IMI: A World Closer
A gesture-controlled digital globe and AI-generated biome environments built at FIELD.IO for IMI's Yas Island headquarters, reimagining global news data as living brand environments.
Overview
IMI: A World Closer is commercial client work built atFIELD.IOforIMI's headquarters on Yas Island, in collaboration withUniversal Design StudioandWiedemann Lampe, in 2025. Daan Rongen was credited asSenior Creative Developer, alongside Guido Schmidt and Raphaël Améaume. Full credits: Executive Creative Direction — Marcus Wendt; Creative Direction — Mike Hughes; Technical Direction — Simon Brown; Visual Artist — Jann Choy, Grit Wolany; Senior Creative Developer — Guido Schmidt, Raphaël Améaume, Daan Rongen; Lead Engineer — Cornelius Carstens; Creative Development — Ezekiel Aquino, Riccardo Torresi, Chelsi Goliath; Technical Director — Jonas Otto; Creative AI Engineer — Casper Wortmann; Senior Designer — Audrey Ma; Design Lead — Max Palmer; 3D Artist — Margot Hoffmann, Julien Bauzin, Matei Bacanu, Max DXMIQ; Sound Design — Jamie Teasdale.
Concept & approach
Framed as "Narrative Intelligence", the piece reimagines IMI's news data as living brand environments: geographic news locations are mapped to AI-generated aerial landscapes rendered as authentic ecological biomes, so a cluster of headlines from a region reads, visually, as that region's own terrain. A gesture-controlled digital globe lets visitors explore these interconnected global narratives directly with their hands, an "overview effect" view of the news rather than a scrolling feed.
Installation
Built into IMI's Yas Island headquarters as a permanent architectural installation, extending the biome visual language into the building's own office and server-room spaces.
