DANTE VS FROST
The boiling frog is a fable describing a frog being slowly boiled alive. If a frog is put suddenly into boiling water, it will jump out, but if the frog is put in tepid water which is then brought to a boil slowly, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death. Habituation is that processes in action; the reduction of innate behaviors. Not unlike the fable, we humans are frogs in a pot, slowly boiling and largely unresponsive to our changing environment.
This installation is an immersive, spatial-audio, choose-your-own-adventure experience that will take you on a journey through a fictional world much like our own. With three projection screens, dynamic lighting, a spatialized cinematic score, and a branching narrative experience, this project takes 10-15 individuals on a 25 minute experience where group decisions are made that will dramatically affect the future of this fictional world. Dante vs Frost is a metaphor connecting a fictional world to the one we actually live in.
The group enters the installation in the “Home” environment. They have the option to exit out of the front of the house leading to the Forest, or to go out the back to the Valley. They are presented with several difficult decisions that need to be made in order to move through the story. A custom controller is used to move through the experience, which needs to be managed by the group forcing people to make quick decisions together. Spatialized audio comes from speakers placed throughout the space as they explore and discover all possible outcomes, creating a bold and theatrical experience.
Through their decisions, they get to experience what happens if they let the proverbial frog boil or if it jumps out of the pot.
Afterward, participants can enter the adjacent space and see ‘behind the curtain’ to meet the team who built the installation and discover the inner workings of the complex system built to run it. (Ableton, OSC, Unity, DMX etc…)
For this installation, I was in charge of the visual and interaction between the different technical elements.
