To say that the last two years at Alt Ethos have been a whirlwind of busy excitement would be an understatement. That is why we are taking a moment to slow down and look back at everything we have accomplished and where we are headed in the coming years. Here are just a few moments that made the highlight reel:
Looking Back
After months of brainstorming, planning and recruiting, Alt Ethos landed our first major client in early 2017. The project involved creating Soundscape for the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery. This first installation combined all of our passions: immersive projection mapping, interactivity, and spatialized audio and brought our vision to life.
Finding a New Home and Traveling
With plenty of passion driving us forward, we began producing lots of work and seeking new clients in several key markets. By this time, we had become full-time tenants at Commons on Champa. Our new home also became a client and we actually completed several installations in the space, including an interactive LED hallway. It was an amazing time for the company.
As part of our constant quest for new ideas and partners, Ethan traveled to the ix conference and Paul was off to the i/o conference to find inspiration and make connections. At the same time, we delved into the events industry with installations at both 5280 Magazine’s Anniversary Party, and Denver Startup Week.With each new experience, the company was gaining momentum and name recognition.
It wasn’t long before we moved our office to Prism Workspaces and celebrated with an open house. This most recent move has fueled our creativity and allowed us to expand our capabilities as a company.
Another milestone included a trip to Albuquerque in October to participate in the Creative Startups Accelerator program where we acquired a lot of new knowledge and workshopped various aspects of our business. This event helped us to developed a plan for the future and hone strategies that will take us to a whole new level. We found that this crash course/boot camp for creative businesses to be invaluable and we are constantly referring back to things we discovered and learned during our time there.
Notable Projects
Taking this newfound knowledge and inspiration, we started blazing a trail to what we now separate into two categories known as Events and Environments, which has resulted in partnerships with a myriad of new events.
Some highlights include:
Creating a 20’ tall lion sculpture for Gari Safari’s Halloween at the Church Nightclub. This project involved create a 3D rendering that was then turned into a physical object that included two moving heads and laser beams that projected from the mouth. It was quite a treat for party goers.
Installing our Balloon Hive in the form of a DJ booth for Meow Wolf’s Denver Announcement party. Different size balloons were attached to a wall and used as a projection screen that totally transformed the room. This same concept can be used in practically any space with stunning results.
Developing a fabric instrument that was showcased at two cryptocurrency conferences; ETHDenver and Token Fest. This interactive display not only created a conversation piece, but played a vital role in starting conversations and encouraging hackers to connect and collaborate.
Celebrating Our Second Anniversary in Style
To mark our second anniversary, we hosted an annual talk at The Commons on Champa, Denver Vision. As part of the night’s lineup, Ethan gave a keynote address and hosted a panel inspired by his blog article “The Meow Wolf Effect”. The event was a success and has spawned a series of meetings designed to keep the conversation going when it comes to fostering creative technology in Denver and its surrounding areas. Be on the lookout for more updates regarding these efforts in the coming year.
Since our anniversary, we have been working hard on creating more great experiences for people. We are continuing to push forward on our rental product line and beginning to offer more and more ready-to-deploy installations catered towards events of all kinds. Check out our rental page for more details about what we have to offer.
Our partnership with the Downtown Development Authority of Fort Collins, Colorado is also in full swing. This project will augment a mural painted by Italian artist Peeta, with interactive animations. During the day, visitors to Old Town will enjoy the amazing work of Peeta and at night the mural will come to life, tracking visitors who move through the space to influence the animations. Keep your eyes out for more details on this project as we move forward.
There are a lot of other irons in the fire, projects in development, fun being had, and coffee being consumed here at the Alt Ethos Studio. After looking back at all we have accomplished so far, I can’t even begin to imagine where we will be at this time next year. We will continue to bend reality and challenge perceived limitations in new and exciting ways. If you are interested in hearing more about our work, feel free to contact us. We never tire of talking to people about what we do and our vision for the future.
Creating a high engagement museum exhibit with the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery
Background
The Fort Collins Museum of Discovery was looking to activate an old exhibit space into an engaging experience, so they turned to Alt Ethos to create a lighting instrument. The previous exhibit displayed a looped video about the music scene in Fort Collins with a set of couches for visitors to sit to watch the video. The exhibit was passive; they wanted an environment that captured visitors’ attention and pushed deeper engagement.
Fort Collins Museum of Discovery
Objectives
1.Create a unique instrument playable by multiple people at the same time.
2. Turn the space into an active experience that engages people of all ages.
Solution
Step 1: User Experience Research
The team began the journey with user experience research to better understand the community that enjoys the museum and the relationship between the vision of the organization, personas of the users, dynamics of the space, and interactions that connect people to the space and vision.
Step 2: Design
Paul and Ethan take a meeting to learn about the museum’s needs.
The design phase highlighted that the tucked away location of the piece was a unique opportunity to engage “sweater holder” parents as well that don’t often interact with the exhibits choosing instead to watch their children and sit off to the side.
The ideal interaction time was approximated around five minutes to ensure adequate flow throughout the other exhibits. The team moved forward with wireless sensing technology located overhead in the room to maximize the life of the exhibit by basing the interaction dynamics off of the position of audience members in the space.
Step 3: Development and Testing
A child dances among the lights, activating new sounds in the space.
The development and testing of the exhibit occurred in a series of sprints. The major benefit of the sprints was iterative testing of the sound curation because in generative sound environments it can be easy to be swept into a cacophony of sound.
Tuning the parameters to limit key aspects of the sound design along with smoothing sensor data was a major breakthrough in the design that pushed the aesthetic of the installation.
Step 4: Implementation and Delivery
Alt Ethos installed the installation over the course of two weeks ensuring that any major physical changes to the environment took place on the Mondays when the museum was closed.
An essential factor in a smooth delivery was remote access to the computers allowing for the team to make changes and improve the software while not onsite. This allowed for a faster delivery time and for changes to take effect rapidly during the installation phase.
Step 5: Evaluation
What formerly was a passive exhibit is now an active space for all ages.
The use of wireless sensing technology also meant that as soon as a person enters the space, they became part of the musical composition. After the implementation and delivery, this dynamic was identified as a key variable in converting passive adults to active participants in the museum experience.
Doing so created an environment ripe for more connections to the space that involved the whole family thus driving more memberships, donations, and buy in from the adults in the local community.
As a growing creative startup, finding a place to work and build in a rapidly growing city can be a challenge often overlooked. After working out of our home for over two years at The Commons on Champa we were ready for some growth into a space where we could work and build.
We still love The Commons and visit, hold events, or work there often. Searching for something at the scale we needed for the price we could afford was proving to be difficult. After scouring the market for a couple months our good friends at TVL Creative let us in on their secret.
They rented a space in an artist, maker, and creative workspace called Prism Workspaces. This conglomeration of a couple buildings sits on the outskirts of downtown just south of Mile High Stadium in an industrial park just a gust of wind away smells of greenhouses full of Colorado’s cash crop. The unassuming warehouse style buildings contain a labyrinth of workspaces for some of the most phenomenal creatives in Denver.
Outside of Prism workspace.
We moved into Prism in October of 2017 into a 1300 sq. foot unit for a fraction of the price of other spaces we had been looking at. Apart from the size, location, and price what has really excited me was the community and the passion people had for the work they did.
Day in and day out the noises from people building, and making things fills the air at Prism reminding us of the creative energy flowing heavily through the space.
This place is special.
In the social and political climate since the Ghost Ship fire, creative spaces have been uprooted in many places around the country. Makers, creatives, inventors, artists, and musicians have been reeling to find places to live and work since their displacement. The tragedy rocked the community and has touched many of our lives so very deeply.
Preventing something like that happening again is certainly important however the implementation of the enforcement has caused a lot of discomfort and even suffering among people in our community. Although Prism doesn’t solve any of the housing issues, the feeling of the DIY community workspace seems to thrive, while also maintaining a healthy relationship with the City.
The synthesis of professionalism and creativity shouldn’t be feared, and the feeling of the community can still flourish.
Our office inside of Prism.
After almost 8 months, we have really found a home at Prism. Our office and studio space allows for us to work together in a space we can be proud of. With ample space for desks and individual workspaces paired with a great meeting area and a large fabrication and build space, we have a natural and efficient flow to get a good volume of quality work built and designed. We have ample space to build out installations for testing or prototyping before we deploy final products.
Welcome to the Alt Ethos interactive installation factory.
Coming up 7 months after our first open house not long after we moved in, the Prism Community is hosting another open house. We are so excited to show you what we have been working on the past half of the year.
Please come by and see what we have in store for this event and also check out what our neighbors will have to show. The theme of this open house is Ultraviolet, so expect a lot of purple!
Come celebrate with us at the Prism Workplaces facility-wide open house to take in the work of talented artists, designers, and creatives. We are grateful to be a part of this community as we continue to expand our organizations into new possibilities.
The open house will be held on Friday, June 1st, 2018 from 5:30pm to 11:30pm at Prism Workplaces 999 Vallejo Street, Denver Colorado. Alt Ethos is located through entrance 2 at space #30.
It’s nearing summertime, and with the winter thaw, the warm air, and the summer sunshine comes the events season. Music festivals, corporate retreats, conventions, expositions, weddings, and parties parties parties. Logistically, it’s a cutthroat industry, with 32% increase in competition among event planners in 2017 (Eventbrite 3rd Annual Pulse Report). Invariably, organizers of these events are always looking for ways to stand out, seeking with dedicated hunger the latest and greatest entertainment that the world has to offer.
One medium for entertainment that is globally on the rise is that of the Digital Dome – an immersive domed environment that is projection mapped to display 360° visual content, usually accompanied with equally immersive audio systems. Akin to the ever-evolving Virtual Reality technology, where participants can slip into an altered reality of light and sound, the Digital Dome unlocks new potential for event organizers to captivate attendees with the all-encompassing content of their heart’s desire.
Want your 200 person audience (actually, domes can hold many more people than that – we’ll get to this later) to experience summiting the peaks of Mt. Everest, diving into the depths of the Atlantic Ocean, or dancing on the surface of the moon? All of the above? Digital Domes make that possible.
Geodesic Dome Projection, Obscura Digital
May this blog post serve to evangelize this unique medium and educate those thirsting for the bleeding edge of events entertainment.
Evolving from the early days of your favorite neighborhood planetarium, Digital Domes have come to cater to many different types of uses beyond the realm of science and astronomy; from brand, launches to live concerts to video gaming and training simulations. With the rise of technology, possibilities are becoming limitless for the types of environments that Digital Domes can create.
Sizes of Digital Domes can vary from a few feet, perfect for a single person, to two hundred feet, capable of holding thousands of people. They can be permanent fixtures embedded into architectural designs, or temporary pop-ups perfect for trade shows and ephemeral events.
L’Hemisfèric, The City of Arts and Sciences, Valencia, Spain. 110 meters long, and 55 meters tall.
With this new medium on the rise, artists and producers from many backgrounds and industries are experimenting with dome activations. Recently, major festivals in the music and entertainment industries have found major success with domes, including;
With massive gatherings like these thrusting Digital Domes into the forefront of entertainment, it is an exciting time to be in the know about this evolving medium.
But that is not the end of it. At the beginning of 2018, the Madison Square Garden Group announced their plans to build a MASSIVE permanent events dome in the heart of Las Vegas, Nevada. This dome is reportedly going to be an 18,000-seat arena, built specifically for music and entertainment performances, and also could host esports competitions and possibly boxing and mixed martial arts.
Artist rendering of the “MSG Sphere”
It’s clear: the Digital Dome is on the rise. The question now is how to get in the know with this new medium and start using it to your benefit. As an artist, a fan, or an event producer, there are more ways than ever to get up to speed on Digital Domes.
The following resources are recommendations for all those who are interested.
A website dedicated to fulldome shows, domes around the world, organizations, and events.
If you are an artist or fan in the Colorado Metro region, please join us at MORPHOS Digital Dome Programs including workshops, an artist in residency, and art show. For more information, please visit our sister nonprofit organization Denver Arts and Technology Advancement (DATA).
If you are an event producer who is interested in bringing a pop-up Digital Dome to your next event, you are interested in purchasing a dome, or would like some content development, don’t hesitate to contact us at Alt Ethos! We will be happy to assist you with any and all of your fulldome needs.
Pitching new and experimental engagements with your audience to your boss or client is no easy task, especially when your organization is unfamiliar with experiential design. In the experience economy, inspiring your audience with disruptive media can amplify your impact in monumental ways but too often ideas fail to come to fruition. So how can we advocate for creating engaging environments more effectively to our boss?
Understand your boss’ perspective For starters, striving to become more aware of the aspects of the business, specific strategies and endeavors, and opportunities for growth that your boss values is a step in the right direction. Likely, you are already intimately involved in many of these efforts but it can help immensely to put yourself in their shoes to see the organization from their eyes as best you can.
Say your boss is trying to create a campaign for a specific holiday to boost revenues. Then coming up with an experience that ties the celebration of that day to your product like Molson’s The Beer Fridge celebrating Canadian Federation Day is a great place to start.
Find a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (that’s tied to the quality of experience) Be prepared to connect the benefits of an improved experience to your goals as an organization. Where are you headed and what are your key performance indicators on the path to getting there? Great experiences come from big hairy audacious goals that require creative thinking and unconventional methods to create a memorable experience.
…And Solve It Map out the goal and how creating a memorable experience for your audience will get you there. Make sure to consult any experts within your organization that have an intimate stake in this goal to garner further understanding.
Working with a well-defined goal hand in hand alongside creative and marketing resources expedites the process to collaboratively developing a concept incorporating marketing strategies, innovative technology, and beautifully fabricated objects that accomplish said goal.
Ask questions to clarify with the experience designers any places where you aren’t clear. We’re here to help you to illustrate the experience inside and out with grace.
Experiential Marketing can have profound impacts on the bottom line for big and small companies alike. For instance in the six months immediately following Redbull’s World Record Stratos Freefall, sales rose 7% to $1.6 billion in the U.S., according to research firm IRI.
Plan how to measure the results Defining strategies to measure impact provides assurance that through studying the effects of the experience, you’ll ensure this is a sound investment of your organization’s money, time, and energy. When creating an interactive environment, there is a massive opportunity to connect the sensors that allow audiences to control various forms of light and sound to record and report their measurements as quantitative and actionable insights.
For Old Navy’s 20th Birthday their #Selfiebration wall generated 640 million twitter impressions, 13,669 contest entries, and 17,498 uses of the tag #Selfiebration.
Connect the experience to your digital presence In the information age, a majority of organizations are utilizing websites, social media, and other digital technologies to connect with their audiences online. Stepping outside the comfort zone of online marketing strategies into designing an experiential physical environment opens a whole new realm of possibilities to intertwine the two realms. In this case it’s important to illustrate the connection between the existing endeavors online and how this environment will galvanize more sharing on social media, more searches on google and more marketing qualified leads, subscribers, etc.
Refinery29 brought their imaginative spirit into the real world through 29Rooms an experience that connected 29 of their digital partners with audiences and created a plethora of highly shareable content that circulated throughout the web.
Visuals, Visuals, Visuals So now we have a great idea and a plan to measure its effectiveness. With all this legwork your almost prepared for a great pitch, but there’s one more key concept we’ve discovered along our travels. Developing visual materials of the idea is essential to stimulating the imagination of your boss. We commonly curate pinterest boards to assist with ideation but there is also a well of information from searching both Creative Applications and Vice’s Creators.
-by Paul Elsberg
Check out Alt Ethos’ Projectsfor examples of how experiential exhibitions, temporary or permanent, can excite a range of audiences.
If you are an artist or fan in the Colorado Metro region, please join us at MORPHOS Digital Dome Programs including workshops, an artist in residency, and art show. For more information, please visit our sister nonprofit organization Denver Arts and Technology Advancement (
