Launched in 1991, de pinxi creates interactive experiences across culture, tourism, education and leisure. As the Belgium-based company celebrates 30 years in the business, general manager Philippe Chiwy talks to Attractions Management about some intriguing projects.
How was your anniversary year?
2021 was our 30th anniversary and it was a good year filled with nice work. Last year saw de pinxi involved with three major projects: A chocolate museum renovation in Bruges, Belgium; the development of an experience to highlight research into the possibilities of baking on Mars; and the creation of a new wine museum in Colmar, France.
Choco-Story Bruges reopened last year after a complete renovation by de pinxi, with immersive décor, interconnected media, amazing displays and interactive games.
What can you tell us about the wine museum you’re working on?
The Wine Museum Colmar will focus on the local wines of Alsace, and will offer a unique visitor experience, combining a rich collection with immersive media and decor, and will be aimed at families.
This will be an entertaining and educational experience – it’s due to open this autumn, and we’re excited about showing off our work.
For this project, we’ve carried out the research and development of the content and media experience, which includes information about local wines, their history and the process of producing them since Roman times. We’re now developing the media experience – the museum will feature various immersive video-mapping zones and interconnected games to support the theme of each room. The games are connected to the process of producing wine or to the tradition of the region.
We’re also developing historical reconstitutions for the museum and for this de pinxi is creating the content (video, special effects, animation, computer graphics and programming) as well as customised interfaces and electronics to match the storytelling.
A sneak preview example is the game of ‘organising the barrels’ – visitors will have two minutes to store a barrel in a very crowded wine cellar.
You worked with Puratos on the SpaceBakery project. What did that involve?
This was a really interesting project we worked on with the baking industry food manufacturer Puratos.
In order to support ongoing innovation efforts, Puratos has launched the SpaceBakery research programme with the ultimate objective of being able to produce bread on Mars. To achieve this, the entire production chain is taken into consideration, from the cultivation of grain in a hostile environment to the baking of the bread by the future inhabitants of the red planet.
de pinxi was brought on board to try and explain the research programme to visitors (international customers and Puratos employees), and has devised an immersive experience that transports the visitor to the planet Mars, and gives them a taste of the adventure that may be in store for future pioneers.
The experience allows visitors to ‘fly’ to Mars on-board a digital planetarium, choose an astronaut suit and VR helmet and explore the planet. They can then devote themselves to the job of making bread on Mars, while learning about Martian resource subjects – the jobs involved in the making of bread and the energy values of the food are presented in explanatory multimedia formats and interactive challenges.
de pinxi has designed and produced the media, the programmes, the engineering and the installation of the visitors’ Martian experience by Puratos. We’re very proud of having set up a digital dome infrastructure and show from scratch, after being part of the very first digital dome in the world back in 2000 (New York’s Hayden Planetarium).
