Shiseido
Beyond Time
For the launch of Shiseido’s Global Innovation Center (GIC) in Yokohama, Japan, R/GA Tokyo was asked to create an experience that would bring to life their new brand purpose: Beauty Innovations for a Better World. The experience also needed to highlight Shiseido’s long history of scientific research and make visitor’s see Shiseido for the innovative company it is. To achieve all this, we built a time machine.
Beyond Time is an immersive, interactive, deep-tech installation that allows two people to seemingly break the boundaries of time. The project leverages Shiseido’s facial data to develop a world-first, scientifically accurate, fully 3D, real-time Age Simulation Engine. Instead of focusing on how we look at different stages in our lives, the experience was designed to help people reassess their relationship with time through the lens of their closest relationships.
Participants can experience the spectrum of aging with a loved one, in an instant: a parent becomes younger than their child; lovers glimpse each other before they met; friends grow old together in the blink of an eye. Every time jump prompts conversations around our memories, hopes and dreams, building to a growing realization of what we can look forward to growing older.
This project took about a year from concept to launch, involving our multidisciplinary team who was embedded inside Shiseido’s creative department floor in Ginza, Tokyo. In addition to the task management and QA’ing during the crunch time, my key role was to write code to program lighting and glass animations for the booths, as well as hard-wiring the physical buttons, lights and opacity films on the glass.
The experience was built in C++ using OpenFrameworks.
2019 | R/GA
2019 | Shiseido Creative
BEYOND TIME: A time-travel experience that changes how we see each other →
2020 | Interaction Awards
Shiseido Beyond Time →