The Datascape: Intel by 2LK Design

What if innovation could make information more exciting?

Transforming Intel’s data-rich product stories into visceral, visually arresting and meaningful live experiences was the challenge we leapt on to help them shine at Mobile World Congress 2022 – Intel’s first post-pandemic and major live event experience since 2019.

We’re all data-obsessed and rightly so. After all, data influences our decision-making on a daily basis and has become a currency on which we rely. And big data is big business, with big stories to tell. But data can be unhelpfully abstract and largely invisible. So how do we go about telling these stories in a way that customers find compelling and memory-making?

The Datascape was born from the power of custom written code, the wild potential of multi-source data and the vision of an incredible wall of sensory experiences. At the cutting-edge of technology and innovation, this parametric digital sculpture encourages interaction with beautiful, data-driven content streams in real-time. Content streams that use you and your movements as content inspiration – everchanging and infinite in combination and possibility.

Designed with living data at its core, The Datascape draws on its surroundings to scrape and harness data, reacting to a spectrum of inputs such as user motion, sound and environment to drive its beautiful and artistic response. Generative algorithms affect and influence a range of particle parameters – from particle size and orientation to speed, colour, velocity, scale and gravity. Each generative input is visualised in an entirely unique way, building crashing waves of data that consist of up to 1 million 3D particles.

As well as taking a continual generative algorithm source, The Datascape can also interact live with humans via camera and depth-based sensors, ingesting human data such as position, size, direction, proximity and speed – creating a human imprint entirely personal to the user. Particles have the ability to attract to visitors, forcing a swell to immerse, follow and track a person’s movement. Users can also repel particles away from themselves, generating a void within the sea of particles.

A bespoke written reactive audio engine tracks particle and user behaviour to modulate and target audio to locations along the screen.

The Datascape’s scale and technical optimisation is unparalleled, heralding a first for Mobile World Congress and carving the way forward for storytelling that’s generative, algorithm-driven and multi-sensory. Outputting at a scale of over 15k at a constant 60FPS with around 1 million particles, The Datascape runs from just one single consumer grade PC!

With The Datascape, data is no longer just a function of information. It’s a vibrant expression of connectivity and human interaction. Taking the abstract and creating an infinite stream of engaging, unexpected and interactive content that allows us to tell stories in ways that delight and inspire. Invisible data is given a newly visible, beautiful and vivid existence.