So we've been working on this project since November, which means that it took
us six months from the moment that we were all together in Los Angeles to
today, which is the opening of the installation called Dante Vs. Frost.
When we were in LA we had a really great brainstorming session and we all came to
the conclusion that we really wanted to focus on a theme of climate change and
protecting the environment. Everybody came up with a prototype, a digital
prototype of how we would execute the idea. So after everybody got to pitch
their ideas we did an anonymous voting to see whose would be the basis for the
prototype and Dante Vs. Frost was Claire Lim's prototype. One of the things
that I thought of when I was brainstorming ideas was like we're so
used to hearing stuff about climate change and hearing stuff about like also
"oh the choices that you make today are going to affect you down the road so
like be careful about what you do!" So for me these notions kind of came together
and I said okay let's do something about making choices about the world that we
live in because we're all responsible for that. You're faced with these
decisions and then down the track you learn sort of the effects of those
decisions 100 years from now.
[NARRATION] In the last 50 years the local weather has changed
drastically. Much of the surrounding environment has not been able to sustain
the brutal winters which are often followed by heavy rains of spring.
The audio and the visual are completely immersive, you're making decisions with a
controller in the middle, and it's not so cut and dry as to which path you should take.
There's scenes in Unity and they match scenes in Ableton. So Ableton is doing
all the sound and obviously Unity is doing the visuals and the interaction. So
we're basically controlling scenes in Ableton that are preset. We have some
follow actions triggering certain things, but for the most part it's preset to
have sound for specific scenes of the visuals. We really didn't know it was
gonna end up as a big installation like this. We knew we wanted to make a piece
of art that a lot of people could experience. We had this destination,
Berklee Onsite, and we knew we'd have all these people that would be able to
come to this. We wanted to create something for them. I'm so happy to see
how this whole thing has turned out to be and I'm really excited to like you know
play this game myself. This is what I think the future of learning is.
I think it's experiential. I think it's collaborative.
It is blurred limes; you know people aren't specialists in the same way that
they used to be. Now to work in this music industry you have to be good at
many, many things. And I think a lot of it's about working remotely and making things
happen even though people aren't physically in the same space.
Whether we're apart and communicating through technology or whether we're
together like we are this weekend everyone sort of knows that we need each
other. And so that makes for a really nice atmosphere. You kind of, you never
feel unnecessary. Initiatives like this should really be supported and done by
everyone. I learned so many things like I've never collaborated with so many
people and from different parts of the world and like located in different
areas. You'll talk to some of the students as well and they've made
connections with each other. Everyone's walking away with like a new community.
It was just a really good opportunity to also see how other people in the
Berklee community who were remote were also able to participate. And I think it
gives in a way a lot of hope for people who might be physically far away but you can
still do great things through the internet.
[VOICES]
I'm walking away from the experience feeling like the entire thing was a
success. I hope that people leave and they feel like they had a really cool
experience that they're not gonna get anyplace else and that they think about
the choices that they make.
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