Atlas9

Immersive Tech

While the aesthetics of the experience are selfie-worthy, an advanced tech ecosystem gives visitors a common thread throughout the narrative-rich environment. During a brief onboarding experience, visitors are informed that they are “agents” on a mission to help a secretive agency investigate the events and anomalies within the mysterious theater. Each visitor is issued a unique RFID-enabled wristband (called a TCK-IT), unlocking a gamified system that tracks discoveries, triggers hidden effects and personalizes interactions throughout the building. 

Upon entering, each visitor is scanned for “cinemorphic energy,” which captures a photo that the system temporarily uses to create dynamic imagery. This move comes into play through the “Dynamic Movie Posters.” By scanning their TCK-IT at the site of one of the digital posters, visitors can literally see themselves starring in some of the movies that were playing in the theater at the time of the malfunction.

At the heart of it all is Auditorium #9, a 240-seat theater reborn as an immersive spectacle. The massive projection screen engulfs the audience in layered visual graphics and responsive lighting, while four “best seats in the house” give visitors interactive controls over the content playing on the big screen. 

Artist-Inspired Rooms

The artist-inspired rooms connect directly into the Atlas9 narrative, showcasing DI’s tradition of collaborative storytelling. DI coordinated local and national artists to work alongside the in-house team. DI aligned briefs, palettes and fabrication methods so each space served the narrative first and the artwork second. Every room has a specific emotional feel, then it's woven into the guest journey through lighting cues, sound design and tactile interactions. Across it all, DI set the rules, managed handoffs and synchronized content so independent artworks appear like scenes from the same film.

• The Theater Manager’s Office: Offers a human anchor to the story. Kansas City’s Cory Hinesley is a meticulously-skilled set designer for feature films, commercials and music videos. Through notes, photos and everyday artifacts, visitors piece together the life of Melissa Hartwell, a character visitors will never meet yet, come to know.
• The Mesmerite: A 13-foot wood-and-LED centerpiece with 10,000 lights anchors the film-noir story called “The Trance of the Sapphire.” Expertly crafted by New York artist Tyler Schrader, the lighting and sound design make it feel like you’ve stumbled upon it. 
• The Hypnotizer: Kansas City artist, Jeremy Collins extends the film-noir arc with hand-painted linework that glows under UV, creating a trance-like photo-ready effect.
• Chant of the Mesmorite: HAZE, an artist duo based out of Chicago created a room with mirrored chambers that contorts the scene with subtle interactive displays that react as visitors move.
• The Jazz Club: A towering, mandala-like spire built from layered cut panels made of wood and metal forms that are backlit to create a luminous, room-scale sculpture by Connecticut artist, Chase Hanna. 

Fabrication Rich Environments 

Atlas9 isn’t just a story you step into—it’s a full-scale showcase of DI’s creative engineering and fabrication expertise. The project demanded new materials, new tools and new ways of building the impossible, all under an accelerated timeline. Inside DI’s fabrication facility, artisans, engineers and technologists worked together to bring Atlas9 to life piece by piece.

Atlas9 positions Kansas City as a global player in immersive entertainment, drawing visitors from across the nation and beyond. Backed by cultural partners Quixotic and Swell Park, and endorsed by the State of Kansas, Atlas9 strengthens the region’s $600M+ arts economy. 

For DI, the project redefined its identity, not just as a fabricator or designer, but as the mastermind of an original cultural destination. Atlas9 demonstrated that when technology, fabrication and storytelling collide, DI can invent new genres of experience. More than an attraction, Atlas9 is a blueprint for the future of experiential design: worlds where the physical and digital merge, where narrative is uncovered by participation and where fabrication innovation makes the impossible tangible.