Immersive installations are multimedia exhibitions that immerse a person in the world of images and affect several channels of perception. It is not just a beautiful location, but a space where people use their hearing and vision, experience tactile sensations and control the installation through their actions and special sensors. That is, he becomes a participant, not a spectator.
The growth of interest in exhibitions began in 1992: then 29% of citizens visited museums, in 2022 this number increased to a record 43%. Immersive installations came to Moscow later: first, thanks to international authors who came to Russia "as part of a tour" (for example, the exhibition of Android Jones, Android Jones, SAMSKARA), and then it was taken up by domestic companies and government agencies, realizing that "live" art is the future and the demand for them will grow steadily.
Thanks to the general interest, companies have started to think more and more often about creating their own installation. At the start, it is important to understand that organizing and launching your own multimedia exhibition brings not only fame, but also "takes" a lot of time and money: the "from and to" preparation time is about half a year, and the cost of creating your own project ranges from 5 million ("ceiling" there is no "ceiling"), and the most expensive part will be the purchase or rental of exhibition equipment (projectors, controllers, lenses, etc.).
Vladimir Rozin, CEO of IT GROUP OPEN, will tell you what to do for those who want to create an immersive exhibition from scratch, where to start and what nuances you need to know about.
Step 1: Think about the idea
What kind of multimedia exhibition do you want? This question should be asked at the very beginning. From the answer it will become clear what to do with the team, what location to look for, etc.
Let's take a look at what multimedia exhibitions are on the radar right now:
One long-running trend: artists' exhibitions. Long and undeservedly forgotten or, on the contrary, famous writers of paintings can be revealed in a completely new vision. For example, the sensational exhibition in Artplay, dedicated to the French Impressionists, is designed in the style of "Cinema360" - this is the use of full multimedia, when paintings are displayed not only on the walls, but also on the ceilings. It is important to understand that an exhibition in this format requires a large site, on average, from 1200 square meters. m. One of the advantages, which often turns out to be decisive, is the immersion of the viewer and the full impact on the senses.
The next trend is the mixing of styles and concepts. For example, the contemporary art center M'ARS used psychotransformation art in its immersive project "DEEP INSIDE/GHT". The work turned out to be multi-genre and influences the viewer through art, using painting, sound design, video art, VR, AR and special aroma compositions. In similar exhibitions, its space and technical stuffing will be at the forefront.
Another trend: stimulants that affect the senses. We used this trend when creating a sensory room for Diana Gurtskaya's Center for Sociocultural Rehabilitation in Moscow. The main object is a huge screen, which is illuminated by two stitched projectors. The result is a wide picture that gives the impression of infinite space. All this is complemented by surround sound, which spreads evenly in every point of the room - thanks to the ceiling placement of its sources, and the stimulators themselves affect hearing, vision and skin receptors. In the sensory room, people can create their own sounds, play with light and much more.
Step 2: Assemble a team and inspect the site
At this stage, the most important thing is to create a working team with whom you will create the project and choose a contractor who will take care of the technical and content parts. First of all, it is important to select the right task performers. The core of the technical team is light, sound, and video engineers: they take measurements of the room and install the equipment. In our team, they are the ones who determine whether we take a particular room or not.
Also add designers who will work on content (motion designers, sound designers), programmers and developers. Project managers will search for equipment from suppliers, and logisticians will set up its delivery. If you are preparing immersive museum exhibitions, include artists and decorators in the team.
Send a team to the site: you need to inspect the area where you plan to place the exhibition, and then proceed from these inputs. If there are several rooms, choose which one is suitable for which tasks - for example, a huge screen will fit in here, and this one will have excellent acoustics, and this space will be the main space from which guests will move to other areas.
Engineers should inspect the walls and coverings: is everything in order or will have to do construction work as well. And the sound engineer will decide whether noise isolation is needed, how the sound spreads.
So, the composition of the team:
What to inspect:
Area of the place
Technical suitability: walls, floor, ceiling height, outlets
Sound qualities of the place
Step 3: Prepare the concept
Once the technical details of the facility are clear, gather the team to brainstorm ideas and spin them into a full concept with a 3D model. Brainstorming takes an average of 2 weeks.
For example, when we made a multimedia monument in the town of Usman, we first collected ideas from brainstorming sessions and made the first trial model, and then we already started working out the final idea and the final model in 3D.
When you get the concept - depends on the task set by the customer of the exhibition. Therefore, it is very important that the initial brief is clearly and in detail.
It is important to keep in mind that often to the main concept it is necessary to write a script of light and music show for the grand opening of the exhibition. This point is often forgotten by both customers and performers.
Step 4: Select equipment
To figure out what equipment will be used in the exhibit, send engineers to the site after the brainstorm when the concept is ready. You may need projection equipment, screens, and so on. It takes about a month to select the right facilities.
For example, for the sensory room in Diana Gurtskaya's Center for Sociocultural Rehabilitation, the main object of the exposition was a huge, full-wall, curved screen, and perfectly stitched projectors were supposed to broadcast images onto it. We took Panasonic projectors with lenses with an ultra-wide opening angle - more than the viewing angle of the human eye. They have a gorgeous picture, but they are insanely demanding in terms of surface quality, and it was very difficult to "stitch" the image from them properly so that the image came out in one piece.
Interactive sensors are responsible for ensuring that each guest can do something inside the picture. Thanks to them, for example, a visitor blows on a digital dandelion and it flies away. Or the color of an immersive object changes if a person approaches it.
Don't forget about audio accompaniment - it is no less important than visual objects. Here the main requirement for the chosen equipment is that the sound should be clear.
When working with sound, first of all, it is necessary to select a sound track, to create special sound effects to the theme or voice. For people with hearing disabilities an induction loop is used.
So, what equipment you should have is a must-have:
In the current situation, equipment is selected according to three criteria: quality, availability and price. It all depends on the budget and timing of the customer - you can find quality and reliable models in every price segment.
Step 5: Get the job started: construction and installation
If the room is bare walls, floor and ceiling, first start the builders on the site. It is necessary to calculate the load on electrical networks, depending on the selected equipment, to lay communications, structured cable networks (SCN). This takes a month or two, depending on the size of the object and the number of tasks.
After the builders, send the engineers into the room: to put up the equipment, "try it on" and start the installation. This stage takes another month or so. Sometimes the work goes non-stop, as we did with the projectors in the sensory room: we stitched them together, set them up, everything was reset, we had to start again. In addition, it is important to connect all the objects of the exhibition so that they work seamlessly. The chief engineer supplies the equipment and communicates with the logistician and product manager, who deliver the equipment to the site and hand it over to the installers. In turn, the project manager handles documentation and organizes food and lodging for the employees at the site.
Step 6: Check readiness and open the exhibition
Project deadlines often coincide with some important day for the customer: for example, the official opening of the space, the arrival of the mayor of the city, and so on. By that day, everything should already be working perfectly, so plan a few runs before that day - it's possible that something somewhere will refuse to connect, there will be failures. Sometimes adjacent contractors can break a cable and it takes time to find these damages and repair them. Once all the equipment is installed, we start building content and other content. Runs in this case begin about a week before the customer's deadline. It is important to leave 2-5 days for tweaking.
Conduct tests in several stages. First check the SCS, then connect the equipment and the interaction between the equipment and the control center. Next, evaluate the content and hardware. If everything is in order, run the prepared script of the music and light show for the opening of the exhibition.
On average, it takes about six months to go from scratch to the finished object. Always allow for maximum time in case any of the steps go out of the timeline and require more time.
The growth of interest in exhibitions began in 1992: then 29% of citizens visited museums, in 2022 this number increased to a record 43%. Immersive installations came to Moscow later: first, thanks to international authors who came to Russia "as part of a tour" (for example, the exhibition of Android Jones, Android Jones, SAMSKARA), and then it was taken up by domestic companies and government agencies, realizing that "live" art is the future and the demand for them will grow steadily.
Thanks to the general interest, companies have started to think more and more often about creating their own installation. At the start, it is important to understand that organizing and launching your own multimedia exhibition brings not only fame, but also "takes" a lot of time and money: the "from and to" preparation time is about half a year, and the cost of creating your own project ranges from 5 million ("ceiling" there is no "ceiling"), and the most expensive part will be the purchase or rental of exhibition equipment (projectors, controllers, lenses, etc.).
Vladimir Rozin, CEO of IT GROUP OPEN, will tell you what to do for those who want to create an immersive exhibition from scratch, where to start and what nuances you need to know about.
Step 1: Think about the idea
What kind of multimedia exhibition do you want? This question should be asked at the very beginning. From the answer it will become clear what to do with the team, what location to look for, etc.
Let's take a look at what multimedia exhibitions are on the radar right now:
One long-running trend: artists' exhibitions. Long and undeservedly forgotten or, on the contrary, famous writers of paintings can be revealed in a completely new vision. For example, the sensational exhibition in Artplay, dedicated to the French Impressionists, is designed in the style of "Cinema360" - this is the use of full multimedia, when paintings are displayed not only on the walls, but also on the ceilings. It is important to understand that an exhibition in this format requires a large site, on average, from 1200 square meters. m. One of the advantages, which often turns out to be decisive, is the immersion of the viewer and the full impact on the senses.
The next trend is the mixing of styles and concepts. For example, the contemporary art center M'ARS used psychotransformation art in its immersive project "DEEP INSIDE/GHT". The work turned out to be multi-genre and influences the viewer through art, using painting, sound design, video art, VR, AR and special aroma compositions. In similar exhibitions, its space and technical stuffing will be at the forefront.
Another trend: stimulants that affect the senses. We used this trend when creating a sensory room for Diana Gurtskaya's Center for Sociocultural Rehabilitation in Moscow. The main object is a huge screen, which is illuminated by two stitched projectors. The result is a wide picture that gives the impression of infinite space. All this is complemented by surround sound, which spreads evenly in every point of the room - thanks to the ceiling placement of its sources, and the stimulators themselves affect hearing, vision and skin receptors. In the sensory room, people can create their own sounds, play with light and much more.
Step 2: Assemble a team and inspect the site
At this stage, the most important thing is to create a working team with whom you will create the project and choose a contractor who will take care of the technical and content parts. First of all, it is important to select the right task performers. The core of the technical team is light, sound, and video engineers: they take measurements of the room and install the equipment. In our team, they are the ones who determine whether we take a particular room or not.
Also add designers who will work on content (motion designers, sound designers), programmers and developers. Project managers will search for equipment from suppliers, and logisticians will set up its delivery. If you are preparing immersive museum exhibitions, include artists and decorators in the team.
Send a team to the site: you need to inspect the area where you plan to place the exhibition, and then proceed from these inputs. If there are several rooms, choose which one is suitable for which tasks - for example, a huge screen will fit in here, and this one will have excellent acoustics, and this space will be the main space from which guests will move to other areas.
Engineers should inspect the walls and coverings: is everything in order or will have to do construction work as well. And the sound engineer will decide whether noise isolation is needed, how the sound spreads.
So, the composition of the team:
- Lighting engineer
- Sound engineer
- Video engineer
- Motion designer.
- Sound designer
- Programmer
- Developer
- Project Manager
- Logistician
What to inspect:
Area of the place
Technical suitability: walls, floor, ceiling height, outlets
Sound qualities of the place
Step 3: Prepare the concept
Once the technical details of the facility are clear, gather the team to brainstorm ideas and spin them into a full concept with a 3D model. Brainstorming takes an average of 2 weeks.
For example, when we made a multimedia monument in the town of Usman, we first collected ideas from brainstorming sessions and made the first trial model, and then we already started working out the final idea and the final model in 3D.
When you get the concept - depends on the task set by the customer of the exhibition. Therefore, it is very important that the initial brief is clearly and in detail.
It is important to keep in mind that often to the main concept it is necessary to write a script of light and music show for the grand opening of the exhibition. This point is often forgotten by both customers and performers.
Step 4: Select equipment
To figure out what equipment will be used in the exhibit, send engineers to the site after the brainstorm when the concept is ready. You may need projection equipment, screens, and so on. It takes about a month to select the right facilities.
For example, for the sensory room in Diana Gurtskaya's Center for Sociocultural Rehabilitation, the main object of the exposition was a huge, full-wall, curved screen, and perfectly stitched projectors were supposed to broadcast images onto it. We took Panasonic projectors with lenses with an ultra-wide opening angle - more than the viewing angle of the human eye. They have a gorgeous picture, but they are insanely demanding in terms of surface quality, and it was very difficult to "stitch" the image from them properly so that the image came out in one piece.
Interactive sensors are responsible for ensuring that each guest can do something inside the picture. Thanks to them, for example, a visitor blows on a digital dandelion and it flies away. Or the color of an immersive object changes if a person approaches it.
Don't forget about audio accompaniment - it is no less important than visual objects. Here the main requirement for the chosen equipment is that the sound should be clear.
When working with sound, first of all, it is necessary to select a sound track, to create special sound effects to the theme or voice. For people with hearing disabilities an induction loop is used.
So, what equipment you should have is a must-have:
- Projection equipment
- Screens
- Interactive sensors
In the current situation, equipment is selected according to three criteria: quality, availability and price. It all depends on the budget and timing of the customer - you can find quality and reliable models in every price segment.
Step 5: Get the job started: construction and installation
If the room is bare walls, floor and ceiling, first start the builders on the site. It is necessary to calculate the load on electrical networks, depending on the selected equipment, to lay communications, structured cable networks (SCN). This takes a month or two, depending on the size of the object and the number of tasks.
After the builders, send the engineers into the room: to put up the equipment, "try it on" and start the installation. This stage takes another month or so. Sometimes the work goes non-stop, as we did with the projectors in the sensory room: we stitched them together, set them up, everything was reset, we had to start again. In addition, it is important to connect all the objects of the exhibition so that they work seamlessly. The chief engineer supplies the equipment and communicates with the logistician and product manager, who deliver the equipment to the site and hand it over to the installers. In turn, the project manager handles documentation and organizes food and lodging for the employees at the site.
Step 6: Check readiness and open the exhibition
Project deadlines often coincide with some important day for the customer: for example, the official opening of the space, the arrival of the mayor of the city, and so on. By that day, everything should already be working perfectly, so plan a few runs before that day - it's possible that something somewhere will refuse to connect, there will be failures. Sometimes adjacent contractors can break a cable and it takes time to find these damages and repair them. Once all the equipment is installed, we start building content and other content. Runs in this case begin about a week before the customer's deadline. It is important to leave 2-5 days for tweaking.
Conduct tests in several stages. First check the SCS, then connect the equipment and the interaction between the equipment and the control center. Next, evaluate the content and hardware. If everything is in order, run the prepared script of the music and light show for the opening of the exhibition.
On average, it takes about six months to go from scratch to the finished object. Always allow for maximum time in case any of the steps go out of the timeline and require more time.
