Into the Wild is a permanent installation at ArtScience Museum in Singapore. It was created together with Google, Lenovo and WWF, in association with Panasonic and Qualcomm, and Singaporean artist Brian Gothong Tan. The experience transforms over 1,000 square metres of the museum into a virtual rainforest, explored with the Lenovo Phab 2 Pro, the first Tango-enabled smartphone.
OBJECTIVE
Deforestation in Southeast Asia is destroying the habitat of animals like the Sumatran tiger. The goal was to make that loss personal. Visitors had to feel what's at stake, and leave the museum having done something about it. At the same time, the project had to show what Google's Tango technology could do in a real-world setting.
EXECUTION
Visitors step into the role of a ranger. Tango's motion tracking, depth sensing and area learning map a lush digital forest onto the physical museum. As they walk, they meet pangolins, tapirs, mouse-deer, orangutans and tigers. They learn about the dangers these animals face and take action, like freeing a trapped mouse-deer.
The journey ends with a real-world impact. Visitors plant a virtual tree and make a pledge to WWF. For every virtual tree, a real one is planted in Rimbang Baling, one of the last pristine rainforests in Sumatra and critical habitat for the Sumatran tiger. The experience closes with Brian Gothong Tan's cinematic installation of the Southeast Asian rainforest.
RESULT
Into the Wild was the first Tango experience in an Asian museum and won multiple awards. Visitors planted over 10,000 real trees in Rimbang Baling.
