For more than 20 years, producer Carmi Wortman has been organizing music festivals. He brought great artists to Israel – including Jason Derulo, Black Eyed Peas, America and Joe Cocker.
Today, he appeals to a younger audience and presents a virtual reality project called X-Space, to be discovered in the Tel Aviv Convention Center.
It’s a giant augmented reality game room.
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In this experimental room, visitors – mostly youngsters between the ages of 6 and 15 and the adults who accompany them – meet many animated characters, such as the captain of the purple-haired starship and his crew.
They then make their way through a series of interactive adventures created personally for each visitor.
Each visitor first receives an avatar which is controlled by a smart bracelet that is presented at the entrance. Next, he cycles through several rooms, placing the bracelet on the terminals installed in each room to activate each activity.
X-Space, the new interactive entertainment space created by Producer Carmi Wortman at the Tel Aviv Convention Center, Tel Aviv. (credit: Dor Kedmi)
In one room, four augmented reality activities allow the visitor to operate a wall-sized screen.
In another film, aimed at younger children, participants color creatures with real colored pencils, then scan their pictures onto a 3D wall screen, where their drawings magically appear. They can also jump on the interactive trampoline and use a cushioned wand to draw streaks of light on another 3D wall.
In the main and central building, visitors can check their ID to see how many operations they have performed and use their hands and feet to play an interactive video game.
This experience was entirely designed by Wurtman’s latest venture, One Space Ltd. including technology platform and content created by local studios.
X-Space, the new interactive entertainment space created by Producer Carmi Wortman at the Tel Aviv Convention Center, Tel Aviv. (credit: Dor Kedmi)
For this first release of One Space, Carmi Wurtman started from scratch, creating the entire X-Space experience. But the big plan was to collaborate with other brands, creating spaces and experiences that could change content with the push of a button.
The event bears a certain resemblance to the immersive and interactive exhibitions of the genre of Van Gogh or Frida Kahlo currently touring the world, including in Israel, presenting masterpieces to an audience who might not have the possibility to see them in person.
Wurtman dreamed of X-Space after trying out Geek Picnic in Russia in 2016, an interactive science, technology and art event featuring four-story chopping robots, an electronic conference and science-fiction experiments.
The experienced producer was able to see the true potential of this kind of experience.
Producer Carmi Wortman ventures into Interactive Space X at the Tel Aviv Convention Center, Tel Aviv. (credit: Carmy Wortman)
“It got me thinking: It’s cool, no missiles or BDS can cancel out the show,” says Wurtman, who has wrestled with these Israel-specific challenges multiple times over his 21 years of concert promotion. “I traveled the world to see what I could bring.”
In the endHe decided to create his own experience, with the goal of using this type of technology in permanent places with changing contents, somewhat similar to cinema, and different experiences for children, adults and families.
“In the morning, we could have Batman or SpongeBob SquarePants and in the evening, a digital Bob Marley or Star Trek,” Wertman said. “It’s a great way for artists to gain more recognition and the heirs are happy to keep their brands alive.”
For Wortmann, Israel is the perfect place to test his idea, because Israelis are “badass.” It says it plans to expand globally after that, setting up shop in galleries, malls, movie theaters and warehouses.
X-Space has been a success so far, he says, with NIS 20,000 selling 119 tickets in its first 20 days.
X-Space, the new interactive entertainment space created by Producer Carmi Wortman at the Tel Aviv Convention Center, Tel Aviv. (credit: Dor Kedmi)
Although there are more than 100 cameras, sensors, projectors and other accessories high technology Wurtman, who is planning to open two sites in the US and a pilot project in China, noted that the experiment came to life, and the latter was conducted on a relatively low budget compared to other similar facilities.
Wertmann, CEO and founder of One Space, which has secured funding from Aroma Music, a subsidiary of coffee chain Aroma Israel, and corporate merchandising firm Bimot Global, a German producer and US real estate company, among others. We try to show what our technological capabilities are. »
For Wurtman, it’s a job not much different from that of a producer.
“Being a company high technology, unlike a party product, means that you are always working on upcoming breakthroughs and always trying to be on the cutting edge. This is what Israel offers to the world. “There is no reason why we cannot become a force high technology in the field of entertainment. »
X-Space tickets can be purchased On-line.
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