Ann Morrow Johnson, Global Entertainment Leader, Design Director, Gensler, Andrew Lazarow, Studio Leader, The LAB at Rockwell Group, Alexandre Simionescu, Founder and CEO, Float4 Moderator: Tony Chambers, Co-chair, Brainstorm Design; Founder and Creative Director, Studio TC & Friends
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TechTranscript
00:00Thank You Clay and Elizabeth for that wonderful start to brainstorm design.
00:05Good morning Macau, great to be with you, great to have your company. As Clay
00:11hinted we're going to be talking about experiments in experience and I can say
00:17confidently we have three of the very best to discuss that area, three of the
00:23very best experienced designers to put them under one umbrella. We're going to
00:28start with a brief introduction, bio and slideshow from each of our panelists and
00:36I'm going to start with Andrew. Andrew tell us a little bit about yourself and
00:42what you do with LAB and the Rockwell Group. Yeah so my name is Andrew Lazaro so
00:47I began my career working in the theater that's what I was formally trained in
00:52in undergrad. I worked briefly as an actor then briefly as a director and
00:57then I found video and projections design. Ran a small theater company in
01:00Seattle, worked across the world, South Africa through Europe, design shows on
01:05Broadway, designed you know shows across the United States, ended up doing an
01:11opera at the Met Museum, then ended up doing window design so I was the
01:15resident designer for Tiffany's and Company for a bit and then found NBBJ,
01:19worked at NBBJ's experiential arm for a few years and then met up with David
01:26Rockwell again. When I first met David Rockwell I did not know Rockwell Group
01:29existed. I knew David Rockwell as the Tony Award-winning theater designer and
01:34then was surprised to find out he had this entire firm of Rockwell Group.
01:38Rockwell Group sits at that intersection of high-end hospitality and theater so
01:43we think about storytelling and we think about all of the people who come to our
01:45spaces as guests who deserve to be seen and heard and acknowledged for who they
01:50are so that's really kind of where our work sits. If you've ever eaten at a
01:56Nobu anywhere in the world you've been at a Rockwell Group experience. That
02:00began as a conversation about time between David Rockwell, Chef Nobu and
02:04Robert De Niro and became the first three-star Michelin restaurant to not
02:08have white tablecloths. If you watch the Oscars you've seen Rockwell Group
02:13designs. We design the Academy Awards every couple of years and as Clay said
02:17on your walk-in you saw a Rockwell Group design that Alex and Float 4 actually
02:21worked on a little bit as well. The spectacle that you saw on the way in but
02:26rather than show our whole portfolio I want to talk a little bit about our
02:29process and how we work. So this is a project that we launched this year for
02:33the pharmaceutical company Bristol Myers Squibb and you might not think that we're
02:39who they had called to design the ground floor experience of a lab that focuses
02:44on cancer mitigation research and dementia mitigation research but they
02:48wanted to think of something that felt like a public art piece not like a
02:52typical corporate lobby so they wanted something that showed who they are
02:55without overt branding and their mission really is to think about how they
02:59transform patients lives through science. So that was the ask. They had never done
03:04anything like this before so they came to us with that brief of their mission.
03:09We did a very deep dive into their values who works in this lab and we came
03:14up with this concept design as a sketch at the end of our concept design phase
03:18where we sat down we found our deep emotional connection to how they work. We
03:23found our connection to this space and so that was where we were in concept.
03:28This is the space when it opened. So we have this kinetic sculpture based on the
03:33hardware of lenses from Rosalind Franklin. So this lab is led by an
03:37incredible woman named Emma Leeds. It was inspired by Rosalind Franklin, the woman
03:41who discovered the double helix in DNA. You'll also see these LED screens based
03:46on a theatrical proscenium approach. All of this is real-time generative
03:51interactive content based on the work happening in this specific research lab.
03:57So we just want to play a short video to let you see how this works. This is that
04:01kinetic chandelier based on the lenses in Rosalind Franklin's microscopes and
04:06crystallography machine and it moves to different modes. Here it is reacting to
04:11sound waves of patient testimonials. We have this series of LED screens about a
04:18different entrance experience about innovation versus the exit experience
04:22which is about empathy and the lives they're impacting. Again all these
04:25visuals are based on scans happening in the lab itself. Always reactive, changing
04:31seasonally, daily, and hourly. These are milled pieces of microscopic views of
04:38their landmark patents that again it's LED hidden behind stonework so that it's
04:43about bringing their work to life. It's not about the technology. And again this
04:48is some of the neuroscience research happening in the lab and our goal was
04:52that if we let scientists feel their impact every day on the way to and from
04:56work, if that just inspires one scientist to find a breakthrough just one day in
05:00their career, we think this project is worth it. Thank you Andrea. That's a
05:05wonderful, wonderful project. We're gonna talk a bit more about that later and an
05:11experience you had in designing it which is personal but fascinating from an
05:16emotional level. Look forward to hearing that. Alexandra, let's go with you.
05:22Certainly. And let's hear about Float 4 and your background. Well so I started in
05:30this field back in 2008. My background is in computer engineering. I worked in a
05:35video game company for a number of years. Realized after a handful of years that
05:38that's not really what I wanted to do but I was really passionate about the
05:42interactive installations we used to do in college. And so I met back, I met with
05:46my some of my colleagues from college and we started this company called Float
05:49and since then we've started to you know deploy installations in a huge number of
05:54different settings whether it's in an airport or in you know different types
05:58of office buildings or corporate environments. Really anywhere where
06:02there's a story that people want to tell and want to remember. So one of the great
06:05things that I love about what we do is that there's not a specific shape,
06:08size or form. It really depends on who the audience is, what the message is and
06:13really what we want that audience to remember. So that's why you see a variety
06:17of these examples that you know don't really have that much in common apart
06:20from the fact that we use digital media and infuse it in a physical environment
06:24to tell a story right. And so in some cases it can be something that's you
06:29know a little more ambient or more related to a feeling. In other cases
06:33something that's a lot more specific for example the story of a city. So it really
06:36varies a lot and this is something that we've you know we love doing to this day
06:41and also how we build technology that powers these environments because as
06:44I've asked some of the members you know that are part of this group of people
06:47that are this conference, everybody's from a different background. That's one
06:52of the things that I find really fascinating about the field that we're
06:54in is that although it uses a lot of techniques from you know different types
06:58of skill sets, it's a new medium. We use digital media but it's not like the web,
07:04it's not like television, it's not like the traditional digital media platforms
07:08that we're used to. So really what we do is we take art, science and
07:13technology and combine it together to create these environments that can be
07:16very large scale. So we're talking about things that can be immersive for large
07:19crowds or groups of people and you see a few examples here whether it's you know
07:23in a retail environment or if it's in a hospitality environment but also things
07:27that are smaller scale that are meant to be more interactive and that's really
07:30where a lot of technology comes in to create those interactions whether they're
07:33based on motion or you know touch or data. There's a lot of different ways in
07:40which we can bring environments to life and I think that's really ultimately
07:44what it's what it's about is creating these environments that respond to the
07:48presence of the audience in a way that will convey the message that you know
07:53the clients want their audience to remember. And so over the years what
07:56we've done also is develop a lot of technology you know they say good
08:00software developer is a lazy one so you reuse a lot of the things so that you
08:03can focus on what's specific about the new project and so Real Motion is a
08:06platform that we developed over more than a decade now and one of the key
08:10things is being able to take spatial data so a lot of different types of
08:13sensors that we use to be able to capture different types of data points
08:17about a specific environment whether it's an individual or whether it's a
08:20group of people taking that we're using that to generate media in real time
08:25right to make it responsive and then also being able to support a large
08:29number of authoring environments like Unreal Engine or Unity so it's really
08:34creating a new tool to increase adoption by lowering cost and that's a little bit
08:38of what we do. Fantastic thank you Alexander and we want to talk a bit more
08:43about this real-time software that you've been developing a bit later which
08:47could be a game-changer I believe looking forward to hearing that. Last but
08:52no means least Anne Morrow thank you for joining us and we want to hear something
08:58about your background and your current newish role at Gensler. Definitely so I
09:04think I'm in good company being a bit of a theater kid my background I started by
09:10acting and directing and shows I was in a really bad improv company for a minute
09:14and then had to make money somehow and so I'd always like to draw and did some
09:20interior design work and architecture with Robert Stern doing cultural and
09:26institutional work but really found a passion when I went to Walt Disney
09:32Imagineering and kind of found this intersection of theatricality and
09:36storytelling in physical space and was able to kind of blend both of those
09:39things together. From there I creative corrected a number of projects produced
09:44a few wound up leading their overall creative development so everything from
09:48like cruise ships to parks to hotels but then had a wonderful series of
09:53conversations with Gensler about how do we think about applying narrative
09:58storytelling in the real world and so coming over we have a whole team of
10:04folks that are thinking about how do we essentially make a film in the
10:09three-dimensional space and architecture and buildings and concrete
10:13and steel are one of the tools that can be used but so are carpets so are stage
10:20lights so are the music that you hear as you walk in so are the digital screens
10:25that you potentially interact with so are the games that you play the things
10:29that you smell and so everything from these sort of more traditional themed
10:33entertainment projects to the cultural museum space that we're seeing really
10:38dig into this idea of interactivity and narrative and storytelling to historic
10:44centers or city districts that are trying to kind of breathe new life into
10:48them and find new ways to engage folks and so this idea of experiential design
10:54I think is something that is exploding in a lot of different ways but at its
10:59core is really about kind of finding the heart of what is the emotional
11:02experience of the place and how do we design that with all of the tools that
11:05we have. Interesting now that's a fantastic summation of what experiential
11:11design can be. I'm still intrigued by your career path because it's
11:16unconventional. It is. But there is a nice arc to it starting in theater. I'm sure
11:22you're a very good actress and then a step in design with Robert Stern. Disney
11:32of course. Extraordinary experience creating some wonderful art there and
11:39then now to Gensler. So was that leap from Disney to Gensler has that been a
11:45comfortable leap because of your earlier experience in design or are you
11:49bringing something very new to Gensler? I think it's a little bit of yes
11:53to both. I think that Gensler entertainment practice had actually
11:57started prior to my joining. Bob Weiss who was also formerly at Imagineering
12:02had done quite a bit of work with our business partner Alexi Berry to kind of
12:06found the practice and think about how we how we do this work and so I think
12:10the groundwork had already really been established at Gensler and I
12:15guess I knew a little bit about architecture firms having done some
12:17interiors in architecture before but I think for me just the sheer breadth of
12:23opportunity of the different styles of design that are possible kind of all
12:28over the world because I think I'd been coming from this very deep craft of how
12:34do we think about and control and design every aspect of something but within a
12:38very finite canon right if it's not Star Wars or princesses or Marvel like we
12:43kind of weren't doing it and so now coming to Gensler and thinking about how
12:48you apply that craft that idea of storytelling to so many different types
12:53of things is a thing that I think that the whole team has been really excited
12:56to be kind of diving into all over the world. Excited, intrigued, but also a little scared yeah
13:01being scared is a good thing in a creative office never never never good
13:06to be complacent having somebody that's surprises you and scares you is a great
13:10thing and we'll come back on more details on that a little later
13:14Alexandra a little bit about more about you so you began your career as a
13:19computer engineer for video games correct so how do game how does game
13:25design inform your approach to designing immersive experiences in physical spaces
13:30I think one of the most fundamental things that I learned when I was working
13:35in video games is you know we have so much data about what happens to the
13:40player in the game through the game engine right and then trying to give
13:44them the sense that they can do whatever they want but at the same time guiding
13:48them along so that they achieve you know the goal in the game and balancing
13:53that is something that is an art right you want to give them the sense of
13:57freedom but at the same time they need to achieve you know the the goal of the
14:01game and so that translates really well into what we do because we want to give
14:05a sense that people can you know explore whatever they want but at the same time
14:09you need to guide them and how do you guide them in a way that it's subtle
14:11without having you know call to actions or something that's very common but call
14:15to action is kind of like a manual basically so how do you create you know
14:18interfaces that are a lot more intuitive and based on you know how our most of
14:22our reactions work so that people don't really think about what they're doing
14:28they just intuitively engage and that's a really really interesting part of the
14:35job that I do today yes and I've seen you or read you described as a designer
14:41an artist technologist engineer where do you see yourself somewhere in between
14:46all of those it depends on the one if I have to pick one oh that's really hard I
14:51mean one of the things that I really love about what I do is you know the
14:54constant learning and switching between you know design technology and business
14:58because a lot of the work that we do ultimately needs to solve a business
15:02problem even if it's an artistic installation it's there for a specific
15:06purpose I can't pick one I love to just continually you know oscillate between
15:13those three topics to be able to help our team focus on the you know the end
15:18goal a little bit of everything I wish I could but I've been trying for a long
15:22time but I can't my people would call you a mensch oh there we go having worked
15:26with Alex across a couple of projects yeah he has all of those things but just
15:30a good collaborator and the best of all those exactly yeah thank you that's a
15:35very nice thing to do it but it's I think one of the challenges when we
15:38start these projects is that you'll hear a lot of people say we want to be
15:41involved early on because all of the skill sets need to be considered early
15:45on so being able to think across you know these different disciplines I think
15:49really helps to balance the projects properly so that they they you know they
15:53grow the right way and want to hear a little more about the real motion
15:59engine that you you gave a teaser of earlier and what its applications and
16:04advantages are and I've heard you say it could it is device agnostic that's
16:12one of the things I mean you know in the simplest terms a lot of these
16:16installations that we work on for a very long time is still to this day are
16:19custom-built right and custom-built also means expensive to build but also it can
16:25be expensive to maintain so really the goal of the technology that we've
16:29developed is to lower the cost of production and operation of these
16:32environments and one of the ways is you know by being able for the technology to
16:37work with any kind of media whether it's you know LED or projection like the ones
16:41that you have here or the screen that we have behind us lighting really having
16:45something that's able to interact with all the digital outputs of an
16:49environment instead of have separate having separate systems for all of them
16:52so that's one of the things where we see you know a way to reduce some of the
16:56costs but it's one of the many different features that ultimately allowed to
16:59create that that cost-saving Andrew so Rockwell group renowned for being one of
17:07the best or the best working in hospitality how do you think immersive
17:14elements enhance guest experiences in spaces like these and others yeah I
17:19think you know hospitality it shares a root word with hospital if you think
17:23about it and high-end hospitality we think about people show up sometimes at
17:29these spaces on the best day of their lives to celebrate or on some of the
17:33toughest days of their lives to find some solace and some joy in those tough
17:36moments and we design these spaces to be there for people at either end of these
17:42extremes or everything in between which means you need to show people that you
17:47accept them for who they are make them feel welcome make them feel considered
17:50make them feel seen as individuals and so that is really a part of what we
17:55think experience and immersive design is which is really are you impacting the
17:59space or is this space acknowledging your presence and giving you what you
18:03need so when we think about interaction it's never just here's a trick that is
18:07really cool or here's a way to make cheap content it's how can you make
18:11people feel like they matter how can you make people feel seen David Rockwell
18:15always talks about we never start a project thinking about what a building
18:18will look like we think about what we want people to feel when they leave and
18:22so all of our immersive approaches we really kind of think about experience
18:26design as architecture plus time is how does the space meet you through your
18:31entire journey so that you leave feeling the sort of things we and our clients
18:36want you to feel and you've spoken a number of times rather beautifully and
18:41actually on this stage last year about your approach to design and the role
18:46that emotion lays and not only for the people who actually will experience the
18:51spaces you've designed but also for you the designer and you hinted in the
18:58green room that an experience you've had in the last year since you last spoke
19:02about the Bristol Myers has been very life-changing yes so the the only way
19:12that I know how to get past a generic or unexpected or sort of an experience and
19:17design approach that you expect is to bring yourself to the work I was very
19:22lucky where someone who to me was a titan in the field who then became a
19:25mentor and then became a friend is the musical theater writer Stephen Shorts
19:29for musical theater lovers he wrote Pippin he wrote Godspell for Disney
19:35people he wrote the score to Pocahontas or sort of very apropos of this moment
19:40he wrote the music and lyrics for Wicked the Broadway show and now the movie and
19:45Stephen always talks about universality through specificity which means when
19:50you're creating something from a creative sense the way he works and it's
19:54always been a part of the way I work is to know where you are emotionally in
19:58that moment the story that you're trying to tell and how you relate to it that's
20:02the way you get to something that actually is memorable even if our
20:06experiences are different people feel the authenticity of that and they find a
20:10way to relate even if it's not exactly their story so one project that we were
20:15doing with MGM over in their Macau property is a performance venue that we
20:19worked on through all of last year and really what that space is about is many
20:24spaces when you show up as an artist you have to cut ideas or trim back and we
20:28thought what if there's a space that sees you for all of who you are and
20:32doesn't try to make you fit into their box but actually accepts who you are and
20:37supports that and that's because in my life I was I was going through a divorce
20:42which even though it was amicable and I'm still in touch with my ex you know
20:46it's always a tough moment but what I was looking for was to be seen in that
20:51way and to be supported in that way same thing with Bristol Myers Squibb a
20:55project about profound transformation we wanted to make a space that not only
21:00literally changed to embody their mission of transformation but a space
21:04that is made up of many different facets not just seen as one thing and how those
21:09facets change over time therefore the relationship changes over time therefore
21:13the feeling of the building changes over time so those are two projects in the
21:18last year where I sort of showed up with where I was emotionally sat down with my
21:22team to Elizabeth's point in the last chat we have a great strategist and
21:27storyteller Elizabeth D'Orazio on my team you can sort of take that and bring
21:31that into real space so she led both the project we were doing with MGM she was
21:36our head strategist and storyteller on Bristol Myers Squibb and sort of
21:39converted that into real space and content and kinetic design leading the
21:45team along the way so that we're all aligned with what we're trying to do
21:49sort of through almost cosmic coincidence if you will my partner who
21:55was the first time I really feel fully seen in this way I met in person the day
21:59after the Bristol Myers Squibb project wrapped so it was sort of this thing
22:03where I was making work about what I was looking for and then through again
22:07almost cosmic coincidence met that person the very next day. Wow, fantastic so
22:12yeah your emotional approach to work and what you take to a project you feel can
22:18not only improve the work and the experience for the viewer but it affects
22:24you as well. Exactly yeah. And the best work happens that way. Exactly yeah and
22:29that way we're all learning together and going towards the same goal together.
22:32Lovely. We talked a little earlier about buzzwords and experiential design and
22:39immersive design and immersive experiences how there are different
22:43camps. Can you elaborate a little on that Anne Morrow? Oh sure we were talking
22:49backstage because it feels like there the terms are almost word soup at this
22:53point of you know what is immersive mean and at the point at which everything
22:57from like car commercials to performances are calling themselves
23:00immersive what does that even mean anymore but I think the way we look at
23:06it through design is what are a number of different things that can sort of
23:12aggregate together to start to feel immersive and so you know does it have a
23:17story does it have a sense of the story it is trying to tell does it tap into as
23:23many of the senses as possible like is there a distinct smell or a musical tune
23:28that kind of puts you in a specific place or mindset and call it kind of
23:33like connecting with your lizard brain right like I can feel how I'm supposed
23:37to feel in this moment or like a transportive location something that
23:41looks really spectacular or I'm not in Kansas anymore I don't know if there's a
23:46way to participate or like feel like it's memorable there's all kinds of
23:49really interesting neuroscience around the more you can get people to engage if
23:53you can invite them to participate in some way it's like creates a stronger
24:00memory and you have kind of more of yourself in it and so I think you know
24:05the more kind of different things that you can use exactly to your point to
24:09create that sense of emotional authenticity of like who do we want to
24:13be in this space and how are we gonna hold you as a guest or a participant
24:18I think the thing that we think about that makes something truly feel
24:22immersive kind of regardless of what the buzzword means yeah exactly and
24:25Alexandra you had a point about the simplest things can be truly immersive
24:31yeah well you know you I was reading a book on my flight over here and I was
24:35immersed in my book so I think a lot of times technology can be a distraction
24:39because sometimes the challenge of getting the technology to work is so
24:42great that once you reach that goal you're like okay we made it but actually
24:45just made the technology work it doesn't mean that you made the experience
24:49exactly like one of the things that I look at when we finish a project or you
24:52know when we finish a design phase I look at it I'm like in half a second
24:57like am I inspired by this do I get an emotional response to it or am I just
25:01happy that it works if I'm happy that it works we haven't reached our goal if I
25:05get inspiration out of it and I have an emotional response to your point to it
25:10that's when I'm like okay we you know everything's working together as it
25:15should but the technology portion is such a it's like when we start a project
25:19I'm like let's forget about that for a second you know 20 word sentence what do
25:22you want people to remember and if I see you know blank stare in people's eyes
25:26and it's like oh but we got a big screen I'm like let's talk about why let's go
25:30back to why and what do you want people to remember so the notion of immersion
25:34isn't something that is guaranteed by the level the amount of technology that
25:37you put in the space totally some of the best things are just like dark rooms
25:41with a tiny bit of music or something that gets you to feel and the way that
25:45our brain works I mean that's one of the fascinating things about our field but
25:48it's you know what one of the experiences that I still haven't found
25:52one but something that's purely based on sound how would you navigate an
25:56experience if your eyes are closed there was one during the pandemic the lighting
26:01designer how binkley before you pass okay this incredible show that started
26:06in London and then came to New York at the Union Square Theatre and you came in
26:10and you could only buy tickets in pairs of two because it was height of the
26:14kovat pandemic and you were sat 10 feet away from any other pair of two and you
26:19had to wear a mask but you were still distanced okay and it began where you
26:22wore headphones so you had full spatial audio that reacted to how you turned
26:26your head and it was beautifully lit and then basically it's the story of a
26:30pandemic where people contract blindness and it was one of very few shows in the
26:35United States that had a true blackout as in exit signs and way funding also
26:40complete blackout so you were just in complete darkness for about 85 minutes
26:46of the 90 minutes of the immersion must have been pretty incredible it was
26:49absolutely incredible and then the end is basically a story telling you you
26:53know to appreciate the world around you as you see it and so the way light is
26:57revealed is basically the loading dock open to reveal Union Square Park and so
27:02the first thing that you see is actually the world again and it was one of the
27:06most incredible things I saw so that's the thing like technology gives us
27:10a lot of possibilities but the same way that you know you look at cinema I mean
27:13you can see amazing films that are made you know with a tiny tiny budget and
27:16then movies that don't really inspire that they blew up you know 200 million
27:20dollars on so technology won't be careful to make the technology you're in
27:26control of it rather than it's it's easy but it's easy to be seduced by on that
27:32are there any new emerging technologies you see that are going to change the way
27:37you work or will impact your work is anything coming up we don't know I think
27:41there's two letters you know that we hear very often these days with you know
27:45everything that's done with artificial intelligence but it's changing so many
27:50things in the way that we work and I see it for the better for sure there's
27:55definitely you know scenarios that could be considered for the worst as well but
27:59I tend to be more of an optimistic so anything that has to do with concepting
28:03and you know early-stage brainstorming that's really useful but also for things
28:07like we were working with ESI on the was it the Statue of Liberty Museum and one
28:13of the things is since it's on an island there's a very small amount of people
28:18that are there to operate it so part of the experience was people needed to take
28:21a picture and every time you give people the opportunity to take a picture
28:23somebody it's gonna do something silly so one of the things that we did in that
28:28case was to use AI to determine if somebody was doing you know a gesture
28:33that was you wouldn't want to show on a big screen and then kindly ask them to
28:37do that again so that's another type of application but that's probably one of
28:41the the biggest ones and the other thing that I'll add to that is because AI uses
28:47GPUs so much to train the models having GPUs in the cloud is something that
28:52opens a breadth of possibilities for all the infrastructure that is currently on
28:56premise and that's something that is just a coincidence that you know we're
29:00hoping to take advantage of. Yeah one one thing that that I think about there
29:06was this incredible talk about resiliency and water design that we had
29:09yesterday which will be part of the conference later today and I think
29:13what's what's so beautiful about passive design and resiliency design is it's not
29:17denying that flooding will happen it's okay how do we incorporate that in a way
29:22that actually improves people's lives and mitigates the negative impact and I
29:26raised that because I think one thing people don't think about with the use of
29:29AI is the heat and water impact so using about an eighth of a gallon of
29:34water every chat GPT query and people often don't think about that even people
29:39in sustainability don't think about what they're using AI for in the impact that
29:43that's actually having on the work we're doing but if we have a conversation that
29:48is not using you know that much water and that much power and I think there's
29:53so there's that element also Nick Cave wrote a beautiful piece about AI in
29:58relation to songwriting and you can write a song with AI and you can write
30:02a song in the style of a given artist and with AI but what you lose is the
30:06history of again the emotional journey or the pain of Kurt Cobain screaming out
30:11or you know the love of a love song like you're not getting that actual emotional
30:16depth and arc that comes from somebody's heart and soul and experience and I
30:19think while AI is useful for coming up with ideas we need that human element
30:24absolutely just to we've run out of time unfortunately we could talk for
30:28another half an hour but just to close a clay hinted earlier that we we kind of
30:35could be in a golden age for experiential immersive design where
30:39technology's got a lot more sophisticated but we were combining it
30:43thankfully through you three and others like you with traditional storytelling
30:48do you think we can confidently say we're in a good moment a golden age it
30:52certainly feels like it's on the rise right there's we see sort of the massive
30:57growth of the experience economy and I guess the technology that I'm probably
31:01most excited about beyond the cool theatricality things that we're seeing
31:05is some of the emerging technologies and how we are thinking about our
31:08performance like how the money works to think about the importance of giving
31:15people experiences that makes them want to stay that makes them want to spend
31:18that make them want to be in a place is deeply exciting so it certainly yes
31:23then and Andrew Alessandro we're in a good golden age so I was thinking about
31:29that because you mentioned it earlier when we were backstage I think we're
31:32really at the start so the golden age is still building but I think we're where
31:39cinema was a hundred and some years ago we're defining the grammar the
31:42terminology we're starting to develop tools that are specific to this yeah so
31:46that's why what I'm excited about is that we're at the start of something
31:49that you know past my time will look back and it was like wow look at how
31:53they were doing it back then now this you know this discipline has been has
31:56bloomed and evolved so much more fantastic yeah I optimistic I completely
32:01agree I think we were at a moment of thinking about an Instagram photo is the
32:05moment and now we're thinking about building designs that are a story you
32:09want to tell people about over and over because you enjoy telling the story and
32:12I'll just say I think as they're hiring and Mara was just a good sign for where
32:17this economy is going and in the belief that putting people in these large firms
32:21thinking about it this way I think is really good for the world thank you very
32:25much of the futures in really safe hands thank you to our a-list and Morrow
32:29Andrew and Alexandra thank you very much