Magenta Moon, an interactive installation by flora&faunavisions in Berlin

Never before since the outbreak of the pandemic has there been so much talk about the importance of digitisation to ensure education for all, particularly when social interaction is restricted. The topic of “distance learning” is currently on the table. Still, with Magenta Moon in Berlin, Deutsche Telekom is proposing a concrete initiative for digital engagement that not only targets a young audience but is intended for all age groups.
Magenta Moon is a Campus where you can learn and play, a digital workshop and a discussion platform that you can enjoy in person or remotely. A hybrid event that is being run with safety in mind, fully compliant with current health regulations. Basically, it’s an immersive experience in an empty commercial establishment on Leipziger Platz, which is right in the heart of Berlin. Here the team from flora&faunavisions completed an installation that takes visitors on a discovery tour of the Magenta Moon. We were able to chat to lighting artist Leigh Sachwitz, known to our readers for her participation in the podcast and for her light-based creations, from light shows for famous DJs to the video installation for the opening of Jean Nouvel’s spectacular Louvre in Abu Dhabi and the multimedia musical for The Shed in New York.
Leigh tells us that Magenta Moon was written in the middle of the hard lockdown, right when the importance of accessible digitisation for everyone became more apparent and urgent than ever before. Deutsche Telekom wanted to send out a strong message, by showing the immense potential of this development for our future. Hence the approach of flora&faunavisions at various levels, to complete an interactive project that would engage the public in digital education. 
On the one hand, with the creation of a “space in space”, this is a concrete architectural project for the interim use of one of the many business premises in central Berlin that have been abandoned, first because of the economic crisis and now by the pandemic. A project consisting of several different environments, where the pathway combines virtual and reality. The elliptical architectural space contains a large round hill covered in plants, surrounded by a 30 metre wide and up to seven metres high projection surface. This Magenta Moon Garden is a place where the boundaries between the physical and the digital vanish and where the space itself becomes a stage, a playground and a rest area. Visitors will find plants closely tuned in to the moon, which influences many natural phenomena, including the tides. 
The experience inside the Magenta Moon installation centres on motion tracking and is totally hands-free, which is particularly noticeable in the second set-up, a kind of escape room. Here, visitors are playfully and interactively presented with current issues, from media literacy to sustainability. Everything is accompanied by light and music, as always in the installations by flora&faunavisions because they generate the emotions that are fundamental for us to carry the imprint of our experience in our minds. If you want to enjoy these experiences in person, you can do so with peace of mind since the cleverly choreographed user journey ensure that visitors automatically keep the right distance while playing, learning or lounging, making the design studio’s approach a great example of how immersive events and installations can be staged safely in times of Covid-19. Such “phygital” (physical meets digital) approaches are the future. Leigh Sachwitz explains: “There’s no alternative to real-life encounters. But hybrid concepts that blend digital as-pects with safe live experiences can offer new scope and space for such encounters. And serve as hopeful symbols of how to create a sense of normalcy in uncertain times.“
The collateral programme includes a mix of workshops, podcasts, creative and music sessions, with more than 500 events across the 2 weeks starting on 17 October. If you can’t get there in person, you can still participate remotely because it’s being live-streamed.

Christiane Bürklein

Project: flora&faunavisions for Deutsche Telekom
Location: Leipziger Platz, Berlin, Germany
from 17 October to 1 November 2020
Images: Ken Schluchtmann diephotodesigner.de
Find out more: https://www.magentamoon.de/