Collider launches new experience division ‘Lunar’

Production company, design studio and arts collective Collider, has a heritage working in immersive spaces. A passion and legacy that has informed the launch of its new experience division, Lunar.

Conceived from the insight of a lunar cycle, Lunar acknowledges that audiences connect emotionally and differently at various stages of an experience. Lunar creates immersive brand experiences through different touchpoints that people essentially choose to spend more time with.

At the intersection of art, film, spatial design, data and technology, Lunar projects exist in both digital and physical environments, where stories are designed over multiple points of interaction.

Lunar is a collective of creators who bridge a wide range of creative disciplines and perspectives; video and visual, to technology and software, environmental and sustainable to AR and gaming, sculptural and architectural to scent and audio.

Managing director and partner, Rachael Ford-Davies will lead the new division. She has made the appointment of locally and internationally awarded, Michael Dole as executive artistic and experience director and Annabel Stevens as executive producer of digital.

Dole started as a fine artist himself. With this as his base, he has formed long standing relationships and collaborations with artists commercially throughout his 20 year career in creative companies, across four continents. These include Wieden+Kennedy, Mojo, Clemenger BBDO, Sapient and Dentsu. With each he brought a unique perspective strategically and creatively for how art and commerce successfully works together, across all disciplines and categories. With this background, Dole will work as the curator and conduit with agencies and creators.

Annabel Stevens also joins Lunar from well regarded software and technology company Snepo. In her time as executive producer, Stevens evolved new technologies through to commercial products, that have surprised and entertained by creating immersive experiences that capture the attention of audiences. Stevens has worked extensively across the museum, architecture, arts, and brand categories.

Lunar has welcomed a number of unique creators.

Jonathan Zawada. Known for his multi-faceted approach to the fields of art and design, weaving the analogue and digital together. Centred around the intersection and blend of artificial and the natural, Zawada’s world is hyperreal – delicate and intricately detailed, as well as bold and dynamic. He has won a host of awards including two Australian Record Industry Awards (ARIAS) and has presented solo exhibitions in contemporary galleries around the world including Los Angeles, Paris, Tokyo, London, Sydney and Beijing.

Zawada was appointed as the director of the Lighting of the Sails of the Sydney Opera House for Vivid 2018. The 15 minute projection mapped video work was projected onto the Sydney Opera House for the three week duration of the festival

Murray Bell, founder of Semi Permanent has joined Lunar as another unique creator. Over the last 15 years Bell has been creating meaningful exchanges through transformative experiences. Bell has a deep understanding for how to connect with audiences through a wide variety of mediums that transition from the digital environment to the physical and back again. Bell has collaborated for brands, services and artists working with Banksy to Radiohead, Google to Sea Shepherd.

TEM is an artistic duo out of London. They take moving image into new spaces to craft evocative experiences and tell meaningful stories. Combining cutting edge technology with spatial design, they create interactions and experiences that exist at the convergence of virtual and physical space. They have worked with musicians such as Beyoncé, Jay Z, Lady Gaga, James Blake, Coldplay, Yugo Nakamura, Primal Scream and Hans Zimmer.

Multidisciplinary artists Honey Long and Prue Stent have also been welcomed to Lunar. Working together across photography, performance, installation and sculpture, their practice centres around their conflicted relationship to femininity and its passive associations. Often their process is spontaneous and playful with the result being unexpected and accidental. Their unique contemporary practice has been recognised worldwide, with their work shown in Los Angeles, Zurich, Rome, Tokyo and New York, and across Australia.

Lunar’s creators have brought to life experiences for the likes of Google, Apple, DropBox, Intel, HP, Adobe, SXSW, New York Times, Alexander McQueen, Sydney Dance Company, Foxtel, Vodafone, Sydney Opera House, MCA, Subaru, Durex, Rag & Bone, Red Bull, Vivid, University of Sydney, Selfridges and The Nelson Mandela Foundation.

www.collider.com.au/lunar