On behalf of The Colorado Creative Industries (CCI) and Alt Ethos, we invite you to our virtual presentation “Global Creative Connection through Immersive Virtual Worlds” hosted in our new Pathos Metaverse, a 3D avatar platform, this Friday October 1st, 2021 at 2:00 PM MST
Alt Ethos Presentation: Come explore the future of art, technology, and global connectivity through virtual worlds from top creators and thought leaders in the immersive industry. The pandemic shot us into the future of digital engagement and immersive worlds. As some creatives quickly grasped the change to become known internationally, others were left confused. This talk will walk you through the history, present, and future of virtual worlds and how they will impact the global community, our professional lives, and our collective digital future. Speakers:
Julian Reyes, MC
Eric Dallimore, Moderator Panelists
Carlos Austin
Ethan Bach
Evo (Evonne) Heyning
Celeste Lear
Q&A from audience submitted in writing
Carlos Austin, Real-Time “In World (VR)” Live Multi-cam video switching and still photographer at Austin Photograph
Carlos is passionate about the arts with an emphasis on photography/video “in-world” TV production and emerging drone technology. An XR evangelist as this technology begins to mature. Helping create Broadcast television standards for capturing live events in virtual social platforms. Real-time switching live shows with a multi-camera setup. There are so many opportunities to communicate and educate the world through XR. 3rd Generation photographer and storyteller.
Ethan Bach, CEO Alt Ethos
Ethan Bach is the founding CEO of Alt Ethos: experiential design agency and Founder and Board Member of DATA (Denver Arts + Technology Advancement). Westword calls Ethan, “An entrepreneur with an eye on the future’s future.” Bach holds an MFA in Electronic Arts from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Alt Ethos is an award-winning design company and has been recognized in CodaWorx Magazine; the Young Industry Professionals, and by the Mayor of Fort Collins.
Evo (Evonne) Heyning, Metaverse Media. Creative Executive Producer
Evo Heyning is an award-winning producer, technologist, founder and creator focused on the future of participatory media. Evo focuses on collaborative teams that work across fields, sectors, and platforms to create meaningful global endeavors. Evo has created virtual beings, worlds, and campaigns for 20 years. Evo produced major live streaming concerts and campaigns for the White House including the launch of the Affordable Care Act and virtual worlds for diplomacy, civic engagement, and nonprofit development.
Celeste Lear, Immersive Event Producer & Designer, XR Entertainment Specialist, Music & Sound Director, Host, VR Consultant
DJ Celeste is an entertainment & event industry professional with 15+ years of concert, festival & conference production experience. Immersive technology expert skilled in designing & executing cutting-edge events both physically, virtually, AND in Virtual Reality. First in a new wave of DJs who design their own stages & perform as avatars in VR Festivals and Nightclubs. Executive music direction, production & clearance for International, multi-media installation projects for UN & UNESCO, including a large-scale video mapping experience in Paris.
About Pathos Metaverse
Pathos Metaverse is a browser-based virtual world by Alt Ethos. For this panel, all of the speakers will be avatars in the Pathos Metaverse. Through live-action virtual cinematography, CCI participants will stream the event in real-time. Selected avatar audience members will also be in attendance and watching the entire production in the Pathos Metaverse.
Pathos Metaverse is an easy-to-use, dynamic, and engaging immersive platform. Pathos Metaverse provides exciting meeting places, dynamic events, branded virtual worlds, and future-thinking hybrid-virtual-world solutions, pushing the boundaries of interactivity.
Now that we are starting to have small attendance-capped in-person events, Hybrid Events are a great opportunity to enhance real-world events while integrating online interactions. There have been numerous successful virtual trade shows, events, and conferences which have increased worldwide attendance over their previous physical events.
Keep the increased worldwide engagement going, while offering diverse ways for your guests to join your in-person and virtual Hybrid Events. By gathering a smaller group in person and a larger group virtually, we are able to achieve some of the face-to-face interaction while also keep attendees safe.
There are several ways to throw Hybrid Events that are engaging, productive, and fun. The Alt Ethos team began creating hybrid experiences over 13 years ago and would love to help you find the best solutions for your audience and goals.
In the BizBash article, What Will Hybrid Events Look Like?, Cara Kleinhaut, founder and CEO of AGENC Experiential & Digital Marketing, notes:
“We must deliver a simultaneous digital experience that mirrors the live experience in quality and interaction—and not leave digital participants on the sidelines with a Zoom chat or a passive viewing experience, which is still the majority of what we see out there.”
What was a memorable experience you had in a virtual streaming conference? Could you tell us about the most unique Zoom meeting you had last week? Can’t think of anything? Us either!
We are being inundated with video streaming in chats, conferences, and events. Repetitive experiences, day in and day out, are creating a lapse of memory and connections. Where once we attended in-person events – networking during a mixer, listening to a speaker, and lining up for free drinks – now we find our virtual events have a lack of engagement.
Your event and audience engagement is important to us.
Alt Ethos wants to help you succeed in creating dynamic connections that create lasting impressions. We want to partner with your organization to achieve your goals in the virtual and partially-virtual event spaces. We provide unique and engaging platforms and environments that highlight your sponsors, integrate live entertainment, and provide a variety of virtual world experiences.
To all of you, we at Alt Ethos have been working hard to innovate solutions for this changing time. Communities and organizations around the world are at a high level of confusion, overwhelm, and disconnection. Like you, we had our times of frustration as we navigated the rough waters of the unknown. We also saw it as an opportunity.
Our communities are starting to come out of stay at home orders around the globe. How shall we experience community spaces and not end up on national news like the Memorial Day waterpark parties? Watching these gatherings can make you feel unhinged and afraid to engage. In this desire to re-open and reconnect with our constituents, we intend on providing flexible solutions that retain ROI if and when another wave of shutdown orders occurs.
That is why Alt Ethos has been doing research and design since the closing of the first major international event in the United States, SXSW.
During this crisis, that feeling of isolation can make everyone feel disconnected. If municipalities and corporations can’t find a way to safely connect with their constituents, they miss the chance to provide support and a sense of well-being.
Now is the time to step up and activate your communities and create the future of placemaking, entertainment, and advertising. A culture that is resilient, fun, and provides an opportunity for connection. It is our destiny as humans to create new solutions, visions, and activations to reinvigorate the next steps in social healing. It is the responsibility of our cities, our libraries, our public art, and our local businesses to reconnect with our communities.
Your contribution to the recovery of this crisis is going to be massive. You are creating the future of community building and entertainment. We know we are a small percentage of the population that imagines the future even in the time of a world crisis. We are looking for you to create, to connect, and to activate new solutions.
Get started by downloading our new Experiential Design Playbook. First, to get an idea of what is possible and mutable in uncertain times. Second, to increase the support your constituents feel connecting a greater bond to your city or your brand. Create activations that make your message easier to hear, simultaneously inspiring engagement and making a contribution to your community.
Learn all about our COVID re-entry experiential design solutions:
For decades, murals have been an essential form of creative placemaking in urban spaces that are designed to brighten local communities through art. Alt Ethos is transforming the impact and nature of murals through augmenting them with projection mapping and real-time motion graphics. This synthesis of old and new combines visual artistry with state of the art technology to explore a new creative medium designed for public engagement.
Projection mapping casts pixels on a surface in a way that is similar to how a painter casts paint onto a blank canvas. Both techniques create beauty and evoke emotions, but the former offers its viewers the opportunity to imagine themselves within the canvas and experience visual content that is dynamic.
How Projection Mapping Works
If you’ve ever been to a movie theatre or watched a powerpoint presentation, you probably understand basic projection. On that most basic level, light is displayed onto a flat surface to produce an image or video. In projection mapping, the same concept is applied to 3D objects, creating visual content with an emphasis on 3D form.
Projection mapping offers the ability to turn a mural into a dynamic piece of video art during the night time hours. The murals can be as simplistic or intricate as desired and the visuals can be tied to a variety of interactions that connect the audience and surrounding environment with the placemaking activation.
This transformative creative technology opens immense possibilities to engage audiences and embrace the creative placemaking that has propelled many murals into the urban landscape. Now both a daytime and nighttime engagement are a reality.
At night, the piece transforms based on the motion of viewers as they pass – encouraging audiences to impact their visual experience through motion and the passage of time. This creates a “community first” dynamic, drawing audiences of all ages into an environment where they collaborate to transform a piece of architecture.
Alt Ethos Mural Project
This approach has been at the heart of Alt Ethos’ latest project, a nighttime interactive mural in collaboration with world renowned Italian artist Peeta. Peeta was the perfect partner for the first iteration of this new technology as his conic twisting forms, starting from a digital model, create a playground for visual content opportunities.
If you are interested in exploring the social and economic benefit of this new creative technology, please drop us a line at hello@altethos.com
Experiential design isn’t just a buzzword in marketing. Not only can it be effective for businesses trying to gain customers, there are many other creative uses for this artform. Experiential design is used in art shows, private events, and more recently, live music performances.
From Super Bowl concerts to experimental musicians, this practice is taking hold in the music industry for a variety of reasons. Live concerts aren’t just about the songs anymore. Concert-goers expect a full show, complete with visual entertainment and the opportunity to interact during the performance. While experiential design can be a major concert draw and build fans’ loyalty, it can be difficult to pull off for mobile designs. If you’re planning an experiential design for a concert or live performance, keep these three principles in mind:
Create elements that are on-brand and audience friendly
This should be somewhat obvious, but many designers focus on creating elements that “look cool,” yet are not on-theme with a brand’s message or persona. You must choose elements will add value to the live performance and will drive home the artist’s main message, persona, or theme of their tour. Album art or music videos can serve as great sources of inspiration.
Easy design and maintenance
Offering design elements that are easy to operate and maintain can solidify your relationship with an artist. If your equipment malfunctions or doesn’t operate as intended, no matter the reason, the artist will be disappointed and more likely to choose another partner for their next stage design. While you might have access to a tour technician, you still want to ensure the equipment is easy to use so that you can eliminate as much of the learning curve as possible.
Lightweight and durable
Custom fabricated lighting and set design pieces are some of the most difficult to create because they have to be mobile. You must choose your materials carefully to ensure they are easy enough for a roadie to transport, and durable enough so that if they are tossed around on the trailer, they won’t be permanently damaged. Using waterproof materials when possible is also a plus, making your equipment safe for outdoor concerts.
Recent projects
Just recently, AltEthos built a stage design for experimental electronic musician CloZee who draws on musical inspirations such as Tipper and Amon Tobin. CloZee incorporates intricate light and projection displays into her theatrical performances. We offered her several nature-inspired units using LEDs to cast changing light onto the stage.
Alt Ethos created several free-standing tree trunk units with muslin finish and placed an LED bar to shine through a frosted crack in the surface. The units contain a simple, detachable backboard for maintenance, and come in custom carrying cases for safety. You can view the finished design on our Instagram page.
We hope these interactive, colorful trees serve CloZee well on her 2018 tour, as using these three mobile design principles supported our stage design philosophy. For more information on how AltEthos does stage and experiential design, click here.
For city planners and councils, constantly finding new ways to Improve a community’s economic and social growth is not an easy task. The best way to get people out of their homes and into the streets to interact with their neighbors and spend money at local businesses is to provide a unique experience that engages people of all ages. That is why communities are turning to experiential design events that use the new forms of art to attract hundreds of visitors and provide a major boost to the local economy. At Alt Ethos, we can help you make this type of event possible through the latest in modern entertainment and light art festivals. Learn more about this cutting-edge community experience and how to plan your own event:
If you have never heard of light art, or luminism, it is an art form where light is emitted from a sculpture to create a specific visual effect. Several light sources can also be used to create art on a surface. These techniques are often used in combination with local architecture for a highly visible final product. This type of art is creative, engaging, and a real crowd-pleaser.
While light art festivals aren’t yet commonplace, they are increasing in popularity as cities work to find new ways to attract visitors and engage residents. Hosting a light art festival in your city provides people a fun and interactive experience. It also puts your city “on the map” as destination for an extra-ordinary festival.
Tips for planning your festival:
Determine a best location – Because light art is often created by projecting light onto walls and other outdoor “canvases”, you need to choose a location with an ideal architectural landscape to accommodate a variety of light sculptures.The Sydney Opera House is one example of a unique building that provides the perfect venue for light art and while also challenging artists. Not every city is home to such an architectural icon, so keep in mind that plain white buildings will also provide plenty of space and can be used for light sculptures of all kinds.
You also want to take other logistical factors into consideration. Be sure to choose a place where road closures won’t cause too much inconvenience and visitors will have plenty of space to safely walk and shop vendors.
Create an application process – For your festival to be a success, you must invite a variety of light artists as well as other street vendors. Your artists are the backbone of the event while food trucks, charity organizations, and other vendors provide festival goers a variety of entertainment during their visit. Stick to an easy, clear application process that will streamline the organizational process of the festival.
Direct your proceeds – Most festivals include a vendor or artist fee to join, which is an easy way to raise money and eventually sell sponsorships for your event as it grows in popularity. You can use these funds to improve your community, fund other festivals, purchase light projections, or support the arts in your area.
Pick reliable partners – The more you are able to assemble a cohesive team, the better chances you have for success. Choosing partners for your website, event organization, PR, and other services will make the process easier and will ensure your festival continues to grow each year.
Provide your own immersive experiences for guests – Artists and vendors will make your event unique, but as the event planner or sponsor you can add your own immersive experiences. Experiences like LED sculptures and digital domes are popular in light art festivals, and will keep guests passively entertained while they view and experience the art and other activities at your event. You may also consider taking projection mapping to the next level and consider placing interactive projection mapping over existing murals to increase engagement.
Alt Ethos is a leader in creating immersive light sculptures and experiential designs you can use to light up your city for an interactive light festival. These sorts of events are novel, exciting and sure to boost your city’s overall economy if well executed. We can help provide the infrastructure for your event with light displays, stage designs, and more. Contact us today to learn more and get started planning your event.
