The Rubin Museum

Communicating The Power of Intention through a modern take on the Tibetan prayer wheel.

To kick off their “Year of Power,” The Rubin Museum of Art had an unusual request. They wanted to reinvent the traditional Tibetan prayer wheel in a transformational lobby installation and allow visitors to actively participate in the subject of their new exhibition: The Power of Intention.

‍Typically small and intimate in scale and use, the traditional prayer wheel is turned clockwise while repeating a mantra to acquire enlightenment and release positive energy into the world. The museum wanted to update this ancient tool for a contemporary lexicon and community.

OUR ROLE

Experience Design

Interactive Content & Motion Design

Software Engineering

Prototyping & Technical Integration

‍

stories climbs

years of partnership

At almost 3.5 feet in diameter, the Wheel of Intentions form factor immediately transforms it into a more shared, public experience. Through a blend of projection and a physical keyboard, users input their “intentions.”

An LED wheel cues the user to turn the large light wheel, and a particle field above generates the text of their intention on the five-story spiral atrium staircase. The winding path up the spiral staircase is a metaphor for the intention’s journey from the user out into the wider world.

To create a sense of scope and impact, at the top of the museum, each intention joins an immersive repository of all the submitted intentions that encircle the viewer as a living record of visitors and their aspirations.

Finally, to add further reach, online museum-goers can add their intentions via the web to make their own journey up the atrium—giving the installation a sense of being alive and engaged with real intention in the ether.