Oct
28
2025
Visitors to Mote Marine Science Education Aquarium (SEA) are now able to turn the pages of discovery with Eugenie Clark’s Enchanted Book, an imaginative new interactive experience created by Ideum in close consultation with the researchers and scientists at Mote Marine. Inspired by the field notes and sketches of pioneering marine biologist Dr. Eugenie “Genie” Clark, the installation transforms her handwritten journals into living stories that leap off the page.
The large-scale digital “storybook” combines projection, animation, and touch interaction to bring Clark’s explorations vividly to life. Drawing directly from the archives of Genie’s field notebooks, Ideum’s creative team designed a series of animated vignettes. Visitors are invited to dive through and experience different chapters from Clark’s remarkable career, from early dives in the Red Sea to groundbreaking shark research and the founding of Mote Marine Laboratory.
“This project is a celebration of Genie Clark’s outstanding life and accomplishments,” said George Hardebeck, Chief of Creative Technologies at Ideum. "Her field notes, while records of science, can also be viewed as portals to new worlds, each entry filled with the wonder of discovery. We wanted visitors to experience this same feeling when viewing the exhibit."
Built to withstand the lively environment of a public aquarium, the installation features a beautifully fabricated, oversized book with turnable canvas pages. The projections adapt seamlessly to each page, combining Clark’s own words and illustrations with animation and interpretive text. Visitors can choose which stories to explore, shaping their own adventure through her legacy.
The book itself is a clever meld of technology and fabrication techniques that results in a marvelous experience. The CNC-machined book and desk house an entire AV rack of equipment. Imagery is rendered on the pages by use of a projector from Christie’s Inspire line. The high brightness, renowned color science, and small package size help the projector disappear, and the pages feel as if they are emissive in and of themselves. At Mote, the projector is enclosed to protect it from the aquarium's humidity and salt content.
Color-matching the enclosure to the wall extends the illusion further. An RFID tag is sewn into each page. Combined with an antenna system in the book, the projection system can change the content based on which page the user is currently viewing. Beneath the book, a set of Displax’s Skin Ultra flexible PCAP films extends touch through the frame and pages, allowing the user to interact with buttons and animations. All these components took Ideum almost a year of development to engineer, but to the audience, they are all but invisible.
The Enchanted Book was conceived as part of the new state-of-the-art Mote Science Education Aquarium (SEA), which opened to the public October 8th, 2025 in Sarasota, Florida. The project reflects both organizations’ shared commitment to education, accessibility, and science communication through technology.
“Mote’s mission has always been to inspire the next generation of marine scientists,” said Samantha Bledstein, Mote's Exhibits Manager. “Through this collaboration with Ideum, we’re letting visitors step directly into Genie Clark’s research - the place where her discoveries began.”
