Immersive After-Party: Mozilla Festival

On the 47th anniversary of the creation of the internet, a message appeared online:

The Order of Balance is the greatest public service that the world has never heard of.

All sacred communiqués since the dawn of man have been made possible only thanks to the intricate and profound rituals of balance that our sacred order have been most honored in being given the right to perform.

And we would never have needed to make your acquaintance if it hadn’t been for some snarky problems we’ve been having lately.

We think you are partly responsible.

And therefore we have decided that we need you to help.

Thus began the journey for unsuspecting participants of MozFest 2016, Mozilla‘s annual festival for the open internet movement.

Following the clues eventually led to the headquarters of The Order of Balance for an immersive spectacle-come-party where guests joined their numbers. Within the monastery, monks responsible for preserving the internet performed their crucial work across four floors of divine installations illuminated by Bailes + Light.

The new followers were invited to take part in many of the rituals involved in maintaining equilibrium – their journey began on a factory floor creating an object linked to the virtual world that would soon have to be destroyed on the pillars of destruction, with the lights responding to their actions as the essence of the object was taken away. The Altars of Zen and Chaos towered over the space, wires and vines weaved together with strings of light bridging the natural and digital world.

In the dining room, monks rushed to plug leaks from the fountains, leaks that were adding to those already shared across the open internet, lost by governments and corporations. Next was the Dark Web where chaos reigned: disorientating shafts of light flickered unpredictably as people steered themselves through a maze of darkness. They were invited to confess their sins on the other side. But not everything was doom and gloom, once the ceremonies had been performed the monks invited everyone into their ‘training zone’. This was an unapologetically loud and colourful space filled with Piñatas, thumb wresting and music, where the monks and the newly initiated danced away the evening.

Only Lean On That Which Resists was created by Anagram, an award-winning creative collective that bring together innovative digital interaction and stories told from real life.