(Holo)graphic Content

The hottest act at last month’s Coachella wasn’t one of the young artists who found neon-painted festival fame through the blogosphere, but an iconic rap star resurrected from the grave. Debates about whether the stunt was imaginative or exploitative persist, but so stirring was Hologram Tupac’s performance that rumors of other dead rock star tours have been swirling about in the weeks since. The hologram trend is not limited to concerts, however, as three-dimensional imagery is also illuminating the realms of experiential marketing, customer service, and communication.

Hologram Experience: Epcot’s Mission: SPACE ride continues to thrill the astronaut fantasies of theme park visitors, yet when it comes to the behind-the-scenes mechanizations of air travel, such simulations have remained elusive on the consumer level. As part of NYC’s Creative Week, GE collaborated with BBDO to create Throttle Up, a holographic immersion that afforded anyone the ability to experience the process of building and launching a jet engine. Staged at St. Ann’s Warehouse, the dramatic installation relied on motion-control and projection technologies to blanket the room with seemingly real 3-D engine parts, the assembly of which was gamified by Float Hybrid Entertainment.

Hologram Store Assistants: This winter, Walmart announced plans to end its 32-year tradition of posting “people greeters” at its store entrances. Given reports on the demise of big box retail dominance, this loss of high touch interaction feels counterintuitive—but as new forms of customer service surface, it’s possible that the hallmark could be reinterpreted in a high tech format. Indeed, Asda, the UK’s second biggest supermarket chain, has been testing hologram assistants in the aisles of select grocery stores. Though the technology has the potential to be an empty gimmick, it could, if executed thoughtfully, offer a novel form of added value to the in-store experience.

Holographic Chats: As useful as Google Hangouts and Skype are for staying in touch, the screens that divide people while chatting remain a barrier to intimate conversation. Getting us one step closer to more realistically imitating the familiarity of an in-person encounter, researchers at Queen’s University have invented a life-sized, 3-D video conferencing pod that enables users to see the person with whom they are talking in holographic form. The rendering is so life-like, it’s almost as if the participants are chatting together on a street corner. The device’s cylindrical body is irrefutably unsightly for home environments, but expect future iterations to be infused with a more elegant design sensibility—hopefully, one on par with Jem’s.