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.
eFlow is a fun and creative way for people to engage and connect while physically distancing. Whether at a drive-in event or virtual event this collaboratively creative platform can be easily branded or themed.
eFlow‘s platform is fully customizable – custom stamps, brushes, and backgrounds are all possible to create branded experiences for your event. The ongoing live collaboration can be displayed publicly by projecting the canvas large-scale at your physical event as well – creating a hybrid experience for both onsite and virtual attendees.
eFlow is an artistic collaborative WebGL fluid simulation that works in your browser. You and other online participants can collaborate with colors and shapes on an ever-changing canvas. See the networked artwork shift and grow in real time as others join in on the fun.
Previously…
Outdoor Immersive Storytime
At the Anythink Brighton Drive-In Storytime event, as attendees got settled into their parking spots, they were able to play with eFlow on the screens across their personal devices and see their the projection screens in the lot.
Virtual Dia De Los Muertos Experience
Alt Ethos created a custom Dia De Los Muertos interactive experience for Thornton, Colorado’s 5th year of its annual celebration. While October 2020 restrictions transformed this hybrid event into online-only, visitors were able to connect and share the community memorial video online and play with others decorating the sugar skull on eFlow.
Let’s talk about ways that Flow can bring magic and play into your event! Interactive and immersive exhibits take your event to the next level.
Developing communities are a true artist’s dream. They are a blank canvas upon which creativity can be carved from nothing. The essence of public art especially fosters creativity in ways other art forms do not. Digital design, sculpture, and architecture can all create the groundwork for a community thriving in culture. However, planning and investment of creative resources must be utilized carefully to create public art that has meaning and impact.
What is Public Art?
Public art, simply put, is architecture, murals, sculpture, or digital designs that are created in the public domain. They are accessible to all and are used to create beauty and culture within an otherwise purely pragmatic space. Public art has been an important part of community development since the early 20th century. It can encourage collaboration and community involvement that provides a sense of pride to area residents.
Public art can include city sculpture, architecture, wall art, and other mediums accessible by the public. Traditionally, public art has included sculpture, murals, ecological design, and occasionally digital displays. However, in the digital age we are seeing an influx of interactive public art designed for user interaction, or experiential design. This trend is slowly but surely gaining traction in areas where community development takes on an innovative approach.
The Problem with Public Art as a Part of Community Development
Public art can contribute to culture and residential satisfaction, however in most community development projects, it is taken very lightly. Oftentimes the limited budget for public art is taken from the same budget that provides for affordable housing or roadway improvements. When residents see an eyesore art piece coupled with potholes and underdeveloped residential areas, public art can quickly turn into the lowest priority for community members.
Developing communities have the opportunity to make public art more than an afterthought.
Many developers don’t pay attention to the inclusion of public art, but it can make an impact on community areas if done correctly. An art piece that has cultural meaning, modern relevance, and interactive elements will be cherished by residents and worth the time and investment.
How to Make Public Art Valuable to the Community at Large
Instead of going the traditional route, many developers are leaning towards digital, interactive public art to include in their community projects. Experiential designs and digital media displays are modern, unique, and engage community members to give them experiences, not just stagnant aesthetics.
Creations of installation art, interactive architecture, interactive film, and interactive storytelling through digital landscapes all offer communities more to experience and enjoy. An interactive public art piece where residents can make memories, tell their own stories, and unleash creativity adds exponentially more value than a static piece commissioned by one local artist. With experiential design, community members become the creators. When this happens, public art matters.
These digital interactive pieces can transform an area into a more modern community. It attracts community members to otherwise declining economic areas, offering a springboard of inspiration to make more out of a community development project.
For examples of experiential design in community development projects and other public spaces, check out some of AltEthos’ current and past projects.
AltEthos works with community developers, landscape designers, and local artists to bring visions into interactive experience landscapes that can transform communities. Change the way people see, feel, and live in your community by adding real value in the form of public art. The change starts now with AltEthos.
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.
Since the inception of our company in April 2016 our mission is and has been to use interactive technology to bring people together. We’re dedicated to advancing awareness of interactivity to the public. Since then we’ve gained a massive amount of support from Denver city government and industry leaders. In order for us to achieve this we’ve made a key focus of becoming part of the creative tech community both in Denver and outside, gathering as much knowledge and insight as we can to boost our abilities and ultimately enhance Denver.
In January Paul Elsberg – CSE Chief Sales Engineer / Creative Developer attended New Orleans’ INST-INT conference, an annual gathering of interactive technological exhibitions showcasing practical creative applications drawing together diverse groups of people; In other words, right in our wheelhouse.
INSTINT EXPLORES THE ART OF INTERACTIVITY FOR OBJECTS, ENVIRONMENTS AND EXPERIENCES.
INST-INTis a one of a kind, world renowned annual conference which draws in eclectic A-list interactivity pros and attendees with exhibits of Installation & Interactive Art, Experience Design, Responsive Environments & Objects, Interactive Exhibits & Displays, Creative Coding, DIY Making & Hacking, Architecture & Technology, Sensors & Wearables.
Matt Maes – CIO Chief Influence Officer / 3D Generalist previously participated in MIT’s “Reality, Virtually, Hackathon!” which according to Network World’s Steven Patterson set a record for the largest VR/AR hackathon.
He later continued his game development experience in the Global Game Jam hackathon, an open competition organized across the globe with a focus on bringing gamers together to create work which engages them to act as part of a team. Maes has also been extended the opportunity to speak on the VR/AR panel at GlobalMindED conference in June. GlobalMindED is a nonprofit organization focused on increasing the success rate of first generation college students, connecting graduates and employers.
On April 19th at the Commons on Champa we’ll be presenting Our Vision for Denver and celebrating our One-Year Anniversary as a company. Our CEO Ethan Bach will be speaking on our vision for the future of Denver as an international hub for innovative experiences with media in the physical realm.
We’ve lived, worked in and experienced Denver for years and now our plan is to use this technology in collaboration with government and industry leaders to establish Denver as a mecca for creative, connected experiences. Bach has experienced a fascinating journey within immersive media, art, activism and ultimately bringing his knowledge and experience as CEO of Alt Ethos.
After the presentation we’ll be celebrating our one-year anniversary with drinks, hor d’ouvres and the unveiling of our interactive LED wall located at the end of the hallway leading to the Event Space. Our installation utilizes Kinect sensors to synchronize with your movement patterns, mirroring a variety of positional effects on opposite LED screens in real-time.
Our purpose behind this installation and our work at large is to design intimate experiences within groups of people. Our sense of reality is determined by how we process our senses. Engagement in an active and playful vs passive experience brings us to a higher state of awareness which we normally wouldn’t experience in our day to day lives – An experience which suspends you for a moment, embracing all and saying “This is about you. You are included and important.”
In our research we’ve stumbled upon some staggering and encouraging facts which shine a light in the direction of our purpose:
Customer Experience is the future of design. Adopting practices that elevate the customer experience will undoubtedly produce a return on investment and provide a steady foundation for your brand.
-UX Magazine, 2016
Experiential Design activates chemicals in the brain: Dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins; These increase happiness, productivity, and customer loyalty.
-The Neurochemicals of Happiness, Psychology Today and Technology Advice
Experiential Design increases brand awareness by 81% and increases a deeper customer involvement by 57%
-Brand Survey, Report Event Marketer, 2015
Millennials spend $3.3 billion annually in Colorado. $2.2 billion annually in Denver alone.
-The Millennial Influence in Denver, Development Research Partners and Census.gov, 2016
The Commons on Champa
Over the past two years our company has had the privilege of working out of the Commons on Champa, downtown Denver’s small business entrepreneurial hub. For all of the recent positive signs our current success wouldn’t be possible without their support.
The Commons on Champa represents a partnership between the Downtown Denver Partnership, Colorado Technology Association and the city of Denver. The Commons parallels the openness given by its name in its practices by providing resources and workshops to holding high tier events, stapling its name as Denver’s most openly centralized habitation space for Denver’s future entrepreneurial leaders. We’ve taken in a great amount of insight and support from mentors and other key influencers into what it means to connect progressive minds together. We’d like to shine a spotlight on their work and share words from the man who runs daily operations, Jesse Shuler.
Jesse Shuler – Building Coordinator manages the Commons day-to-day operations with a keen mind and a light heart. Jacqui Dietrich – Program Manager lends her entrepreneurial insight into functions which staple the Commons as an environment which fosters small business growth. Together they’ve allowed a solid place for us to excel, developing a close relationship with us along the way.
We recently had the opportunity of interviewing Shuler for an in depth talk on the Commons’ amazing set of resources which he describes as “A public private partnership which became Denver’s first public campus for entrepreneurship. When we opened our doors we wanted to create a campus which is gonna supply entrepreneurs with all the kinds of tools they’re gonna need – A place where anyone is welcome. We really wanted to lower the barrier with access to great resources like mentorship, the US Patent and Trademark Office, the Small Business Administration, or amazing space which has great technology, a great community and just feels right to work in.”
The Commons was established and aims to “Act as a blueprint that anybody can use. The mission is wholeheartedly to authentically create a hub which showcases Denver’s commitment to the entrepreneurial community.” – Spot on statements on a remarkable space.
Shuler also had encouraging words for our company and his insight into interactive technology: “The market is demanding new and progressive ways of connecting with people. What I’ve seen is that the standard marketing techniques are pretty tapped out. The market demands for something to change and be more progressive and Experiential Design does that because it connects to people on a more human level – it taps into your senses, your emotions and your sense of time and space. Experiential Design tends to resonate with people a lot quicker. It spikes out of the status quo. Experiential Design takes you out of what is the day to day and the normal and gets you thinking a lot bigger, more creatively, and it creates a lot more platform for opportunity to expand your brand.”
We asked for his insight on what blend of skills best dictates success in our industry and for entrepreneurs as a whole: “A skill that is very important is to pay attention to what the market is demanding. Take your skill set, your knowledge, your expertise and supply what the market needs. If you’re able to be flexible and pivot and think big I think that’s a huge need especially for folks in Experiential Design.
He also had some warm words on our history together: “It’s been really fun to get to know the Alt Ethos team. I’ve loved the experience of taking what technologies we have on our own campus and overlaying it with the Alt Ethos ideas and seeing what happens from it. It’s been really fun to think creatively and think big on how we can explore the technology.”
Thank you Jesse and all at the Commons. Here’s to many successful times ahead.
Matt Maes is a Denver animator focused on immersive and interactive technology. He is Chief Influence Officer ofAlt Ethos, Ltd and is also an executive member of the nonprofit organization Denver Arts and Technology Advancement (D.A.T.A.)
