Potion: Doing is Believing

With the presence of online networking so prevalent in contemporary society, it is sometimes hard to remember that technology has a place within physical space as well. Potion Design, an interactive installation design firm based in New York City, aims to alter that perception by designing, building, and installing large-scale, social, interactive experiences. We recently caught up Phillip Tiongson, one of Potion’s founding partners, to query his opinions on getting ideas off the ground, overcoming creative frustration, and what makes the Potion team tick both creatively and productively.

One need only look to Tiongson’s background to see the kernel for what would become Potion. As we find with many creative minds a diverse array of interests fuels Tiongson’s work and, for a while, pushed him towards frustration.  “I think my greatest challenge was to walk away from my strengths and embrace my weaknesses. As an undergraduate at MIT, I filled my time with two things, computers and movies. At MIT, people are good at programming computers and not as good at making movies. I did my best to combine the two at the MIT Media Lab, and did a pretty good job of convincing myself that I was good at both. I was set to start a PhD and was extremely comfortable when a mentor approached me and cryptically said six words to me 'What you need is not here.' I had no idea what he was talking about. Then, I realized that he wanted me to leave MIT […] those six words meant I would have to leave my comfortable life, and dive into an uncertain future. I applied to film schools that week, leaving that summer for New York to start Film School at Columbia. It ended up being the key decision in my professional life, and helped me to develop the critical skills I use every day running my own studio. I find myself constantly pushing myself and my team outside their comfort zone. Stretching yourself can cause constant frustration, and yet, yield the most creative achievements.”

While his background acts as a guide for many of Potion’s ideas, Tiongson recognizes the importance a team can have in realizing projects completely. Collaboration in particular makes Tiongson’s ideas come to fruition, “I hate starting things. I can obsess about the pitfalls, points of failure, and all of the reasons not to start a project. Fortunately, my partner and main collaborator at Potion, Jared Schiffman, loves to start things. He is an idea generation machine. He tosses the ball to me, then I add my ideas to his, and we start this endless conversation that can last for days, even weeks.” 

Similarly, Tiongson has found that a diverse creative team, not only as an larger entity but also as individual members, increases Potion’s overall ability to innovate. He explains, “Potion people are the most interesting mashups of creatives with technologists that we could find. We have employed designer-programmers, an opera singer-flash guru, a film editor-producer, a jewelry smith-web designer, a couple of architect-hardware hackers--even our bookkeeeper sings acapella. Creativity is so indispensable to our projects that we require every member of our teams to contribute creatively to the project. We look for people who can contribute as many different perspectives as we can find on the projects we work on […] Our medium is a unique combination of space, visual storytelling, and graphic design, and we need people that can consider the whole, and not just each person’s individual component.”

Tiongson has a simple and specific philosophy for making these ideas happen, noting that without action creative ideas falter before they can even begin to flourish. He elaborates, “Doing is believing. For our project with the National World War I museum, my partner Jared and I knew that no matter how much we described the experience we wanted to build for them, they wouldn’t get it until they could try it themselves. They couldn’t come to our studio in New York so we brought New York to them. We crated up our prototype installation and shipped it air freight to Kansas City. We flew out to meet with the decision makers and set up our prototype in a conference room. We probably spent a few hundred dollars a minute on that twenty minute demonstration, but in those few minutes, the project went from a possibility for the museum to a necessity for the museum.” Potion’s projects push the boundaries of what we desire from a physical space - thankfully, their ability to generate fresh and new ideas is matched by their ability to implement them.