Zignum Spirit Animals

Zignum Spirit Animals is a promotional platform created as a digital interactive installation using a Microsoft touchscreen app in combination with an iOS app. Users are able to use the iOS app to enter personal information allowing them to determine their ‘spirit animal’ according to the Oaxacan folk traditions (Zignum is a Oaxacan Mezcal liquor). The iOS app collects the data and sends it to a database online. The user is then able to “inhabit” their spirit animal on a large screen (and via large projection) and dance or cavort about through a Microsoft Kinect skeletal tracking system we designed and developed.

The Concept

The concept combined ancient Mesoamerican Astrology with the relatively modern (begun in the 1930's) Mexican folkloric tradition of the Alebrije, and brought it all into the digital landscape.

The astrological animal gods were reconceived as low polycount art, with a slightly more contemporary pattern and color scheme that very closely resembles the folkloric style.

And finally the models were rigged for use with kinect skeletal tracking. The end result was a mirror image of the participant's animal spirit looking back at them and mimicking their every move.