EINFLOW

Expanded Media Master in H-da
2023 Summer Semester
Immersion

EinFlow takes you on a colorful trip to the heart of well-being.

Join along and see how care, positivity and intimacy can make magic happen. Featuring Dance, animation and abstract art, this experience was inspired by the brand "einhorn".


Background & Briefing

This project is a lecture assignment in the Expanded Media master program, in collaboration with ISM Berlin as our client.

Inspired by the Hexadome Immersive Installation invented by ISM Berlin, we were challenged to create a brand identity that explores the commercial and artistic convergence of IDENTITIES, and to develop a format-specific application for the ISM Hexadome.

Ultimately, our goal was to turn our chosen brand identity into ART that would connect with audiences and communicate through an immersive experience.

ISM Hexadome

The ISM Hexadome is an immersive 360° audiovisual installation combining art and technology. Both emerging and world-renowned artists have participated in an extensive residency period with the ISM Hexadome to deliver a complete immersive and unique audience experience. These works are presented as audiovisual installations, and in select cases, performed as part of the ISM Hexadome program.

The ISM Hexadome consists of six large rear projection screens for advanced Epson laser projectors, arranged in a hexagonal dome structure hosting a 54 channel "Klangdom" sound system. The speakers are arranged in a dome configuration resulting in a striking spatial sound experience.


Project Goal

The core concept of the EinFlow experience is IDENTITY, both for the brand and its target audience. It aims to connect the brand's values with its audience through an artistic immersive experience that combines visual, auditory, and tactile elements, to create a warm, cozy, and inclusive environment for people with diverse backgrounds, characteristics, and needs.

To reflect einhorn's brand identity, the overall visual design continues the brand's
delightful, colorful, and playful aesthetic, extending the visual elements from 2D to 3D. Additionally, the experience name - EinFlow, not only echoes the brand name "Einhorn", aligns with the brand values of caring and intimacy, but also emphasizes the mental and physical connection between people.

The Brand - einhorn

Einhorn is a Berlin-based startup that offers fair, vegan, and sustainable condoms and hygiene products. Its playful, positive, and open-minded aesthetic offers a wealth of audiovisual opportunities.

The core of einhorn's brand identity is caring for each other, both in terms of safer sex and social issues. This is a relevant subject on both the macro and micro levels. Another important aspect is intimacy: the Hexadome Experience has been described as "feeling like being held & embraced," which perfectly aligns with the brand's market segment.

Learn more on einhorn site

Target Groups & Personas

The target group of this project reflects the chosen brand - Einhorn. With a strong focus on sustainability, Einhorn appeals to consumers who are concerned about the impact of their purchasing decisions on the environment and who prioritize ethical and sustainable products.

In terms of demographics, the brand's messaging and advertising often feature bold and colorful graphics, humor, and irreverence, which appeal to a younger audience, such as millennials and Generation Z , a more diverse consumer base.

In short, Einhorn's target group is socially and environmentally conscious, younger consumers who prioritize sustainability, inclusivity, and high-quality products that align with their values.



Experience Concept

The proposed experience utilizes vivid colors, various textures, and different body languages of dancers to represent the distinctive characteristics, behaviors, and needs of people.

It then depicts the interactions between various combinations of characters through modern dance, contact improvisation, abstract visual elements, as well as chosen poets that mixed in the music composition.

Blue

Personalities:
calm, trusting, stability, introverted,
comfort zone, passive, independent,
mature, adult.

Textures:
water-like, lique, ocean, smoke, smooth

Body Languages:
slow, flowing, internal & emotional moves

Red

Personalities:
passionate, desirous, active, outgoing, extroverted, dominant, teen.

Textures:
spikey, more edge, glowing

Body Languages:
energetic, strong movements, complex moves, moves around a lot

Yellow

Personalities:
joyful, warm, kind, altruistic, playful, child-like, inner child

Textures:
fluffy, soft, a bit crazy, lot of details or elements

Body Languages:
energetic, moves in jazzy swingy moods, bouncing, light, soft


Storyline

Part 1 - Introducing 3 characters

Blue slowly smoothly emerges from the bottom of screen, starts dancing slowly, like lique/water/ocean, and steadily move over to the next screen where it ends up in a meditative position.

Red appears on the screen by jumping from top and demonstrates several sharp dance moves. Then Red notices the Blue, tries interacting with or even seducing Blue, but receives no response. While Red enjoys it’s solo dance and tries to catch Blue’s attension, Yellow peaks in which distracts Red.

Red starts dancing towards Yellow out of curiousity, while still thinking about Blue. Yellow jumps in and starts a joyful, bouncing dance, spread the positive energy, and yet enjoy the party by himself.

Part 2 - Interaction between 3 characters

While 3 characters’ frozen bodies stay on their original screen, part of their bodies patterns start extracting from them and start traveling towards the next screen,

The movement starts from the Yellow and Blue. Yellow jumps to blue happily, and Blue “embraces” Yellow in a way that feels guarding and caring, they dance together and slowly merge into one, heir interaction shows “Caring” (Green).

After noticing the merging, Red can’t wait to start the movement, two energetic characters Red and Yellow are now playing with one another, slowly merge together and creates “Positive“ (Orange).

After the passionate movement, Red learn more the interaction, now behave maturely, move towards to Blue and Blue response it with calm, smooth movement. Two characters enjoy each other’s accompany and teasing, slowly merge together and form “Intimacy” (Purple).

Part 3 - Finale

Finally, all the screens turn into a colorful visual symphony that presents the connection, accompany, and merge of all the colors - blue, red, yellow, green, orange and purple.


Production

Once we finalized the idea, we considered and tested several production methods, focusing on visualization.

Given our resources, assets, and skills, the production involved dance choreography, movement recording, AI motion capture transformation, MoCap data editing, rotoscoping, animation, sound recording, and music composition.

The Installation

The Expanded Media Master program recreated the immersive 360-degree experience of the Hexadome by installing a mini-dome with a 6-screen projection system and 10 speakers.

With the mini-dome, the EinFlow Hexadome experience was presented at the Media Campus of Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences.


Meet the Team

Chia-Ju Lin: UX, UI & Experiential Designer

Mika Wagner: Sound Design & Producer

Laura Sargsyan: Media Producer & Visual Content Creator

Yuri Figueiredo: Filmmaker & Content Creator

Special Thanks

Project Supervisors: Prof. Georg Struck, Prof. Thorsten Greiner, andProf. Dr. Paul Grimm
Lab Engineer: Till Gerneth
Dancers: Sabrina Diesler, Ronja Timmer
Voice Actress: Sophia Halmen