Acura Mood Roads February 2017 ––

The fine peoples at Mullen Lowe brought Munkowitz and the Tools of North America on board to create a mind-bending interactive driving experience at The 2017 Sundance Film Festival. The experience was powered in part by the user’s brainwaves and biometrics to provide a unique drive for every participant in the Acura pavilion. Once the user had been hard-wired and strapped in, with fourteen electrodes attached to their head using an EMOTIV headset , the user entered the giant Motion Sphere where they find an accurate facsimile of the NSX cockpit.Immediately upon embarking on the experience, they found themselves traversing time and space, traveling along an ever-evolving Z axis. Even though they were briefed prior to their ride, they would only truly understand the connection between their brainwave biometrics and their ride when they’re underway. In a perfect feedback loop, this visual gratification sparked more EEG output and brought the Motion Sphere to life, vibrating and then ratcheting upwards and backwards, which is a motion simulator’s way of simulating rapid forward thrust.At the same time, what may have been heard as the growling of a car starting to haul ass became an intense electronic ambient soundscape, synchronized to the fleeting objects traveling through the dynamic terrain. The user’s surprise at experiencing these sensations of movement and sound feeds back into the system, which in turn adds definition to the evolving road scape and melodic detail to the ambient score.Each profound reaction initiates a passage through a portal to another dimension, not unlike graduating through a series of game levels. As a result, because each ride is based on user inputs, every experience was uniquely personal - two identical twins could walk in and have entirely different experiences inside the motion sphere. However, one thing remained consistent from ride to ride: It was a deeply immersive experience controlled by each user’s state of mind; deep diving into the subconsciously reactive emotional affect, the resulting visual ride was intended to feel like a dream; subconscious, nuanced and unique. Because no two dreams are ever alike.