Factory International
Marking the launch of Factory Settings, iconic British fashion designer Gareth Pugh joins forces with digital artist Natalie Liu and Berlin-based creative studio NEEEU on a series of new Snapchat filters.
Experience - Facsimulate
Marking the launch of Factory Settings, iconic British fashion designer Gareth Pugh joins forces with digital artist Natalie Liu and Berlin-based creative studio NEEEU on a series of new Snapchat filters.
FacSimulate coincided with the opening of Free Your Mind – offering a first look at the aesthetic that defined the costumes which Pugh designed, while paying homage to the visual world created by the Wachowski sisters in 1999.
Featuring state-of-the-art visual effects, FacSimulate invites you to step into a brave new world. Try on liquid metal skin, shoot a self-portrait augmented by otherworldly digital ghosting or watch a towering 720ft AR character loom ominously over the Aviva Studios building in Manchester.
Drawing on the themes of The Matrix, Pugh’s designs raise questions about the body in a digital world – from the clothes we wear to how we move through simulated space. Free Your Mind asks in a world where humans are enslaved by algorithms – can we break free? And do we even want to? With FacSimulate, Pugh and NEEEU play with these questions and the tech that underpins them – the addictive allure of social media and the visual magic of AR.
Experience - Power Up!
3D artist and illustrator Jack Sachs is the second artist to animate our new home – just in time for The Welcome, our spectacular series of events and performances celebrating the opening of Aviva Studios. Known for his colourful and cartoonish characters, Jack has made work for the likes of Nike, Spotify and Vice.
For Factory Settings, he’s created Power Up! – a vibrant world of weird and wonderful digital creatures who need your help exploring Aviva Studios. You can play with friends or explore alone, and customise each of the artworks.
Ready to explore? Download Factory Settings app for iPhone here and Android here, or pop down to Aviva Studios and scan a QR code to download Factory Settings for free – and see the world differently through your screen.
Host App & Technology Stack
Built with Flutter for cross-platform consistency, the app was designed for easy maintenance and extensibility. A custom native plugin integrates Snapchat's CameraKit library, enabling dynamic loading of AR lenses from the Snapchat ecosystem and allowing lens creators to easily add their experiences to the platform. The app features a custom communication bridge between AR lenses and the host application for real-time interaction. Experiences can be launched manually or triggered via QR code scanning. The backend uses Strapi CMS to manage experiences and handle scheduling for time-based content availability.
Created with the team at NEEEU in collaboration with Jack Sachs, Gareth Pugh and the Factory International Team
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