MOLD

The Problem

The digital era has thrown most proclaimed artists into a loop. Everyone is receiving the same inspiration thus, we are destined to create repetition. We see something we like and instead of using it as a catalyst to inform our ideation, we copy and slightly manipulate it. This is not because we want to steal others' work, but because we don't have access to tools to help form original ideas.

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​Our Goal

As artists we aspire to be different, unique. To use our experiences and unique perspective to create art that moves others. In order to do this we need to think of new ways to create & garner inspiration and break the cycle of imitation.

The concept of mold rings true, just as mold grows on that which lives around you, your ideas grow in similar ways; sporadically, fast and all-consuming. We hope that mold allows our users to capture those moments and uncover the inspiration that grows in every corner of their world.

Our Solution

Mold is a product we created to support artists during their ideation process. Mold leverages creative machine learning, projection mapping technology, data visualization, and artificial intelligence to create a 4D immersive ideation experience. Mold has three different products within its ecosystem to help us achieve our intended goal: The shroom, the spore, and the hub.

Spore

Your spore is the catalyst to collect all the little moments of inspiration that lie around you. It is a minimal wearable device, used to collect data at any time and anywhere. The Spore captures conversations, tone of voice, heart rate, and sweat levels. These metrics will later be implemented into the visualization process, and the data collection privacy allows for the user to customize how and when they want to record certain data.

We designed the spore to collect these specific metrics so they can be translated into data visualization technology. This relies on computer-based encoding, or the electronic storage and processing of information in different formats—text, numbers, images, sounds—in a way the computer can understand. From this translation, users can filter through their moments and pick exactly what data influences the generated inspiration from Mold.

Shroom

How generated inspiration is visualized comes into play with the second part of the ecosystem, the shroom. Your shroom is your main collaborator. It functions as a visualizer, immersing the user in both sight and sound.

Thinking beyond other tools such as Pinterest, we wanted to build something that would take the ideation process a step further. Rather than simply looking at images and copying them, we want you to become a part of the ideation, conceptually and physically.

By transforming the data collected from the spore, in tandem with inputted media, the shroom will project live machine-learned creations onto the space around you. The immersive environment is intended to help the user focus on their ideas, push them further, and garner unconventional inspiration to use in their projects

The Hub

The third and final piece of the puzzle is The hub, where the spore and the shroom come to meet in order to complete the full mold experience. It is a desktop application where users have the ability to start sessions and store them for later use.

This is also where users are able to further customize their ideation session, giving them the ability to implement secondary media, choose a specific art form, and as we mentioned previously, implement spore data. The customization that happens within the hub is important because this is what ultimately determines how and what is being projected from the shroom.