our extensive lineup of direct-view LED mounting solutions, as well as our off-the-shelf public display, digital signage and menu board mounting products, we support nearly all manufacturers’ displays in nearly any application. And with our U.S.- based pre- and post-sales customer care teams in place, we stand ready to serve our AV community partners.

Mount-It! PRO – Advanced, yet affordable, commercial mounting solutions.