Microsoft at MOHAI
In the deep of winter, Microsoft brought its annual Cloud Conference to the MOHAI on the Seattle waterfront, and commissioned NOVA Light Labs to make the museum itself part of the show.
Microsoft wanted the night to feel like the technology it was there to celebrate. The brief was large scale projection mapping that carried the cloud theme and turned Microsoft's services into visual metaphor, clouds, mountains, and rain moving across the building.
NOVA answered with 2 projection mapped faces of the museum, tuned so that guests met the work long before they reached the door.
experience
The Museum of History & Industry (MOHAI) sits on the Seattle waterfront, and for a single night its facade became the first thing guests saw of the party.
The approach is long. From the far end of the walkway the projections were already there, clouds drifting across the building, setting the tone for the tech crowd gathering inside.
Amazement carried the whole length of the path. Guests slowed, gathered, and photographed the entrance, the work luminous and unmistakable from hundreds of feet away.
Inside, illuminated CUBIX cubes and the interactive Sandbox of Life gave the room its own points of gravity.
“A huge thank you for working with us to make last night’s Cloud Party at MOHAI such a successful event.
The timeline was short, but all of your professionalism and commitment to your product/service made it all possible.”
Heather C.
Event Coordinator
Microsoft
the art
Clouds were the immediate winner for the visual language using custom visuals built to move like weather across the building.
NOVA sourced time lapse footage of Mt. Rainier and the Space Needle, then mixed it with 3D rain, snow, and Microsoft product logos falling across the facade.
Original work, mapped to the exact architecture of the building. Emblems of familiar products and typefaces collided with the clouds, a visual language that spoke directly to the high tech work the teams inside came to celebrate.
system
The build put over 60k lumens across the 2 most visible faces of MOHAI, projection mapped to the full width of the facade.
Every projector, computer, and cable was rated for weather. It rained for much of the night with no effect on the system, which ran for hours straight as hundreds of guests arrived.
