Illuminarium
If you’ve ever entered an immersive art exhibit, you may have wondered, “How did it get here?” Seamless all-around filmscapes, projection mapping, and responsive technology have put agency in the hands of the viewer while creating a “new” reality. As techniques evolve, artists expand their concepts to challenge the limits of what’s possible. To do that, big visions of interaction must boil down to concrete, practical technology solutions. This is where Aligned Vision Group (Toronto, ON) serves the field, providing cutting-edge audio, visual and entertainment technology. They work across industries in every space from fine art to professional sports, corporate enterprise, performance theatre and healthcare, with prowess and expertise, bringing artist’s visions to life through sound, light, and motion.
Have you ever wanted to fly through a nebula or walk on the moon? What about following Alice through the rabbit-hole to meet the Queen of Hearts, or learning the Chechire cat’s secrets? These new, immersive storytelling experiences debuted as part of Toronto’s new “Illuminarium” (2023), the site of a 19th century Victorian distillery transformed into a 21st-century dream factory. With content by local Emmy-winning artists at “Secret Location”, known for their interactive VR and AR experiences, Toronto has a new, adaptable venue for experiential works.
One of the biggest design challenges in interactive work is the issue of latency, or delay, between a user’s action and the narrative response. We expect instant feedback from our phones, and it has become an expectation for all interaction with technology. For the Illuminarium, Aligned Vision Group worked closely with the client to incorporate a highly complex system to allow synchronous images across walls and floors with essentially zero latency for interactions. Visitors can see their footsteps kick up dust on the moon’s surface, and explode asteroids as they encounter them, with audio that syncs to action. Created in collaboration with Panasonic Connect, PanasonicLarge Venue 4K RGB laser projectors provide realistic vivid4K imagery, their seamlessness creating the heightened illusion of truly staring into space.
To accommodate this level of performance, Aligned Vision Group worked closely with architects and engineers, general contractors and electrical workers, developing proper HVAC and structural support for its 32 servers. They even had to rig a floating floor, anchored to the architecture above, to accommodate the physical weight of technology and the historic preservation guidelines.
Aligned Vision Group facilitates projects large and small, from artists to corporate clients, from 20,000 seat stadiums, to 20 seat collaboration rooms, and anything between. In many cases, an artist might need to speak with technologists in early phases to clarify plans and develop concrete strategies that can be handed to the team of broader professionals involved. They support touring immersive exhibits as well as fixed locations, able to adapt projects to multiple venues, while leaving systems operator free via automation in some cases.
We all have inner children yearning to “choose your own adventure” as the storybooks told. With the evolution of technology, sound, light, and motion have extended our storytelling experience into highly realistic, immersive worlds. Alchemizing the visions held by today’s artists, Aligned Vision Group stands out as a provider of immersive experience. Demystifying the creation process and building the audio-visual infrastructure these works demand, their only limit is “how big is your imagination?”