Bright Nights


outdoor interactive for Target USA


For Target´s christmas campaign with European design Studio Tord Boontje, Union Square Park was turned into a magic winter landscape.
 
Seven large floor projections in a row on the footpath of the park created a magical atmosphere, and invited visitors to play with several interactive games featuring Boontje´s signature designs.
 
A collaboration with Andrew Allenson, pickledonion ltd.
A variety of twelve games alternates with fluent transitions on the seven fields. The elements spin and twirl around, float away from the wave of your hand, form a circle around you, invite you for pingpong or a snowball fight.
The installation quickly became popular and attracted many visitors to come back and bring their friends and family. The open-ended game design and the magical atmosphere provoked people to play together, dance in the snowflakes and make up their own games.
The interactive games were based on a sophisticated particle system, mimicking flocking and physical behaviours of up to 2000 elements in the generated video image.
The motion of people in each projection area was interpreted by a camera-based object tracking software.

The outdoor installation was running every night for 4 weeks. The challenging conditions –low temperatures, heavy wind and thunderstorms– were met with weather-proof housings, an independent power generator, and a steady crossbeam framework.