Immersive next-generation art and extended reality experience Arcadia Earth has opened its new location on the Las Vegas strip.
Exploring the challenges facing Earth’s environments through installations characterised by beauty and enhanced with AR, VR, and sensory elements, the exhibition reimagines the planet’s plight through a compelling fusion of futuristic tech and innovative storytelling.
Founded and designed by experiential artist and fashion world veteran Valentino Vettori, Arcadia Earth engages, enchants, educates, and then empowers, tackling melting ice caps, plastic waste, overfishing, loss of biodiversity, and all the other global challenges threatening our world. Rather than overwhelming guests with doom and guilt, Arcadia Earth’s immersive environments offer Instagrammable moments – and practical, actionable suggestions.
Developing the concept, Vettori enlisted leading environmental artists, who worked to create installations using recycled and reusable materials.
The expansive Las Vegas experience, which uses AR and projection mapping, showcases a coral reef AR experience featuring fishing nets, a glass forest, a VR wildlife experience, a rainbow artwork created from recycled plastic bags, an immersive aquarium, and so much more. For every ticket sold, a tree is planted. Proceeds go to Arcadia Earth’s educational and charity partner, Oceanic Global.
A moment of inspiration
There are, Vettori tells blooloop, ‘Aha!’ moments in life:
“That moment, for me, was when I was at Summit.”
Summit comprises a series of invitation-only annual events fostering a global community of leaders in their field, academics, artists, entrepreneurs, athletes, scientists, explorers, artists, authors, and more.
“They hired me at the time, four years ago, as an experiential designer, to discuss the development of the future of retail. It was fun to take a stab at what that could be. I did it; it was great. I got paid, and afterwards, I had a three- or four-day opportunity to go around the conferences and listen.”
“In one room, Elon Musk was talking, five rows in front of us, and it was fascinating: ‘I’m going to Mars, I’m going to live there…’ The room was packed. There were around 2000 people. Two hours later, I went into another equally packed room, and there was Jeff Bezos, and his [commercial astronaut] brother, who was doing the same thing.
“I just thought, ‘That’s so stupid. They don’t even propose using the same starship. They’re each going to have their own. We haven’t learned anything. We’re just going to conquer another planet, draw a line, and there’s going to be the east and the west, and there’s going to be nuclear… What are we doing?’”
A real plan
Then, Vettori went to a third room, where environmentalist Paul Hawken was speaking. Hawken’s book, DRAWDOWN: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming, brings together an international coalition of leading researchers, scientists, and policymakers to offer a set of realistic, bold, and economically viable solutions to climate change.
“Such solutions, it suggests, if deployed globally, would not just slow the earth’s warming, but reach drawdown: the point when greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere peak and begin to decline.
“It’s the first comprehensive plan to reverse climate change and make money. Yet when I looked around, the room was relatively empty, which was, in a way, even more fascinating. As human beings, it suggested, we’re attracted by those who plan to leave us behind. Nobody was paying attention to this guy who had a plan.”
“I didn’t get it. I waited for Paul, and I asked him, ‘What do you think the problem is?’”
They talked, and Hawken identified that the negative narrative around climate change leaves people feeling helpless.
“He was right. There was no reason for me to participate in the meeting – there was nothing I could do. I felt too small, too insignificant. It was a case of, ‘You guys fix it.’
“That was my ‘Aha’ moment.”
The beginning of Arcadia Earth
Vettori was a storyteller, creating narratives for the fashion industry:
“And I was, I realised at that moment, a polluter. I created these massive installations – fashion shows, runways, events. After a week, everything that I did was thrown away. That wasn’t what I wanted to do anymore.”
“As a father 20 years ago, my best approach to give my kids security would have been to make sure that they had an education and a home. Now, an education and a home matter less than making sure they still have a planet.
“I came back home and said to my team, ‘We’re done with fashion. We’re done with this type of storytelling.”
Instead, they would dedicate themselves to compelling storytelling about climate change.
Storytelling and inspiration
Arcadia is designed to inspire, says Vettori.
“Rather than talking in a negative way, we make it beautiful. Nobody wants to be educated, so we don’t push information down your throat. Instead, we say, ‘Hey, this is a story.’
“In each room, the idea is to say, ‘Look, OK, we know it’s big problem, but whether you’re a little one of five years old or much older, there are things that you can do. And if we all do them, they can have a massive impact.”
Rather than talking in a negative way, we make it beautiful. Nobody wants to be educated, so we don’t push information down your throat. Instead, we say, ‘Hey, this is a story.’
The concept, he explains, is to evoke a response with beauty and art instead of sad stories.
“Instead of spending our time taking pictures of our plate of food and posting it online, why not leverage that platform for a bigger, better purpose? So the idea was to create this Instagram moment with an underlying meaning. People could choose whether just to post it, or whether to say, ‘Hey, I was here, and, by the way, here’s a thing I can do; an action I can take.’”
The multistorey, multisensory Arcadia Earth exhibit opened in New York in 2019, using augmented reality, VR, and projection mapping to engage and immerse guests.
Arcadia Earth comes to Las Vegas
The second venue is now open in Las Vegas.
“I almost feel as if when you try to do good, the universe helps you,” says Vettori. “Las Vegas came about during the moment of COVID when we were shut down, worrying about the future of the company. One of our partners had a location in Las Vegas.”
It was an interesting challenge:
“We felt it was relatively easy to open in a location where everybody knows about climate change. It’s not hard to make an impact. But nobody thinks about climate change in Las Vegas. We’d be right in the belly of the beast.
“Las Vegas was fun because it was not only about whether we could do something really powerful but also about finding out how to do it, because it was Las Vegas; the experience would have to be elevated and made so much more fun. The concept was a challenge: how much more fun could it be while retaining the integrity? It turned out great.”
Sustainability efforts
“The second thing that we found totally fascinating was the further we dived into the Las Vegas community, the more we started to see things that were amazing.”
For example, there is water recycling. Of the water used indoors in Las Vegas, around 99% is captured, treated to near-drinking water standards, and returned to Lake Mead. Then there is the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, a concentrated solar thermal plant in the Mojave Desert, across the state line from Primm, Nevada.
There are hotels like the MGM resorts,” he adds. “MGM Resorts International launched its 100-megawatt solar array, the hospitality industry’s largest directly sourced renewable electricity project worldwide, in 2021, and aims to source 100% renewable electricity in the US and 80% globally by 2030.
“There is also a big food recycling programme, and initiatives such as where if you remove your lawn and replant with local flora, cactuses and so on, which require less water, you receive a rebate on your water charge. We were like: ‘This is really amazing.’”
Engaging with visitors
The Las Vegas iteration of Arcadia Earth covers 17,000 sq ft.
“It has fifteen rooms,” Vettori says. “Each room has an information wall, for those who want to read, that tell the story in a funny way. The first says, ‘Did you know that there are entire cities under the sea? We’re not talking about Atlantis. We’re talking about the coral reefs…’”
It’s a method that inspires people to approach the challenges facing the planet from a storyteller’s perspective so that stark truths can be presented in a palatable way, along with actions that can be taken.
He adds:
“The coral reefs are becoming extinct, and you may be part of the cause if you use sunscreen. One drop of chemical sunscreen can contaminate an area of coral reef the size of six and a half Olympic swimming pools.”
Arcadia Earth aims to change behaviours
Around 14,000 tons of sunscreen are thought to wash into coral reef areas of the oceans each year, laden with the ultraviolet filters oxybenzone and octinoxate, and other problematic ingredients.
“It’s awful,” Vettori says. “But there are QR codes on a screen which can be scanned to tap into our resources and unlock informative visuals We then say, ‘Do one thing.’
“If you scan this QR code, you can adopt a coral, by making a donation to organizations that are working to replant them. If you scan this code, you can shop more responsibly: there is a link to coral reef-safe sunscreen, for example.”
People come out joking, ‘You tricked me – I thought this was just a fun thing, and now I feel responsible.’
“That same theme goes through all the rooms. You come into these augmented reality environments and there is, say, fishing line around a coral reef. It’s beautiful, and you take Instagram pictures; then, if you want to engage more deeply, we give you all the resources, not only to learn but to impact.”
It is, he feels, changing people’s behaviours:
“People come out joking, ‘You tricked me – I thought this was just a fun thing, and now I feel responsible.’”
Extending the dialogue
Now Vettori wants to take engagement further.
“We are in the process of taking the company into a new phase of who we are,” he says. “Right now, Arcadia is based on inspiring and informing, leaving people the option of whether to activate. We really want to move forward to a more regenerative approach, starting a process of building a stronger community where, when you leave us, we can follow up with you.”
The aim is to keep the dialogue going, even when people have left.
Additionally:
“For us, internally, we want to try to understand, in terms of the people who visit, how we engage them more with organisations that have a real impact. We are working with Oceanic Global as our official educational and charity partner, to help us carve a more regenerative path forward. Our mission for 2022 is truly to evolve into that space.”
A cross-sector effort
In the face of the magnitude of the challenges facing the earth, to what extent does he feel the borders between art, science, technology, and so forth are being transcended as people come together to address them?
He responds:
“When I started Arcadia Earth four years ago, there was a bunch of friction even about understanding the topic. Over the last four years, the topic has definitely become massively adopted. Everybody talks about sustainability now. The next step is going to be pure action.”
However, he points out, action has to happen on a major scale.
“The big organisations have to change. It’s easy to say, ‘Stop using plastic,’ – then what do we use? Our technology should now become a vehicle or a stage to display these innovations that are taking place in the industry, so people can adopt them. We want to use art and technology not just to inform, but to tell the real solution; to say, ‘Do it now.’”
Alternative solutions
It is no longer the case that plastic remains ubiquitous as packaging because it is cheap, he explains:
“There’s a new technology called PHA. It’s a 100% biodegradable and compostable plastic made from food waste. This can be used to make food wrappers, cups, bottles, straws.”
PHA, unlike bioplastics made from crops grown specifically for the purpose, can be created from discarded food waste, both reducing the amount of plastic waste produced annually, and keeping the waste from landfill, where it would produce methane as it decomposed, adding greenhouse gas emissions.
“The question is,” he says, “if this technology exists, why aren’t we using it to produce all the plastic cups, straws, packaging? That’s why I feel it would be awesome for me to tell its story, and make sure people know.”
Can Arcadia Earth turn the tide?
Whether initiatives like Arcadia Earth can really turn the tide of the destruction climate change brings is, Vettori feels, irrelevant:
“We need to do as much as we can. It doesn’t matter how we feel. It doesn’t matter if people say we don’t have a chance; we just have to try.”
We need to do as much as we can. It doesn’t matter how we feel. It doesn’t matter if people say we don’t have a chance; we just have to try.
“If Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are thinking that the future is Mars, where we don’t have a single drop of water, a single plant, or a single bubble of air, and it is going to take a trillion years to get the first plant, well, even with all the challenges of climate change, Planet Earth looks like a good bet. I believe that there are going to be consequences.
“I believe that we have already passed, to a degree, a point of no return. But at the end of the day, if we can’t reverse those consequences completely, we can minimise them.”
Future plans and virtual engagement
Vettori plans to expand Arcadia Earth’s physical locations. He is currently exploring possible sites in cities including Toronto, Miami, and Los Angeles.
Beyond the physical locations, he adds:
“COVID was another ‘Aha!’ moment so we’re looking to develop a multiverse in VR or AR that can be used through the educational system. For example, we currently have an app that we developed with Verizon CSR. It’s designed as an educational tool. Verizon has this educational portal that they are going to use in the school community.
“The idea is to gamify education for the student. I find it super fascinating. We are launching that app, and then plan to build a VR multiverse where we target schools.”
The app can already be found in the Verizon portal – in the US only, for the moment.
“It is called HQ Village. We’re testing how applications using this technology can be adopted by students and teachers.”
Making Arcadia Earth accessible internationally
Vettori also plans to expand further into the digital space to ensure Arcadia Earth’s concepts are accessible from all over the world.
“Everybody’s talking about the metaverse,” he says. “If you go into the Oculus store – Oculus is probably the most adopted platform to date – the majority of the applications concern gamification. For instance, jumping around, and shooting monsters.
“Our intention is to focus more on the realm of the collective working space metaverse. Our platform is designed and is now going to be released in a stronger way this year.”
“It’s designed to allow teachers and students, or anyone who has a headset, to enter the space and start interacting with the curriculum, where the curriculum is a fun game about, say, deforestation, for example.
“We say, ‘40 football field-sized areas of rainforest are cut every minute’. But how much is that? So you’re now taking the VR, and thinking in terms of perspective and scale. You see this massive city growing, and you say ‘Here we go: it’s an area the size of the Empire State Building, or Brooklyn.’
“The VR allows the user to visualise information in a way that makes it meaningful and memorable.”
Education
Targeting those still in the education system makes sense:
“I think they’re the ones who care,” Vettori says. “Whereas we are stuck in a system that forces us to behave. You’ve got to pay for the car; you’ve got to pay the rent, you’ve got to pay the life insurance, you’ve got to feed your kids.
“It’s easy to say, ‘drop everything and start over’. I did it, but I was unusual in being able to do so. I don’t think that level of commitment, of sacrifice, can be imposed on people.”
There are more powerful ways to effect change. He gives an example of how positive trends can escalate:
“In Brooklyn, a trend for the organic started. Suddenly, hipsters with long beards and tattoos were bringing back the old ways of doing things: everything was hand-made; there was artisanal cold-pressed juice everywhere, and unless a product had the word ‘organic’ on its label, it wouldn’t sell.”
Demand was driving production and higher standards.
“We’re trying to do much the same with Arcadia Earth. Why don’t we create a demand for better, for more? I believe that demand can drive innovation.”
Doing the right thing
It is an interesting approach and one that has pragmatism at its core.
“Paul Hawken has released a new book, Regeneration, that will probably be my best new source of information,” he says.
REGENERATION is a practical approach to climate change. One that demonstrates the fact that solving the crisis is a matter of addressing current human needs, not future threats.
“The book is about regenerative effort,” Vettori says. “We are at that point where we should do business. We need to make money and we need to be successful – by doing good, and not being shy about it. Imagine if making money by doing good was more profitable than making money with petroleum.
“We need to like reset our expectations, in terms of making money or being successful. It’s important; we live in that video game, this system. Making money is what we need to do. The difference lies in whether we choose to do that by doing the wrong thing, or the right one.
“Let’s just do the right thing.”
