MOMA New york MIXED reality audio
Establishing the production pipeline for what is heralded as being the new era of 'mixed reality' media is one of 3rd Space Agency's ultimate aims. We work collaboratively with artists and a broad range of creative and technology focused partners to create elegant innovations.
Björk 'Songlines' MOMA 2015
Bjork @ MOMA New York : Binaural microlocation based audio guide
We worked with the musician Bjork and her friend Margret Vilhelmsdottir to specify, develop and build a dynamic audio guide for her 2015 MOMA exhibition.
Using the latest iBeacon Bluetooth technology, head tracking and Apple iPod Touch devices we worked collaboratively with Bjork and a diverse team including MOMA, Volkswagen, the BBC and audio start up Two Big Ears to create a unique hands free audio narrative guide for visitors to the exhibition.
Together we constructed a network of integrated Bluetooth beacons that provided our custom built iOS application with the visitor's specific location within the MOMA exhibit. This then triggered audio narrative and song samples which correlated with the items in the show. The final innovation was to integrate gyroscopes onto the headphones to establish the relative head rotation to give us the world's first dynamic binaural spatilised audio guide.
The User Interface featuring Bjork album artwork and beating heart
Hands Free Navigation
We worked with designers M+M Paris to create a dynamic user interface for the Songlines audio guide. As visitors passed between distinct album eras and artefacts, the interface presented the relevant album artwork. We also included a persistent animated heart logo which kept beating as long as the visitor kept within the boundaries and timings for the tour.
iPod Touch and Bowers & Wilkins P5 with the Rondo Head Tracker
Spatial audio
The truly innovative element of the Songlines tour was the dynamically rendered real time binaural soundtrack. Using the Rondo head tracking device strapped to the B&W P5 we were able to create a spatial head tracked effect using Head Rotation Transfer Function (HRTF) which gave the visitor location based cues as to the relevant audio narrative for the Bjork exhibition item.