The Cabinet is an open storage system and interactive digital experience designed and programmed by Potion in collaboration with Studio Joseph and M+, Hong Kong’s museum of visual culture. Unlike traditional galleries, The Cabinet invites visitors to engage directly with the museum's collections through an interpretive game. The experience is inspired by the sixteenth-century Cabinet of Curiosities, which showcased selective collections of various objects to reflect a curated worldview. Potion wanted to make an experience that inspires visitors to unfold the connections they see as they think about the images and their personal worldviews.
Company: Potion Design
Senior Producer: Theresa Loong
Production Coordinator and Support Manager: Kristine Lin
Creative Director and Lead Designer: Alex Antonia
Creative Technologist and Lead Developer: Cameron Browning
Senior Developer: Filippo Vanucci
I served as the dedicated Production Coordinator and Support Manager, working closely alongside the Senior Producer to efficiently manage development sprints and ensure that each build met the project's rigorous requirements. One of my key responsibilities involved overseeing the content production pipeline in collaboration with the client, ensuring that project milestones and objectives were crystal clear at all times. Notably, we tackled the unique challenge of remotely installing the project, which required around-the-clock availability to support my team beyond regular working hours. I led the Content Management System training and guided the M+ team to confidently take ownership. Additionally, I took charge of managing the maintenance agreement and promptly addressed any maintenance needs for the M+ team. When the senior producer left the project, I seamlessly assumed the producer role, ensuring a smooth and uninterrupted project trajectory.
Photo by Winnie Yeung@Visual Voices; M+, Hong Kong
We programmed a symphony of movements and interactions that controlled 3 large panels when the visitor entered the space. Using a Conveyor belt system, 2 panels of artwork would move to the front of the exhibition, rotating between 40 different panels every 2 hours, creating an endless supply of new objects and artworks for visitors to observe and interpret together. The middle panel publicly displayed mutli-lingual live responses alongside the actual gameplay using a projection system. The designer created the visual language of The Cabinet to reflect the gradual unfolding of the visitor’s own interpretations as they progressed in the games.
Photo by Lok Cheng / M+
Within the games, visitors are prompted to share their views about the works on display in two rounds. The first round asks visitors to provide a specific interpretation or detail of interest, while the second round invites all players to react to each other's responses through commenting or voting. Visitors are encouraged to respond using the 6 available iPads or their own mobile devices. Each prompt was carefully curated with M+ to spark curiosity and connection. For every interaction in the games, the visitors are also able to toggle between Chinese and English. In addition, 2 additional iPads were put in place to showcase information of each artwork on the current panels shown.
Video by Alex Antonia, Vimeo
Through a collaborative effort with the M+ team, we developed a highly sophisticated and elaborate content management system that effectively regulates the Conveyor Belt and Cabinet game components. The system empowers the M+ team to oversee all aspects of the operation with ease, allowing them to make real-time adjustments, updates, and improvements as needed.
