SXSW Interactive 2016: A Kodak moment

To celebrate the launch of its new social media app, Moments, Kodak created a sensory experience by artist Marcos Lutyens during the SXSW Interactive festival. 

After selecting a picture to share, users were invited into the Reflection Room, a teepee-shaped structure designed by Marcos Lutyens, where they spoke to a guide about their memory behind the photo. They were then led into the Memory Observatory, where their discussed memory was displayed on mirrored walls, while selected smells and sounds were emitted to enhance the complex feelings associated with it.

Kodak doesn’t regard the Moments app as a replacement for Instagram but as a way to be more thoughtful about sharing photos. ‘A lot of moments on digital platforms don’t tell a story, and while a photo is still important it is surrounded by ads, latte art, political memes – it is getting very noisy,’ David Newhoff, vice-president of mobile at Kodak Alaris, Kodak’s personalised and document imaging business, tells LS:N Global. ‘People are increasingly frustrated with clutter, so we wanted to create a new platform where the copy and the story are treated equally. It’s not about a quick tap-to-share post. We aren’t trying to take away from that, but it is about more considered storytelling.’