MEC & Jason Bruges Put Cannes On Screen

The Lions Innovation festival kicks off today, a two-day programme of events and speakers focussed on data, technology and creativity.

There will be talks from industry game-changers with revolutionary product demonstrations, networking events and the Lions Innovation Festival Awards but there will also be a brilliant, unique installantion created by MEC and Jason Bruges Studio that will monitor and process tweets from delegates to display the feelings and conversations in Cannes on 180 mini screens presented in the shape of a lion.

The visual art piece, which explores the future of the ‘Live Room’, has been created in collaboration with iconic interactive design and art company, Jason Bruges Studio to celebrate MEC’s sponsorship of the inaugural festival.

#EmotiCannes was built using entirely bespoke hardware and software and will shift and change its colours and projections in sympathy with the 10,000+ festival attendees.

The Lion represents MEC's capability to uncover real-time insights and is one of several of the agency's always-on innovations; taking vast amounts of data and turning it into intuitive, useful visualisations.

Jason Bruges Studio created a unique hardware and software solution that includes 180 Raspberry Pi boards connected at the back of each screen. This technology allows each display to be controlled separately or in unison, offering an infinite amount of screen configurations that mean no individual will provoke the same response from the installation.

Below, MEC's chief analytics & insight officer, Stephan Bruneau, and Jason Bruges MD Richard Howarth, tell us how the unique art and data project came about, more about the technology behind the piece and what they hope to gain from the experience of hosting the lion inside the Palais during the Lions Innovation Festival today and tomorrrow.

How did the idea for an installation come about?

SB: I remember distinctively sitting in a hotel lobby at CES in January and we had to make a decision about sponsoring the Lions Innovation event. We decided to do it, but as long as we did something interesting, quite big and involved each section: data, technology and creativity. So that was our starting point, and we started looking at various ideas; we looked at robots and other stuff we were doing at the agency, but then we got in touch with Jason Bruges via our marketing person and these guys came up with the concept of the Lion. The idea was to do something quite arty and creative but bridging data and technology.

And Richard, how did you communicate your idea to MEC?

RH: Well, I guess after understanding what they do with their data, we had to find a way to turn it into art and build some sort of installation. So what we were looking at was what’s interesting about it and what we could do with that - how can we show the sort of things they analyse in an artistic way? And the other thing we were looking at is where it was going to sit. If we’re going to create a spectacle we want to make sure everyone comes to look at it. I think we quite quickly thought about the idea of a cloud of screens. One of the things we’ve been quite interested in recently is how data moves between different screens. Then when you start examining what forms to have these screens in, it made sense to do it in the shape and form of a lion.

And it's now on show and being viewed by people at the forefront of creativity, so did that make it more important?

RH: I think it was really interesting that a company like MEC wanted to do something that was quite out there artistically. It’s really interesting the way they use data and analysis.

And where did you start?

RH: We did a lot on computers about how a cloud of screens could be made to look like a lion. We did a lot of work on analysing the data that MEC had collected from last year, looking at the patterns and once you understand them you can sort of work out how you can create some artistic correlation.

We looked at quite a lot of that and also worked with the MEC team to make sure we were looking at the right data that we could use in a sculpture. Then we just had to build it!

How important are the tweets be to its success?

SB: Quite important because that’s what fuels the lion so we’ll see.

RH: In a way the Lion is just a barometer to what’s going on so if it’s calm the lion will be calm. If something exciting happens the lion will be excited. Being the first day of the Innovation Lions there should be a lot of excitement…

SB: Yes, usually we do this on clients’ brands but we didn’t want to focus on a brand. We had to focus on Cannes and giving back to Cannes.

Was that more of a challenge?

SB: No I don’t think so because there’s a lot of conversations around Cannes with various handles etc.

RH: When you look at last year, there were some quite big peaks at certain times of day reflecting how much positive sentiment there was. You can imagine it was because there was an award here or a great party there, and you can sort of link it. We’re pretty confident that at times during the Festival the lion will be responding.

And what about the viewer interaction?

RH: The bigger the frequency the more agitated the lion will look and the more positive the sentiment will mean more colour. So as an onlooker you’ll have a sense of what the mood of Cannes is on social media. And as you approach the lion what’ll happen is you’ll be able to get more insight into what’s going on because it’ll detect your face moving closer and on one of the screens near your face they will display a full live tweet and around it some of the statistics to do with them. For example, what country it’s from, the sex of the person who tweeted it and some other interesting things.

SB: For us we’re also looking at it as a stepping stone to something bigger and better and we want to learn from it. From an agency point of view we’re really interested in the idea of building things like this for clients. So it may not be the shape of a lion, it might be something else rather than screens but we want to take data out of the computer screen. I’m sure we’ll learn quite a lot.

RH: I think for us it’s going to be really interesting as well because of what it looks like creatively derived from data. For us it’s quite exciting to see what it’s going to look like. Because until you plug it in and Cannes decides what it’s doing and thinking, you don’t really know what it’s going to be like.