The Australian Open & Mastercard

FORCES AT PLAY

3D Data Visualisation

"A lovely blend of art, science and branding."

Alex Derwin, ECD, BMF
Campaign Brief, issue Feb/Mar 2019

Forces at Play is a data visualisation of the greatest rallies from the last three years of the Australian Open. Presented on an 11 meter by 5 meter LED wall, the work serves as the front facade to Mastercard's VIP suite at the Australian Open. The work is driven by Hawk-Eye data, which tracks the trajectory of the ball and players during each tennis match. These coordinates are used to retell experiences of tennis as kinetic architectural forms.

Forces at Play - a visualisation of tennis data

These are the six rallies visualised in the work:

Rally 1
2017 Men's Final
R.Federer vs. R.Nadal

Rally 2
2017 Women's Final
S.Halep vs. C.Wozniacki

Rally 3
2018 Men's Final
R.Federer vs. M.Čilić

Rally 4
2018 Women's 3rd Round
M.Osaka vs. A.Barty

Rally 5
2016 Men's Final
N.Djokovic vs. A.Murray

Rally 6
2016 Women's Final
S.Williams vs. A.Kerber

A secondary piece I created for the installation was Journeys - an ultra wide format work (64:9 aspect ratio) featured in the suite's entrance corridor. The data visualisation depicts every Mastercard transaction in Melbourne during the Australian Open for the last three years. Transactions are visualised as particles, which travel through turbulence fields from the country where the card was issued towards Melbourne.

Journeys - a visualisation of transaction data

My conceptualisation of the two works was based on Mastercard's positioning of itself as a tech and data company, rather than simply a financial institution. Both pieces were created and coded in TouchDesigner, which is a node and Python-based programming environment. This allowed me to build real-time systems, in which the data itself drives every aspect of the design, including the form, motion and colour.

Creative Technologist: Mike Daly
Producer: Lucas Jenner
Production Company: Rabbit Content
Agency: Octagon
Architects: ACME
Screens: Mediatec and Screencom