Bloom: Open Space takes Brian Eno’s award-winning app, Bloom, into mixed reality using Microsoft HoloLens, allowing participants to experience generative music in a completely new context. We brought HoloLens technology and developers to Eno and Chilvers, empowering them to explore a new dimension to their work. At Bloom: Open Space, guests stepped into a central zone surrounded by screens, where they physically experienced Bloom – tapping the air around them to create elaborate patterns and unique melodies with the simplest of gestures. Blurring the lines between the physical and virtual, Bloom: Open Space emphasized a sense of wonder, calm, and community; as users “bloomed” together, each user saw and heard not only her blooms, but those of the participants around her. Together, the group created an ever-changing generative music soundtrack, based on sounds designed by Brian Eno.

Searching for an artist to explore mixed reality as part of the Microsoft Music x Technology program, we brought the idea of turning Bloom into a mixed reality installation using HoloLens to Brian Eno and Peter Chilvers. We helped Chilvers work with the HoloLens development team, while we also worked with Eno to envision and create a physical footprint for the installation. After a demo in New Jersey, we shipped the experience to Amsterdam, where we installed an even larger version at Transformatorhuis in Westergasfabriek. Guests donned a HoloLens and stepped into a central zone surrounded by 6 30-foot-tall screens. There, they used simple gestures to compose aural and visual blooms. Besides their own sounds and shapes, guests heard and saw others’ as well. Visitors waiting to use the HoloLens could see the blooms projected onto the screens, and hear Brian Eno’s original soundtrack, punctuated by blooms composed by participants.

The Bloom: Open Space installation in Amsterdam was open to the public February 21-25, 2018. To keep the activation peaceful and intimate, we permitted fewer than 10 guests to wear the HoloLens and experience Bloom at one time. 1,000 ticketed guests were able to experience Bloom: Open Space, and more than 200 were turned away due to it being sold out. Our reach was upwards of 1 billion impressions. Cost per impression has been calculated as 0.013. We got global attention from arts, music, and technology outlets including the New York Times, Wallpaper*, Pitchfork, Gizmodo, and WIRED; earned media for the activation was major, with coverage from more than 100 publications. Gizmodo said of the installation: “The mixed reality experience made me reconsider the future of technology and feel like exciting new things are on the horizon... I can’t wait to see what comes next.”

Bloom: Open Space paired an icon and boundary-pushing artist with an awesome innovative product, helping Microsoft own the mixed reality space while taking HoloLens beyond the developer to the consumer, opening the door for other artists to explore this cutting-edge tech. By developing the experience in lock-step with Brian Eno and HoloLens developers, we created both an art piece AND a brand activation for Microsoft. This installation, which was open to the public in Amsterdam for 5 days in February 2018, sets a new standard for the way brands and artists can work together to push culture forward.

HoloLens is still a brand-new technology, and mixed reality can be fairly intimidating to the casual consumer. Therefore our target is slightly more advanced -- an early tech adopter and creator. For the first HoloLens project within the Microsoft Music x Technology program, we knew we’d need to find an artistic partner that was excited by the challenge of bleeding-edge tech, and could unlock the more unifying and universally appealing elements of mixed reality. Brian Eno was a perfect fit. The generative music app he created with collaborator Peter Chilvers had already achieved wide acclaim for its intuitive and soothing nature. Translating it to mixed reality with Microsoft would create an engaging installation and a wonderfully entertaining introduction to HoloLens -- again, opening the door for other artists and consumers to create in and experience mixed reality.

Microsoft’s Music x Technology program explores new ways for artists to create (and fans to experience) music. For the program, Microsoft was looking for an artist to work with their mixed reality headset, HoloLens. We decided this was the perfect opportunity for Brian Eno to take his generative music app (built with Peter Chilvers), Bloom, into 3D/mixed reality. This partnership marked Eno’s first foray into mixed reality; with Bloom: Open Space, we wanted to change the way people understood Eno’s composition and mixed reality in general. We also sought to bring HoloLens out of the development realm and into the consumer/artistic sphere in an approachable and engaging way. This is how artists will create in the future; we wanted to open the door for more artists and consumers to explore mixed reality as a creative medium.