An Immersive Journey Into Space

An interactive augmented reality experience bringing artist Michael Kagan's space-inspired artwork to life. What begins as a metallic space helmet transforms into an immersive portal, transporting viewers into the perspective of an astronaut floating above Earth.

The experience featured an exclusive voiceover by real-life astronaut Mike Massimino, adding an authentic human connection to the journey.

The Experience

Working from Michael Kagan's original artwork, our team of 3D artists recreated the metallic helmet as a three-dimensional object that could be explored in augmented reality.

As users approached the helmet with their phone, its reflective surface transformed into a portal revealing an entirely different world.

Moving even closer triggered another transformation: the helmet expanded around the viewer, creating the illusion of stepping inside the artwork. The surrounding environment became an immersive outer-space scene, offering the sensation of floating above Earth during a spacewalk.

The experience combined proximity-driven interactions, spatial transformations, and immersive storytelling to turn a static work of art into an interactive journey.

Technical & Creative Highlights

• Art-to-AR Transformation — Translating Michael Kagan's original artwork into an interactive 3D experience

• Proximity-Based Interactions — Seamless visual transformations triggered by the viewer's distance from the artwork

• Portal Effect — A metallic helmet surface that reveals an immersive environment as viewers approach

• Immersive Space Environment — An expanded perspective placing viewers inside the helmet, surrounded by a scene inspired by a spacewalk above Earth

• Exclusive Astronaut Narration — A custom voiceover recorded by astronaut Mike Massimino specifically for the experience

• Collaborative Production — Bringing together fine art, 3D artistry, augmented reality engineering, and storytelling

Challenges

I worked to make two sets of gestures: one for outside the helmet, and one for inside. Outside the helmet, the user can move the object like the other artworks - scale, rotate and drag. Inside the helmet, the user can drag to pan around the the scene that surrounds them and pinch to close out of the experience.