Deloitte Digital noticed that at SXSW Virtual Reality goggles and apps monopolized conversations regarding the future of interactive experiences and that the place for musical talent was strictly atop a stage. To differentiate, Deloitte Digital proposed a vision for the future that looks beyond a life tied to screens and reimagines music not as a static product, but as collaboration between artists and fans, a world in which technology creates a bridge, rather than a barrier, between content creators and consumers.

Our challenge was to create a physical manifestation of Deloitte Digital’s vision that would convey the simple premise that interaction is what we as people do together. We also needed to showcase how Deloitte Digital leverages technology and data to help clients realize their greatest ambitious while remaining accessible and approachable to a wide spectrum of SXSW attendees. We wanted to meet these challenges in an unexpected yet intuitive way, using technology and data to capture real-time user input to shape and bring to life a piece of music through light, sound, and touch.

The ARC not only evolved and changed on its own; it also responded to the audience as they played one of the five instruments, which modified variables within the song’s algorithms. The instruments were designed to be approachable for musicians and non-musicians alike, begging to be pushed, pulled, rolled, and embraced. Unlike in a traditional band, the instruments didn’t play individual sounds like a bass or guitar, but rather influenced one another and the direction of the composition. Each instrument had a multi-dimensional impact on the overall experience, changing qualities in the immersive lighting, sonic textures of the mix, and patterns in the song. With no wrong way to control it, the resulting output was beautiful and musically in key and on tempo. The synchronized lighting was also generative, reflecting sonic patterns with visual ones, and even changing color palette as the music changed key.

Participants shaped the song in collaboration with others (including André) standing around the six-foot wide hearth-inspired centerpiece, under the visually reactive dome, and encircled by twenty spatially-mapped speakers. The algorithms and their modifying instruments directed certain sounds to be gently rotated around while others energetically bounced from one side of the room to the other.

The ARC far exceeded both Deloitte Digital’s expectations for public exposure and the public’s expectations of Deloitte’s creative and technical capabilities.

• 6,000+ SXSW attendees through the doors of Deloitte Digital’s activation

• 450+ million earned media impressions through major media outlets including FastCompany, MacWorld, and NPR.

• 18+ million social media impressions

• “Best Brand Experiences at SXSW Interactive” as named by CNBC

• Ignited a national conversation about the future of music through news articles including

o “A New Way of Experiencing Music, Straight Out of Tron: Now at SXSW, Deloitte Digital’s ARC attempts to redefine what a music instrument is in the digital age.” – Fast Company 3/11

o “Their Songs, Your Way: the Rise of the Personalized Song” – Medium’s CuePoint 3/19

o “At the Deloitte Digital Interplay Lab, SXSW attendees can interact with music like never before” – ComputerWorld 3/12

Referred to by Fast Company as a, "new way of experiencing music" and by MacWorld as an, "interactive musical experience like no other," Deloitte Digital's Audience Reactive Composition (ARC) brought the future of music to life.

The ARC presented music as an exploration of compositional possibilities . Each visitor’s touch on a series of tactile instruments modified variables in the underlying algorithms shaping the perfect execution of rhythms, melodies, arpeggios and the surrounding visual environment, allowing anyone to contribute instantly.

Part technological wonder and part art installation, the ARC seamlessly married music with data in a fully immersive experience.

To tell the story of how Deloitte Digital combines creativity and technology to imagine the future for its clients, we created the Audience Reactive Composition (ARC) as the centerpiece of Deloitte Digital’s activation at SXSW. The ARC was a fully immersive interactive musical installation that allowed SXSW attendees to explore a new definition a song, one which is created alongside the artist, and defined by the fan.

The musical heart of the ARC came from Grammy-nominated André Anjos of RAC who, working with a programmer over the course of two months, created an original composition scored in thousands of lines of code. Their song wasn’t a static product. It was a procedurally generated musical system that filtered RAC’s original content through dozens of algorithms to create a familiar, yet unique, experience for each SXSW who played the ARC. Left alone, the ARC wouldn’t repeat itself for 2.6 million years – that’s how long ago the first known stone tools were used. The ARC drew on our inherently human desire to create by allowing the audience to shape the song through touch, explore infinite angles, discover how its patterns mix and collide, and play with the nature of its sonic elements

As a 171 year old company, Deloitte has a well-established and well-regarded reputation for the strength of its traditional audit, tax, consulting, and advisory practices. However, Deloitte is less well known for the company’s growing creative capabilities and technical skills under the Deloitte Digital brand.

Deloitte Digital wanted to increase awareness of its offerings and strengthen its brand positioning as a creative digital consultancy. South by Southwest (SXSW), an international conference known for its ability to bring together the best in technology and art, was the perfect fit to demonstrate it has the creative chops to imagine and the technical skills to deliver the future.

Deloitte Digital wanted a concept that would fit seamlessly into the festival’s intersection of technology and music while serving as a true conversation piece challenging what is possible with interactive experiences.