The Sweet Shop Directors Team Up with Google Creative Lab for Cube Project

By Erik Oster 

The Sweet Shop directors Steve Ayson and Damien Shatford teamed up with Semi-Permanent and Google Creative Lab Sydney to create a project demonstrating the capabilities of the new Google Cube.

Tasked with utilizing the Cube — a “six-sided display that integrates motion technology to offer its audience members an active role in the storytelling process” — to tell a unique story in a never-before-seen way, Ayson and Shatford rose to the occasion with an innovative approach. They crafted a narrative “in which the six sides of the Cube would be used to tell a series of short stories in which the characters move across each side of the device, each experiencing their own adventure while simultaneously becoming the heroes, sidekicks, and villains of their neighbor’s worlds.” Intriguingly, the six sides of the Cube each correspond to one of the seven major narratives of literature (ie. tragedy, comedy, etc.), while also completing a cohesive, unified story.

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“It was very refreshing to be let free on a project that was both a new format but also without boundaries when it came to the characters and their stories,” said Ayson. “I loved how even when we had all of our ideas plotted out, this medium meant we couldn’t help but come up with more great ideas that would have our characters interacting on the different sides.”

The Cube (and Ayson and Shatford’s interactive video) debuted at Semi-Permanent, an annual conference and exhibition event whose stated goal is to “spread art and design inspiration across cultures through the use of new and emerging technologies,” in May.

Semi-Permanent Co-Founder and Director Murray Bell was pleased with the results. “In the space of 2 weeks, whilst we were preparing for 10,000 guests at Semi-Permanent to launch the Cube, the team comfortably stepped outside of the normal realms of commercial projects and created something never done before, Bell said. “It’s a testament to the confidence their team has in the directors and the production team.”

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