2417 Immersive Art Experience

The Project:

Transform a 3000 sq. ft vacant office space into an immersive narrative-focused walkthrough attraction. Over the course of two years, a maze of empty rooms became an abandoned science lab from the 1970s, where pocket dimension technology had thrown an already bizarre company into otherworldly chaos. Each artist on the team was assigned a room, and was asked to design an infinite dimension based on a specific character in the narrative. What grew from this initial prompt was a web of interconnected storylines, puzzles, and mysteries for guests to solve as they rifled through the private files of a secret facility frozen in time on the verge of collapse.

My Role: Creative Producer, Co-Owner, Manager, Artist

Responsibilities Included:

• Coordinating project efforts and tracking progress for a team of two dozen volunteer artists, designers, and contractors
• Organizing regular team meetings and work sessions
• Writing narrative, copy, and marketing materials
• Managing operations, employees, and finances
• Creating/constructing elements of the physical experience involving
  • Carpentry
  • Mechanical/electrical engineering
  • Computer programming
  • Digital media production (audio, video, and images)
  • Game design
  • Projection mapping
  • Creative/technical writing

My Work:

Initially, I started by writing a backstory for the entire experience that could help guide artists as they designed and build their individual rooms. However, as development got underway, we decided we really wanted a puzzle aspect to the attraction, as well. It became clear that we wanted guests to be able to choose to focus on the narrative, puzzles, or even just enjoy it as a fantastic work of art. This led me to create various printed worksheets (given to guests as inspection checklists) that would help guide visitors and provide subtle hints along their journey. In addition to these worksheets, I also designed and installed a majority of the 26 puzzles that made up the escape-room-esque version of the experience, and created an Android app that would allow guests on the narrative path to access video logs, security footage, and other visual artifacts via Amazon Kindles mounted throughout the attraction.

Lobby and Guest Experience

Because this was the first experience of its kind in Boise, ID, we wanted to make sure guests were introduced to the playful and mysterious nature of the experience before they even began their walkthrough. To accomplish this transition between the real world and our fictional narrative, I wrote scripted performances (along with extensive standard operating procedures) for our “Atlantis Associates” to act out as they helped visitors purchase tickets and coordinate new groups with those already inside the attraction. We were very fortunate to have staff with theatre backgrounds that were able to improvise on top of the original script and really bring the role to life. As part of our strategy to make wait times less boring, I also created “personality tests” with impossible questions that were “tabulated” using a Selectric typewriter and then immediately thrown in a recycling bin before an oversized industrial timer buzzed and signaled it was time to enter the lab.

Of course, this kind of experience would be incomplete without suitable audio. While the lobby played only the finest Muzak on repeat, every room had a soundtrack and ambient sound effects I designed and installed to give each space its own unique feel. Teleporters beeped and whirred, alien insects chirped outside hazmat containment tents, and blood ebbed and flowed through veins alongside a gigantic intestinal tunnel.

Janitor’s Closet

While I contributed many elements to other areas of the attraction, this room was designed and built completely by me. Taking on the janitor character – a seemingly innocent bystander with a secret mission to monitor new discoveries at Atlantis labs – I wanted to pack as many hidden surprises as possible into such a small space. Beyond the suspicious products and boxes lining the shelves, the red button updates guests on the status of the stasis field preventing the lab from collapsing into a black hole. Additionally, if guests step inside the closet, close the door, and turn off the light, a black light turns on and reveals hidden messages written on the walls that lead them to another puzzle. One of the video log devices (Kindles) is visible on the wall above the cabinet, and a locked plaque containing one of the final puzzles is mounted on the left wall.

Pre-Show Room

In order to brief them on their role in the story and what they would be doing throughout the experience, I designed a pre-show room where incoming guests would pick up their “safety equipment” (hardhats and safety vests), receive instructions on how to use their guiding clipboards, and watch a short film (“recovered from the archives”) meant to explain the backstory of Atlantis and the pocket dimension technology. I recorded the voiceover and audio for this film, and combined it with visuals produced by another talented artist on our team (along with a few simple compositing tweaks) to produce the final video. In order to make the presentation more immersive, I also refitted an old Super 8 projector to run a loop of film continuously while the actual video played through a short-throw projector and speakers hidden in the boxes below it. The clear boxes positioned around the room contain “visions of the future”, and were leftovers from a previous installation by one of our artists.

Further Documentation:

Because of my many roles within the project, I feel like I had a hand in just about every aspect of 2417. However, it was far from an individual effort on anyone’s part. I’ve included more photos here to show off the incredible work done by our volunteer team of artists, as well.