• Project: Cyberhelvetia
• Date: May 2002 - October 2002
• Client: Credit Suisse Group
• Contractor: 3deluxe / System Modern GmbH
• Location: Biel, Switzerland
• Tasks: Media Systems Design, Realization

The Cyberhelvetia pavilion was situated on the Forum of the Biel-Bienne Arteplage at the Expo02 in switzerland 2002. Designed as a traditional Swiss bathing resort, its architecture symbolises a place where people meet and communicate.
The familiar exterior leads you to expect a familiar interior – a swimming pool like the one which was right in this very place more than a hundred years ago. But times have changed: people can communicate at many different levels without meeting each other in person, irrespective of where they are or what language they speak. Instead of bathing in real water, the bathers in the Cyberhelvetia pavilion can immerse themselves in the complex atmosphere of an expanded virtual reality. Instead of a swimming pool, they find a mysterious, glowing glass cube that lights up the entire area. The designer group 3deluxe was made responsible for all of the interior design

MESO Digital Interiors was contracted by 3deluxe to develop various interactive games matching the mood of the swimming pool. The result was a fluid composition of interactive situations consisting out of 18 projectors, 23 computers and numerous sensors dispersed in the room. The system reacted to sound, motions, voice and even the weather outside. The exhibition was open for five month and had 750 000 visitors.

The glass pool in the middle of the exhibition replaces the real swimming pool.

Other attractions in the pool

Lifeforms

A digital sea snake darts around following the visitor’s finger movements on a luminous glass surface, which is integrated in the centre console of the bench. The activity and dynamics of the guests playing are thus transferred to the pool’s glass body. Left alone, the snake gets a dynamic of its own and starts to dabble.

Soundshake

Communication between the Aquaphones can be tracked with the Soundshake. Moreover the speech transfer is overlaid with the sounds from the inside of the pool to illustrate the path of the message through the virtual water. There’s more: when bathers pass on the mobile loudspeaker to their neighbours other sounds are composed and modified by the movement of the loudspeaker.

Rendez-vous

In addition to the lifeforms created at the pool side there is another species stirring in the pool: the Cy.Bees. These are created in the Internet community and are sent to the exhibition with a message by their creators. The shy Cy.Bees congregate on one corner of the glass block and crawl on to the bather’s hand if he keeps it still for long enough. That moment is captured in a photograph and the picture is sent back to its creator via e-card on to the Internet. This is a bi-directional communication between real and virtually present individuals, between the exhibition and Internet, an encounter in two worlds.

Stream

On two diagonally opposed corners of the pool there are transparent, luminous objects which prompt you to speak into them.

Die Ausstellung zeigt, wie die virtuelle Welt schon längst Einzug in unseren Alltag gehalten und unsere Kommunikation verändert hat. Wirklichkeit und Virtualität vermischen sich, sind oft kaum noch auseinanderzuhalten. Die zwei Welten wachsen zusammen, und wir müssen unseren Platz darin bestimmen.
Geert Lovink, "Imagination – Das offizielle Buch der Expo.02“, Zürch, 2002

experimentieren auf gelungene Weise mit dem Verhältnis von Virtualität und Realität
26. Juni 2002, 11:00, NZZ Online

So ist das Staunen […] eines von vielen, das an diesem Morgen in Gesichtern Einzug hält. Gesichtern, die nicht glauben können, was sie da sehen im Innern dieses Pavillons, der den Namen Cyberhelvetia trägt, aussen weiss ist, aussieht wie ein traditionelles Seebad, auf eine wohlbekannte Nutzung im Innern schliessen lässt — und damit alle Irre führt. Denn: Sein Schein trügt
31.05.2002 Bieler Tagblatt

Staunende Gesichter, die nicht glauben können, was sie sehen im Innern dieses Pavillons, das den Namen Cyberhelvetia trägt
Solothurner Zeitung vom 4. Juni 2002