Build an immersive world that explores how music, AI, and immersive tech are reshaping how we connect with sound.
The brief asked for a multi-sensory installation. I started with a question: vinyl was scarce, collectible, ritualised — and streaming traded all of that for access. What would it look like to build the scarcity back, not in physical media, but in space?
engine of choice — picked because I already knew it, so the deadline went into narrative not tooling.
spatial sequence designed as a guided journey from arrival to immersive rave.
sound, motion, and visuals prototyped together as one installation, not a screen.
Vinyl was scarce. Streaming gave us access. What does the next paradigm shift look like?
I researched how streaming reshaped access, community, and music culture. Boiler Room globalised underground scenes; vinyl's cultural weight faded but its exclusivitykept its value. The pattern is consistent: every shift in music tech is really a shift in the social ritual around listening.
Could virtual digital rooms recreate that scarcity — bringing digital plates a physical sense, the nostalgia of vinyl with the immediacy of digital, in a new paradigm shift?
A two-floor house, six rooms, built as a journey.
The world is staged like a piece of theatre. Arrival, threshold, ritual, transition, hangout, climax. Each room has its own lighting, sound bed, and reason to exist. The architecture isn't a backdrop — it is the user journey.
Six steps from arrival to rave.
- 01
Approach the house
Spawn at the edge of a desert basin. The house pulls focus on the horizon — the only structure in a quiet, otherworldly landscape.
- 02
Step inside
Through the door into the first room. Lighting shifts from warm dusk to a cool interior — the world signals that you're somewhere new now.
- 03
The dubstation
Crates of dub plates, a turntable, and a wall of exclusive releases. Pick a record, hear it play, learn its origin.
- 04
Up the stairs
Vertical movement as a transition device. The staircase is short but it ritualises the move from one space to the next.
- 05
Room two
A second curated space — calmer, social. Designed for hanging out between events.
- 06
The immersive rave
The destination. A full-room rave with reactive lighting, sound, and crowd avatars — the core experience the journey was built around.
From a virtual world to a festival tent.
The natural extension is interactive radio. Listeners participate inside the virtual room while the show is broadcast — live chat, virtual dance floor, exclusive releases, requests influencing what gets played. Audience becomes co-creator.
The strongest version is physical-virtual hybrid. Imagine silent-disco headphones, but for sight: visitors at a festival put on a pair of glasses inside an installation tent and link with friends who can't physically be there. The remote friend sees, hears, and dances in the same room as the person on site.
A closer-than-Boiler-Room experience for people not in the crowd. A reason to stand in a tent. A use for an empty stage at 2pm on a Saturday.
UX has a spatial dimension.
A user journey through a physical (or virtual physical) space follows the same rules as one through a screen — reduce friction, signpost the next move, and let the destination feel earned. The grammar transfers.
Multi-sensory work is a team sport. I prototyped with sound, motion, and visual artists at the same time, not in a handover chain — the installation only made sense as the sum.
Atmospheric storytelling lives in lighting, pacing, and sound just as much as in copy or interface. UX principles give you the journey; atmosphere is what makes someone feel they were somewhere.
NRG CRU
A live stage for NRG CRU.
Taking DubMesnion off the screen and into a real room. I'm designing this as a physical stage in collaboration with NRG CRU— translating the virtual rooms, lighting, and pacing into a live build for one of their nights.