Experience Singapore’s first Social Augmented Reality with REWILD Our Planet

When reality blends with technology, AR (Augmented Reality) and incredible footage, you get Rewild Our Planet. It is a free Social AR Experience at ArtScience Museum where visitors can “explore the forests of Borneo or dive deep into the coastal seas of Southeast Asia”.

If you need to know more about REWILD Our Planet, read the Press Release below. If you have Netflix account, watch “Our Planet” where the incredible footages are used in this AR experience.

TOGETHER, LET’S REWILD OUR PLANET

• Singapore’s first Social Augmented Reality Experience in collaboration with WWF, Google, Netflix, PHORIA and ArtScience Museum that highlights the urgency of restoring nature
• Developed using footage from Our Planet, a new Netflix Original Documentary Series, leveraging Google’s ARCore technology

SINGAPORE (5 April 2019) – From 6 April to 2 June 2019, ArtScience Museum visitors will be able to explore the forests of Borneo or dive deep into the coastal seas of Southeast Asia with REWILD Our Planet, Singapore’s first Social Augmented Reality (AR) experience jointly developed by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Google, Netflix, ArtScience Museum at Marina Bay Sands and PHORIA. The sensorial experience connects people to nature and one another through immersive storytelling that blends cutting-edge AR technology with stunning 4K video footage from Our Planet, a new Netflix original documentary series voiced by world-renowned naturalist, Sir David Attenborough, that launches today.

REWILD Our Planet is built around four natural landscapes representing the last wilderness places on Earth:

1. Forests of Borneo and India
2. Oceans of Asia
3. Grasslands of Mongolia
4. Frozen worlds of the Arctic

Combining spectacular IMAX-style projections with spatial soundscapes and AR, the experience unfolds through the lens of the Google Pixel 3, where groups of participants can work together to build natural landscapes in 3D. They will unlock global weather patterns and magical animal encounters, ending with a deeper understanding of shared solutions and a meaningful pledge to act and help bring nature back.

PROTECTING OUR PLANET IS A SHARED RESPONSIBILITY

Beyond showcasing the breathtaking diversity of our planet, the experience is also intended to drive important conservation conversations, highlighting the fragility of the planet and the negative impacts of humankind. It shows a path forward by pointing to solutions, so participants come away understanding not just the threats that face our planet, but also what must be done collectively, ensuring people and nature can thrive alongside each other.

WHERE STATE OF THE ART TECHNOLOGY AND QUALITY ENTERTAINMENT MEET

The experience uses footage from Our Planet, an eight-part series that showcases the planet’s most precious species and fragile habitats, revealing amazing sights on Earth in ways they have never been seen using the latest in filming technology. From the creators of the award-winning series Planet Earth, and the result of a four-year collaboration with Silverback Films and WWF, Our Planet combines stunning photography and technology with an unprecedented, never-before-filmed look at the planet’s remaining wilderness areas and the rare and wonderful animals that call these places home. The ambitious project was filmed in 50 countries across all the continents of the world, with over 600 members of crew capturing over 3,500 filming days.

Footage from Our Planet was then integrated with Google’s ARCore technology – an Android Software Development Kit (SDK) that works with Java and Unity and Unreal, and includes Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that bring AR to mobile devices without requiring any special hardware. PHORIA’s unique digital twin system which, once activated with Google’s ARCore, enables the 2D content to break free from the screen and seamlessly flow into the space around users.

SINGAPORE IS THE FIRST STEP IN IGNITING A GLOBAL CONVERSATION

REWILD Our Planet has been engineered in a modular way to pop up remotely anywhere in the world, and the AR activation has brought together a world-class line up of venues to bring its experiential conservation message to the world. ArtScience Museum at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore is its first stop, with the experience later travelling to Dolby SoHo in New York City and We The Curious in Bristol, each venue bringing with it a unique, personalised flavour of the region.

Details of REWILD Our Planet in Singapore

WORDS FROM THE PARTNERS

WWF-SINGAPORE

Kim Stengert, Chief, Strategic Communications and External Relations, WWF-Singapore said: “Global wildlife populations have declined by 60 percent in the last 40 years due to unsustainable human activity, which impacts the very natural systems that our survival depends on. We need to not just stop, but reverse, the loss of nature. Bringing the challenges and solutions to life through REWILD Our Planet will help people around the world understand that they have a shared responsibility to act and protect nature.

The powerful message conveyed dovetails with a unique opportunity to call for urgent action to protect the one place we call home, sending the clear message that it is no longer acceptable to continue to destroy our environment.”

GOOGLE

Miguel de Andrés-Clavera, Head of Creative Technology of Google APAC said: “AR brings vision to computing. It can enable our computers to perceive the world like we do and display information immersively, in context of the world. ARCore provides simple, yet powerful tools for building perceptive, immersive and accessible AR experiences such as REWILD Our Planet to connect people with nature and each other. With 250 million devices now supporting ARCore, developers like PHORIA can bring
these important and meaningful experiences to an even larger and growing user base.”

NETFLIX

Jessica Lee, Vice President of Communications for Netflix said: “Our Planet is the definitive nature documentary event of our time and Netflix’s most ambitious documentary project to date. We are proud to bring great and vital content like this to millions of people worldwide, informing and inspiring them towards taking action for the greater good. With REWILD Our Planet, we are taking this one step further by showing how stories can come to life in a way that spurs us all to help improve our environment. We
couldn’t be more delighted to do this in concert with amazing partners like WWF, Google, PHORIA and ArtScience Museum of Singapore.”

ARTSCIENCE MUSEUM AT MARINA BAY SANDS

Honor Harger, Executive Director of ArtScience Museum at Marina Bay Sands said: “REWILD Our Planet is an immersive and interactive exhibition that shows how climate change impacts all living creatures. It
uses cutting edge technology to transport visitors to some of the world’s most jaw-dropping landscapes.

REWILD Our Planet follows up on what we did together with WWF and Google with Into The Wild, our augmented reality experience about rainforests in South East Asia. The users of that project have so far
planted over 10,000 trees in Sumatra. REWILD Our Planet is even more ambitious. It combines art and technology to encourage all of us to play an active role in the conservation of our world.”

PHORIA

Trent Clews-de Castella, CEO of PHORIA said: “REWILD Our Planet showcases how AR has the power to build bridges between people and the places they love. This evocative experience emphasises the connection between human beings and our environment. It generates a sense of presence and interactivity for every individual user. Building this exhibition with Netflix and Google and combining it with compassion-driven narrative from WWF demonstrates how emerging XR technologies will transform the social impact sector for good.”

About WWF

WWF is one of the world’s largest and most respected independent conservation organizations, with over 5 million supporters and a global network active in over 100 countries. WWF’s mission is to stop the degradation of the earth’s natural environment and to build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature. WWF-Singapore’s campaigns centre around sustainable consumption, raising awareness and prompting action on issues such as deforestation, haze pollution, seafood sustainability and the illegal wildlife trade. wwf.sg

About Netflix

Netflix is the world’s leading internet entertainment service with 139 million paid memberships in over 190 countries enjoying TV series, documentaries and feature films across a wide variety of genres and languages. Members can watch as much as they want, anytime, anywhere, on any internet-connected screen. Members can play, pause and resume watching, all without commercials or commitments.

About ArtScience Museum

ArtScience Museum is a major cultural institution in Singapore that explores the intersection between art, science, technology and culture. It is the cultural component of Marina Bay Sands. Since its opening in February 2011, ArtScience Museum has staged large-scale exhibitions by some of the world’s major artists, including Leonardo da Vinci, M.C. Escher, Salvador Dalí, Andy Warhol and Vincent Van Gogh, as well as exhibitions that explore aspects of science and technology – including particle physics, big data, robotics, natural history, marine biology and space science. For more information, please visit www.marinabaysands.com/museum.html

About PHORIA

PHORIA is a world leading immersive tech studio that specialises in cutting-edge Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality (VR/AR/MR/XR) technology. With a globally recognised team of developers, creatives and partners,
PHORIA are on a mission to transform human experiences and augment intelligent environments. They create powerful user interactions and social experiences, all with the goal to generate a positive impact on the world.