Atmospheric Lab
An immersive experience in the Clarice Beckett retrospective at Geelong Gallery that allows visitors to see a fleeting moment in a place special to them.
Experience design for physical and digital
Art direction and concept design
Visitor journeys and prototyping
Collaboration with curators and multimedia teams
The immersive experience for the Clarice Beckett exhibition at Geelong Gallery was developed in collaboration with the experience design team, Sandpit. The work aimed to translate Beckett’s atmospheric painting language into an interactive, spatial experience that sat alongside the physical works in the exhibition, extending the emotional and visual impact beyond the canvas.
Rather than functioning as a separate digital installation, the experience was designed as an extension of the curatorial narrative, allowing visitors to carry their engagement with Beckett’s work into a participatory, reflective moment.
Process
Process
Discovery workshops aligned curatorial vision, technical constraints, and experiential goals across multidisciplinary teams. Clarice Beckett’s artistic process was studied alongside organisational and audience needs. This ensured the experience balanced artistic integrity with technical feasibility.
Experience and Product Design
Research and data had been previously done so we opted to structure our design needs around archetypes over developing new personas. This simplification helped keep content, design and stakeholders on the same page. Three archetypes were developed: School Groups, with teachers and students, tourists and banking customers, each with their own needs, goals and visitor journeys.
Visual Design
A deep exploration of Beckett’s visual culture enabled a contextual understanding necessary to create an experience with emotional and artistic integrity rather than a superficial imitation. Research included critical reading, visual analysis, and references to Beckett’s influnces such as Max Meldrum and James McNeill Whistler.
A series of simplified colour and composition studies were developed, focusing on the key components of Beckett’s work: tonal relationships, edge softness, atmospheric depth, and shape language. Photoshop was used as a programmatic design tool, with Actions and JavaScript enabling the development of a repeatable, consistent visual transformation process.
Through collaboration and workshops with the development team, these systems were refined and translated into a real-time web shader capable of transforming Google Maps street scenes into painterly, atmospheric visual outputs.
Ongoing refinement with developers and industrial designers introduced an emotional layer to the experience. A series of “sentiments” were developed that visitors could select, subtly influencing the visual outcome. Rather than directly posing questions, projected prompts were integrated into the idle and post-input stages, allowing visitors to self-direct their emotional intent.
To deepen immersion, Calm Technology principles were applied. Visual elements softly faded when not in use, and the interface used restrained, gentle visual language that only called for attention when required, minimising cognitive load and maintaining a contemplative atmosphere.
Delivery and Outcomes
The result was an experience that functioned as a quiet, reflective moment for visitors, allowing for the contextualisation of the exhibition they had just walked through and giving them space to form a personal connection with the themes of atmosphere, place, and perception.
Described as a sensory journey exploring colour, sentiment, and place, more than 22,000 visitors experienced the Atmospheric Lab.
The project received national media coverage, including features by ABC News.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-07/exhibition-of-clarice-becketts/102200818.
Other Case Studies
Digital Platform WA Museum Boola Bardip
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ANZ Gothic
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Atmospheric Lab
An immersive experience in the Clarice Beckett retrospective at Geelong Gallery that allows visitors to see a fleeting moment in a place special to them.
Experience design for physical and digital
Art direction and concept design
Visitor journeys and prototyping
Collaboration with curators and multimedia teams
The immersive experience for the Clarice Beckett exhibition at Geelong Gallery was developed in collaboration with the experience design team, Sandpit. The work aimed to translate Beckett’s atmospheric painting language into an interactive, spatial experience that sat alongside the physical works in the exhibition, extending the emotional and visual impact beyond the canvas.
Rather than functioning as a separate digital installation, the experience was designed as an extension of the curatorial narrative, allowing visitors to carry their engagement with Beckett’s work into a participatory, reflective moment.
Process
Discovery workshops aligned curatorial vision, technical constraints, and experiential goals across multidisciplinary teams. Clarice Beckett’s artistic process was studied alongside organisational and audience needs. This ensured the experience balanced artistic integrity with technical feasibility.
Experience and Product Design
The experience was designed to begin before the physical installation, treating visitors as already engaged and ready for reflection. Familiar tools like Google Maps enabled personal input, while rapid prototyping tested spatial flow, transitions, and three-wall projection constraints. The journey was structured into clear states — idle, onboarding, in-progress, outcome, and closure — to maintain immersion without overwhelming the visitor.
A tablet-based interface allowed visitors to enter familiar locations and view them through a Beckett-inspired transformation. The art direction prioritised interpretation over imitation, focusing on tone, softness, depth, and colour relationships. The result gave visitors a sense of seeing the world through Beckett’s sensibility.
Visual Design
A deep exploration of Beckett’s visual culture enabled a contextual understanding necessary to create an experience with emotional and artistic integrity rather than a superficial imitation. Research included critical reading, visual analysis, and references to Beckett’s influnces such as Max Meldrum and James McNeill Whistler.
A series of simplified colour and composition studies were developed, focusing on the key components of Beckett’s work: tonal relationships, edge softness, atmospheric depth, and shape language. Photoshop was used as a programmatic design tool, with Actions and JavaScript enabling the development of a repeatable, consistent visual transformation process.
Through collaboration and workshops with the development team, these systems were refined and translated into a real-time web shader capable of transforming Google Maps street scenes into painterly, atmospheric visual outputs.
Ongoing refinement with developers and industrial designers introduced an emotional layer to the experience. A series of “sentiments” were developed that visitors could select, subtly influencing the visual outcome. Rather than directly posing questions, projected prompts were integrated into the idle and post-input stages, allowing visitors to self-direct their emotional intent.
To deepen immersion, Calm Technology principles were applied. Visual elements softly faded when not in use, and the interface used restrained, gentle visual language that only called for attention when required, minimising cognitive load and maintaining a contemplative atmosphere.
Delivery and Outcomes
The result was an experience that functioned as a quiet, reflective moment for visitors, allowing for the contextualisation of the exhibition they had just walked through and giving them space to form a personal connection with the themes of atmosphere, place, and perception.
Described as a sensory journey exploring colour, sentiment, and place, more than 22,000 visitors experienced the Atmospheric Lab.
The project received national media coverage, including features by ABC News.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-07/exhibition-of-clarice-becketts/102200818.
Other Case Studies
Digital Platform WA Museum Boola Bardip
→
ANZ Gothic
→
Case Study
Atmospheric Lab
An immersive experience in the Clarice Beckett retrospective at Geelong Gallery that allows visitors to see a fleeting moment in a place special to them.
Experience design for physical and digital
Art direction and concept design
Visitor journeys and prototyping
Collaboration with curators and multimedia teams
The immersive experience for the Clarice Beckett exhibition at Geelong Gallery was developed in collaboration with the experience design team, Sandpit. The work aimed to translate Beckett’s atmospheric painting language into an interactive, spatial experience that sat alongside the physical works in the exhibition, extending the emotional and visual impact beyond the canvas.
Rather than functioning as a separate digital installation, the experience was designed as an extension of the curatorial narrative, allowing visitors to carry their engagement with Beckett’s work into a participatory, reflective moment.
Process
Discovery workshops aligned curatorial vision, technical constraints, and experiential goals across multidisciplinary teams. Clarice Beckett’s artistic process was studied alongside organisational and audience needs. This ensured the experience balanced artistic integrity with technical feasibility.
Discovery
Workshops
Multimedia Development
Research
Experience Design
Art Direction
Product Design
Installation
Experience and Product Design
The experience was designed to begin before the physical installation, treating visitors as already engaged and ready for reflection. Familiar tools like Google Maps enabled personal input, while rapid prototyping tested spatial flow, transitions, and three-wall projection constraints. The journey was structured into clear states — idle, onboarding, in-progress, outcome, and closure — to maintain immersion without overwhelming the visitor.
A tablet-based interface allowed visitors to enter familiar locations and view them through a Beckett-inspired transformation. The art direction prioritised interpretation over imitation, focusing on tone, softness, depth, and colour relationships. The result gave visitors a sense of seeing the world through Beckett’s sensibility.
Visual Design
A deep exploration of Beckett’s visual culture enabled a contextual understanding necessary to create an experience with emotional and artistic integrity rather than a superficial imitation. Research included critical reading, visual analysis, and references to Beckett’s influnces such as Max Meldrum and James McNeill Whistler.
A series of simplified colour and composition studies were developed, focusing on the key components of Beckett’s work: tonal relationships, edge softness, atmospheric depth, and shape language. Photoshop was used as a programmatic design tool, with Actions and JavaScript enabling the development of a repeatable, consistent visual transformation process.
Through collaboration and workshops with the development team, these systems were refined and translated into a real-time web shader capable of transforming Google Maps street scenes into painterly, atmospheric visual outputs.
Ongoing refinement with developers and industrial designers introduced an emotional layer to the experience. A series of “sentiments” were developed that visitors could select, subtly influencing the visual outcome. Rather than directly posing questions, projected prompts were integrated into the idle and post-input stages, allowing visitors to self-direct their emotional intent.
To deepen immersion, Calm Technology principles were applied. Visual elements softly faded when not in use, and the interface used restrained, gentle visual language that only called for attention when required, minimising cognitive load and maintaining a contemplative atmosphere.
Delivery and Outcomes
The result was an experience that functioned as a quiet, reflective moment for visitors, allowing for the contextualisation of the exhibition they had just walked through and giving them space to form a personal connection with the themes of atmosphere, place, and perception.
Described as a sensory journey exploring colour, sentiment, and place, more than 22,000 visitors experienced the Atmospheric Lab.
The project received national media coverage, including features by ABC News.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-07/exhibition-of-clarice-becketts/102200818.
Other Case Studies
Digital Platform WA Museum Boola Bardip
→
ANZ Gothic
→
