O2 to launch Bluebook installation by Bruges

O2 is to launch an interac tive installation for its Bluebook social networking initiative this week, designed by Jason Bruges.

Jason Bruges Studio was appointed in February by advertising agency PD3, which came up with the idea, according to its creative planner Moushumi Saha. She says, ‘We wanted to commission a piece of art that was inspired by technology.

The ‘tardis-like’ piece of design has been created to capture a panoramic memory shared by many people. Entitled The O2 Memory Project, the installatio is designed to investigate how we capture and store digital memories. Reminiscent of Victorian cycloramas, the unit is a 4mhigh cylinder with 11 cameras placed around its perimeter which, Bruges says, ‘looks like a clock in plan’.

Each camera takes a picture in sequence every five sec onds, creating a 360-degree digital panorama of the outside location every minute. These images appear on giant screens in the structure’s interior. It is part of a promotion for the O2 Bluebook service, which stores customers’ photographs and texts.

By standing in the centre of the installation, a person can view what is happening in the present, but by moving forward towards the screens he or she can choose to move back in time, and see what was happening in the morning.

Bruges says, ‘19th century cycloramas depicted scenes of beauty and played them back to an audience. This digital version allows users to get involved as they can control what they see and, by logging on to the O2 website, can view the time they were there and create their own memory rings.’

Touring the UK from Friday it will start its journey to Liverpool and Edinburgh from London’s South Bank. Bruges says it will finish its journey in The O2 venue in London’s Greenwich.

For further details, visit www.o2memoryproject.com.

AN IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCE

• A cyclorama is a cylindrical painting designed to provide the viewer standing in the middle with a 360-degree view

• The effect is that the viewer feels as if they are standing in the centre of a historic event or famous place

• Popular in the 19th century, the most well-known were taken from city to city to provide local entertainment

• Notable cycloramas include the Waterloo Cyclorama in Belgium and the Cyclorama of Jerusalem in Canada

• A cyclorama painting by John Vanderlyn of the palace and gar dens of Versailles is in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art