Memory Koi | Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

“Memory Koi” is a virtual koi pond created as a relaxation tool for the patients in Memorial Sloan Kettering’s new David H. Koch Center for Cancer Care. Designed to work both responding to interaction, and as a passive viewer, the pond serves to create a peaceful and reflective intervention in a space often defined by anxiety.

The koi themselves are designed to have a blend of both natural and magical qualities. With custom built AI the fish can be calm, excited, inquisitive, or scared. Behaviorally they pool, school, feed, swim under the plants and magically transform with secret user inputs, and even deliver messages of encouragement to patients who may need it. Proximity detection around the pond allows it to “signal” the arrival of a visitor to the koi to respond to and cue interaction to facilitate both passive and active participation.

For some patients, simply dragging their finger through the water and seeing the koi respond can be soothing and meditative.

Over the course of the day, the pond itself evolves. Color and lighting changes to match the time until it slowly transfers to the dark cool tones of night. Throughout the year, it also transitions from the full foliage of summer to the ice, stone, and leafless trees of winter.

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Credits

Developed and Produced by Potion
Design Director: Brian Bowman
Director of Production: Nikolai Soudek

Design & Animation: Brian Bowman, Cathy Sun
Unity Developers: Filippo Vanucci, Tim Sun