28 August 2013

The Wilderness Downtown

‘The Wilderness Downtown’ is an interactive multimedia film featuring Arcade Fire’s “We Used to Wait”, created by music video director Chris Milk, and a team of Google employees lead by interactive artist Aaron Koblin to show the technological and aesthetic capabilities of Google Chrome. Through user input of an old home address, an entire audio-visual interaction is then tailored to the individual using Google Earth and HTML5, creating a unique experience that tugs at the heart strings of nostalgia while also blowing audiences away through the flexing of Google Chrome’s technological muscles.

There are many aspects of the project I admire; the synergy of its audiovisual elements, the quality of thought and emotion in those elements, the customization of the experience to an individual (which all the more enhances the nostalgic themes of the song), and so on.

What strikes me the most about this project however was in the intention of its creation. Through a project like this, many parties had the opportunity to achieve a variety of things. With Google needing to find ways to be more personable to its users, finding new creative ways to advertise its products, it seemed most natural for it to invest in the creative spirits of new media artists such as Chris Milk, Aaron Koblin, and the employees in their blossoming Data Arts Team. For these artists, having the rich foundation of a large corporation to build off of is freeing to the creative spirit through the expansion of potential, unbound by concerns of resources. This is where I personally believe the future of culture works should head, exploration and building upon the legacies of those before it, providing a balanced hybrid that straddles a familiar comfort with the spice of the new.

In a nutshell, this project to me represents a harmony of harmonies–it explores the synergy of the arts with technology, of companies with individuals (both the artists and customers), of producer and end user, music and visuals, and more.