In 2021 my team at RadicalMedia was engaged to create The Blue Paradox — a short-term experiential installation in West London designed to bring awareness to the critical issue of Ocean plastic pollution. This unprecidented pop-up immersive experience received an extraordinary public response and generated a wealth of earned and socialmedia.
The sucess of the London activation led the client to make a long-term commitment to the cause, with an expanded multi-room version of the experience being permanently installed at Chicago's historic Museum of Science and Industry.
In close collaboration with our partners at SCJ, Ogilvy Chicago and James Spindler (ECD), my Studio team at RadicalMedia researched, concepted, directed, designed, developed, and produced almost every aspect of the pop-up and permanent MSI experiences as well as managing the construction, fabrication, technical infrastructure and installation of The Blue Paradox exhibit.
Immersive Museum Experience
The Blue Paradox MSI Experience consisted of five main exhibit rooms. Each of these immersive/interactive spaces takes visitors through a particular part of our exhibit narrative.
The main exhibit spaces were preceded by a gallery corridor and immersive transitional spaces that both intrigued and primed the visitors for the experience to follow.
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Room 1:
The Role of Our Oceans
Chapter One of The Blue Paradox is an immersive film experience presented in unique format within a purpose-built theater space. The film established the importance and critical role of the oceans to all life on this planet, and that disruptive change is needed now, to confront the global ocean plastic crisis.
The film played across a custom 'wave-shaped' 24-screen array that floated above a custom curved LED floor within an infinity mirror space — creating a powerful, dramatic and completely enveloping experience for visitors.
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In close partnership with the amazing VFX director Warren Chapmen at the London-based animation studio Treatment, we concepted, developed, designed and produced this unique and immersive film.
Driven by an emotional score and celebrity VO, this cinematic immersion established the critical importance of our Oceans to all life on Earth and set the stage for the exhibit content to follow.
Matched-action and clever editorial techniques took full advance of the screen design and format, drawing the visitors focus up over their heads and across the floor — creating an almost disorienting effect as the stunning ocean imagery unfolded all around them.
As waves crashed over the arc of the screen array and curved LED floor, infinity mirror walls amplified the immersive effect — giving visitors the illusion that the room was endlessly wide.
As visitors first entered the dark space before the film began, they found themselves walking on a responisve LED floor — covered in glowing bioluminescent phyto plankton.
As they moved around the space the procedurally generated plankton would glow brighter and move away from their feet with life-like fluid dynamics.
Room 2:
The Problem & Impacts
The second main room in the exhibit was a large immersive space where every surface was covered in high resolution projections. A series of four short films educated visitors through graphic and easy to understand animated data visualizations and illustrations.
Each looping film focussed on a different aspect of the harmful impacts of Ocean plastic pollution — Global Impacts, Microplastics, Marine Life Impacts and Total Ocean Plastic Polution over time.
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We engaged and worked closely with the amazing London-based boutique design shop SetReset to help bring our 'Data Stories' to life. Ultimately translating these complicated subjects and data sets into relatable, visually consistent and easy to understand animated visualizations.
Global Impact:
The first data story chapter in the room focussed on the macro and global impacts of Ocean plastic polution.
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The content and data was localized for the MSI exhibit — showcasing how plastic pollution impacts Lake Michigan, local waterways and the Mississippi River.
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Micro Plastics:
The Second data story chapter in the room focussed on Microplastics and the harm they do to our oceans, marine life, and human health.
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Marine Life Impact:
The third data chapter in the room focussed on the detrimental effects of Ocean plastic pollution on marine ecosystems, marine life and biodiversity.
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Realtime Plastic Flow:
The sidewalls of the gallery space displayed realtime generated particle flows — representing the actual amount of plastic entering the Ocean every second.
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Room 3:
The Plastic Paradox
The issue of Ocean Plastic Pollution is complex, systemic and does not have an easy 'magic bullet' solution.
In the third room, a series of Interactive Plinths playfully educated visitors on the nuances, complexity and had their assumptions about everyday recycling practices challenged.
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Responsive LED Arches ➔
LED arches over each row of interactive plinths responded to visitor inputs — pulsing and animating colors coresponding to the chapter of the game they were on.
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Plinth UI / Educational Game ➔
Visitors were able to engage with the content of this room through interactive touchscreens. An animated infographic-based game let them learn about the challenges, misconceptions and paradoxes inherent in the quest to reduce plastic usage in our everyday lives.
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Room 4:
The Scale
of The Problem
The fourth room in the experience physically illustrated the dispariety between the enourmous amounts of plastic that are created for mass consumption and what is actually recycled.
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The installation displayed common categories of plastic packaging on conveyors that cycled endlessly. These were highlighed with UV light to turn them into physcal data visuaizations.
A custom designed and fabricated set of 8 eliptical Conveyors flanked visitors on both sides of a narrow passageway — further adding to the sense of immersion.
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Above visitors hundreds of plastic water bottles flowed around and around as if on an assembly line.
This paired with ominous mechanical sound design — amplifying the overwhelming effect of endless production.
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Realtime Tickers ➔
At the end of the narrow corridor a set of custom LED tickers displayed to sheer volume of plastic waste being produced, recycled and disposed of in realtime.
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Impact Films
As visitors moved into the second part of the forth room, they entered a dark corridor playing looping films and an ominous percussive soundtrack. This space highlighted the true distopian consequences of mass plastic production, consumerism and disposal. ➔
Video Vignettes ➔
The Impact Films were dispayed within three recessed windows that allowed multiple visitors to comfortable view them.
Giving them the sense of looking through a window out into the real world as they were confronted with imagery of the true human misery and huge scale of the plastic waste.
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Room 5A:
Solutions & Actions
The final chapter of The Blue Paradox focuses on the power of individual and collective action.
By teaching visitors about their own plastic consumption, how it compares to others' and what small changes they can take to have big impacts in their day-to-day, we reinforce the idea that this is a collective problem, which we can and should address as a global community.
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The Power of Choice / Communal Action:
The Communal Action wall displayed infographic and factoid-driven animations on a large custom video screen wall that arched 180º around visitors. These graphic and colorful animated graphics played over immersive ocean footage that enveloped their feild-of-view.
Plastic Calculators ➔
Under the video wall a custom-designed semi-circular desk contained touchscreen kiosks where visitors could calculate their own 'plastic footprints'.
The results of their plastic footprints was turned into relatable real-world scales -- helping to contextualize the scale of their plastic use.
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Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)
In 2024 we updated the final exhibit chapter with two new wall projections.
Created in patnership with SetReset, these infographic animations explained Extended Producer Responsibily and how a Circular Plastic Economy and sensible government policies could be a part of the solution to the Ocean plastic crisis.
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Room 5B:
Innovation Solutions
& Call to Action
In the second section of the final space visitors learned how industry and organizations are innovating, as a call to action for consumers to support companies demonstrating real change to help save the ocean and the planet.
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Interactive Solutions Wall
The Solutions Wall enabled visitors to explore a few real-world products, technologies and services that are helping to prevent plastic from entering our waterways and oceans.
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Interactive Portholes
A series of interactive 'portholes' directed visitors to programs and organizations that they could personally get involved with or support to help reduce ocean plastic pollution.
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Interactive Pledge Wall
on a Series of touchscreen kiosks embedded in the wall, visitors could make a pledge to participate and change their behaviours and choices as consumers. Once they made a pledge, their name was added to an ever growing generative list animating on the gallery wall.
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Entry Corridor Experience /
Nat Geo Photo Gallery
Outside of the main Blue Paradox experience, MSI visitors encountered installations and transition spaces that intrigued and educated — leading them to enter the exhibit. ➔
Visitors passed through a long corridor gallery featuring the arresting images of National Geographic photographer, Randy Olson,
and walked below “Emergence”, a sculptural installation of welded ocean plastic debris/bottles by artist Aurora Robson.
This transitional space set the stage for The Blue Paradox by highlighting the issue of plastic pollution in a very literal way, illustrating how it impacts people the world over.
Entrance Ramp /
Ticketing Area
Before visitors entered the main exhibit rooms, they moved through a series of liminal spaces designed to function as sensory palette cleansers and subject matter primers — preparing them for the sensory/data-rich and immersive content to follow.
➔ Generative Logo Projection /
➔ Projected Wave Floor Ramp /
➔ Immersive Underwater Hallway / Sound Experience
➔ Visitor Waiting Area / Sensory Palette Cleanser
As visitors walked down the entrance ramp, they felt as if they were walking into the Ocean. These realistic floor projections of crashing waves created both a visual and conceptual threshold to pass through.
They then moved through an immersive hallway with theatrical lighting effects and ambient sound design that created the sensation of descending under the water surface.
