Nowadays, there are number of indoor digital interactive installations attractions. But imagine how exciting it is to experience such installation in a breezy open public space? Especially with our New Normal life, experiencing digital installation in a vast outdoor should be the way to appreciate it.
Magical Shores is the largest scale of permanent outdoor interactive projections and lighting installation stretching over 400 meters on the sandy beach.
The idea was proposed to meet our client, Sentosa Development Corporation – the government subsidiary for development and management of the island – long-term vision of revitalizing the island as a night-time destination for not only the tourists, but for the local residents to repeatedly visit the island to appreciate the evening stroll.
Being in the tropical city state, it is both necessity and the advantageous to entice people appreciating the outdoor experience in the evening to escape from the heat and scorching sun.
The island is known as an accessible gateway for all kinds of leisurely activities : besides forest trails and sandy beaches, there is the Universal studio, aquarium, numerous resort hotels, adventure rides and even a light and sound show that attract thousands of tourists every night. However, through the extensive island survey, we discovered what is lacking is a kind of experience that is directly inspired by the rich biodiversity of the island, a site-specific activity.
That was how we had developed the idea for barefoot stroll of the beach interacting with digital layer of nature images that were adopted from by the evolution of our mother earth and surrounding biodiversity.
And the installation was crafted not as a light and sound show but more to amplify visitors’ senses, it is a multi-sensory experience that stimulates human instinct to interact with the nature.
The highlight of the project is that the artificial intelligence was introduced to orchestrate the light and sound with wind and human motion sensing, instead of all the program is pre-set as conventional light and sound show. The experience is just like interacting with the ever-changing nature.
While the maximum scale of such vast installation was developed, considerations to the minimum impact to the surrounding environment were performed carefully.
All the lights were strictly controlled and avoided to shoot into the sea surface to prevent the underwater eco system.
Also, sensitive lighting design applications – delicate blends of soft colour lighting on the beach, up lighting trees and washing plants with architectural lighting products, instead of floodlighting -enabled the creation of such pleasant nocturnal experience.
Because Magical shores had to be durable for at least the next three years daily operations, one of the biggest challenges was also to come up with the technical solutions and set ups for the fully outdoor environment.
By clearing the site conditions and concerns with intensive site tests and communicating with the relevant government agencies, we managed to design timeless, never tiring nocturnal installation that visitor could feel coming back again and again.
