Shiseido: Beyond Time

The latest collaboration between R/GA Tokyo and beauty innovators Shiseido fuses data, technology, art and brand purpose, creating a virtual time travel experience for visitors to the latter's Global Innovation Centre in Yokohama, Japan. Beyond Time is an immersive, interactive, deep-tech installation through which users can break the boundaries of time to experience ageing - instantaneously and non-linearly. Two people enter the installation from opposite sides and by looking through a digital mirror are able to see each other as they'd look years into the future, or the past. Decades of Shiseido skin research were combined with groundbreaking facial data capture and processing technology, resulting in an experience which shows, in real time, how people look during various life stages. The bespoke 3D Facial Age Simulation Engine developed by R/GA looks at 1,300 facial data points, and compares them to a vast, bespoke database of face models, also built by R/GA, enabling a scientifically-accurate ageing simulation in real-time.