When talking about the particular stressors of life in the modern age, it’s hard not to point to tech as part of the problem. Technological innovations, it seems, have wormed their way into every corner of our lives. There’s now a smart mirror, for instance, that will analyze your appearance to direct you in how best to carry out your morning beauty routine, and you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who hasn’t suffered the mental fatigue of realizing they’ve just spent the last hour scrolling through Twitter and Facebook on their smartphones.
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[Image: Ivan Cash/Jeremy Lubman/Ari Kuschnir]
But at the same time, tech is becoming part of the solution. Apps like Headspace facilitate daily check-ins and meditation; wearables like WellBe are even going so far as to measure your stress levels for you. The team at m ss ng p eces, a Brooklyn-based production company (the missing letters are intentional), decided to take it a step further.
“I’m always thinking about ways in which these new technologies like VR are going to enable us to become more immersed in stories and become better human beings,” m ss ng p eces founder and executive producer Ari Kuschnir tells Fast Company. “I didn’t see enough experiments in VR with anything related to mindfulness.”
VR hasn’t yet crossed the threshold into mass consumption, but Kuschnir and the m ss ng p eces team wanted to find a way to use it as a platform to boost mindfulness and relaxation–and reach as many people as possible. “We were thinking of what could be a good place to start, and landed on a VR experience that could also work as a 360-degree video, featuring a well-known spiritual teacher,” Kuschnir says.
Kuschnir immediately thought of Jack Kornfield, the founder of Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Northern California; he’d been listening to Kornfield’s podcasts for years, and admired his ability to weave stories together. Kuschnir ran the idea by Ivan Cash, a contributing creative director at m ss ng p eces; Cash, in turn, told Kuschnir that he had an uncle who worked at Spirit Rock. The m ss ng p eces team got in touch with Kornfield, sending him a sample VR headset and explaining the concept: to translate the storytelling work Kornfield was already doing on his podcast into a more immersive, visual format. Kornfield was immediately on board.
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Source: FastCompany