AlloSphere at TED 2024

The AlloSphere Research Facility approached TED 2024 with a difficult brief: showcase their interactive digital-art-meets-science practice in a venue and timeline that looked nothing like the immersive dome they usually work in. Their content needed 3D projection, motion-tracked interaction, and a controlled optical environment — deployed in a shared exhibition space, on a tight schedule, and with almost no room for error.

Technical brief

Projection mapping onto a bespoke surface. Stereo 3D content. Interactive video elements. Discrete rigging that would disappear against the booth architecture. Media-server infrastructure that could hold up under continuous public demo.

The role

As project manager and technical designer I owned the end-to-end delivery: rig design, projector selection and mapping, media-server integration, and the live-day operations plan. Practical constraint met engineering optimism — the design had to be discrete and robust simultaneously, because the point of the piece was to feel the science and art, not the equipment carrying it.

Method

The production was modeled and rendered before installation. The rigging was fit to the venue’s constrained ceiling grid in 3D, projection was pre-calculated against the digital model to confirm mapping accuracy, and the whole rig was proofed for millimeter tolerance before a truss ever left the shop. The final install fit the room with inches to spare.

Outcome

Because the pre-production held up, the on-site execution ran without interruption. The technology stayed invisible: attendees interacted with the digital-art experience while the projectors, media servers, and interaction sensors did their work quietly at the edges.

This project sharpened the practice’s approach to pre-production accuracy — modeling every rig, every optical path, every cable run before touching a case. When the venue punishes any tolerance error, the modeling stage becomes the whole game.