S1:Ep69 Engineering Empathy, Mind-Merging Consciousness & Emotional Resonance Through Immersive VR and Biometric Data

Sean is a British Futurist working in the field of experimental performance, XR and neuroscience. His work has been exhibited globally. Since 2012, Sean has been leading a team of future-thinking artists, designers, and scientists to explore the full potential of the Waldorf Project experiment and its evolution into the digital space. Now, as the co-founder of Awen, Sean is focusing on creating radical mind-altering XR worlds to reimagine how humans can engage with technology - to positively transform human emotions and improve mental health.

In this mind-expanding episode of Digital Transformation & AI for Humans, Emi sits down with Sean Rogg to explore Virtual Serenity – a groundbreaking immersive experience that combines virtual reality, biometric data, and emotional design to engineer empathy, elevate consciousness, and activate deep emotional resonance.

We dive into:

• What “Virtual Serenity” is and how it was created
• How immersive tech can foster empathy, connection, and healing in a disconnected world
• The integration of biometric data, multisensory stimulation, and emotional architecture
• The unexpected emotional journeys of participants
• How emotional states and consciousness may be intentionally shaped through tech
• How AI can amplify creativity, art, and innovation rather than replace it
• The future of VR & AI in leadership development, mental health, and human evolution

Sean’s insights challenge the limits of what we think is possible with technology – not just to simulate reality, but to shape our inner world. Tune in for a visionary conversation that merges science, art, and soul.

🎧 Subscribe and share if you believe in building a more human future – enhanced by technology, not reduced by it.

Connect with Sean Rogg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sean-rogg-40300530/

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Sean Rogg
• 8:05 From Filmmaker to Visual Artist
• 19:13 Birth of The Waldorf Project
• 33:52 The Algorithm for Engineering Empathy
• 47:08 Scaling Human Connection
• 57:45 Virtual Serenity and Biometric Data

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello and welcome to Digital Transformation and AI for Humans with your host, amy. In this podcast, we're delving into how technology intersects with leadership, innovation and, most importantly, the human spirit. Each episode features visionary leaders who understand that at the heart of success is the human touch nurturing a winning mindset, fostering emotional intelligence and building resilient teams. Winning mindset, fostering emotional intelligence and building resilient teams. I'm excited to welcome my fantastic guest, sean Roeg, from London, the United Kingdom, to discuss virtual serenity, a groundbreaking experiment in engineering empathy, mind-merging consciousness and emotional resonance through immersive virtual reality and biometric data. Sean is a British futurist working in the field of experimental performance, extended reality and neuroscience. His work has been exhibited globally. Since 2012, sean has been leading a team of future-thinking artists, designers and scientists to explore the full potential of the Waldorf Project experiment and its evolution into the digital space. Now, as the co-founder of AVEN, sean is focusing on creating radical, mind-altering extended reality worlds to reimagine how humans can engage with technology to positively transform human emotions and improve mental health.

Speaker 1: 1:31

Welcome, sean, it's a great pleasure to have you here in this studio. My pleasure too. Let's start the conversation and transform not just our technologies but our ways of thinking and leading, if you are interested in connecting or collaborating. You can find more information in the description. Subscribe and stay tuned for more episodes. I would also love to invite you to get your copy of the AI Leadership Compass Unlocking Business Growth and Innovation the definitive guide for leaders and Business Owners to Adapt and Thrive in the Age of AI and Digital Transformation. Find the Amazon link in the description below. Sean, before we dive in, could you share a bit about yourself, about your journey, and tell us about the World of Project as well? It's such a unique foundation for sharing your us about the world of project as well.

Speaker 2: 2:26

it's such a new foundation for sharing your talent with the world really impressive yes, so I founded the water project in 2012, but I had the idea for it. The idea was planted, I would say, in 2008. It took me about you know four years to figure out how it was going to manifest. But prior to that I was a filmmaker Initially. Well, as a teenager I went to Hollywood and I wanted to become a standard cinema film director and I worked on some big films, then started to make my own short films. I came back to London when I was 25 and I made my first like 35 millimeter short film and then I kind of followed the route of aspiring film directors, learning the craft. So I did pop videos and commercials and wrote film scripts and, you know, trying to break into that world. I love the cinema. It's my church, I go every week, but the films that I connect with and resonate with are usually because of the soundtrack, the idea of connecting the music to the film and the kind of emotions that I can get from that connection. That was my inspiration for the path that I wanted to lead.

Speaker 2: 3:37

My brain doesn't really function like most people and I've got all kinds of neurodivergent issues, but the main drawback of that or not, depending on how you look at it is.

Speaker 2: 3:49

I don't really do very well with words I got. I find it very difficult to read, to get information through reading, or inspiration for that matter, so I'm much more attracted to images and sound and pictures and just painting flavors in my brain through other methods than than text. I mean, even like, if I'm going to read a book, I have to listen to it. I can't physically read it, which now is fine with audible world of audio based content. But when I was younger I was if I wanted to read anything, it would be going to the library and and renting books on tape that were basically created for blind people. So I had a very small selection of books to read from. But it was, uh that one of the one of the short films I made was actually using the audio from an audio book to narrate a story. I spent probably yeah, a few years trying to break into into that cinema world and I found myself.

Speaker 2: 4:45

I was turning 30, I was getting more attracted to experimental thinking and I was understanding visual art much more and I was finding myself more inspired by artists' imaginations in art galleries than in the cinema and although I love cinema, I migrated over to the visual art world and then actually decided that I wanted to be a visual artist, which is difficult because I came in it's called an outsider artist when you're self-taught, self-motivated. In London, most of the contemporary artists that are successful are poached out of art school, you know, at their graduation show. There are galleries that walk around and will literally, you know, buy your art from a graduation show and sign you up in your early 20s. But I'm at age 30. I just was.

Speaker 1: 5:38

I didn't.

Speaker 2: 5:38

I never went to art school so I didn't have any connections and I was trying video art, which is difficult to sell.

Speaker 2: 5:50

So it took me about three years to break in, but I did, finally, and got represented by three galleries and spent my 30s as a very successful visual artist, exhibiting all around the world, doing five biennales different biennales around the world I mean, you know, one would say quite successful and my films were all about examining the human condition. I would find an aspect of humanity around the world, something potentially trivial or quite deep, and then spend maybe a year on it, documenting it in some way and then presenting it as a visual art film with no dialogue, as per the way my brain thinks. In fact, out of the 19 films that I made, I had one film only that had dialogue in it and it was called without a word and it was a man, but apart from that, not a single word. And then so in 2008 I had a very big opening party, you know, vernissage in london. My gallery in london actually was given a very large ballroom in.

Speaker 2: 6:45

South Kensington as a sort of off-site gallery space and I presented a film on a massive screen.

Speaker 2: 6:51

It was great, it was really a big deal for me at the time and this film so we had about 400 people at the opening party and, like with all of my opening parties, I don't like the idea of somebody just standing around drinking beer, so we usually turn the music up really loud, the lights down low, shut the bar when the film runs, you know, just so that people watch the screen. And on this film, much like my other work, it examined something about, you know, some kind of emotional response and I knew there would be certain trigger points along. It was a 19 minute film and I knew that at sort of minute one minute three minute seven minute nine, there were going to be these points where you were going to have a response. But when there's 400 people in the room all looking at the screen, I know exactly what's going to happen. And then and this was the first time anyone had seen it other than my editor and then and this was the first time anyone had seen it other than my editor and sure enough.

Speaker 2: 7:45

The audience responded at those at those points, and that's when I thought, wow, I'm, I'm getting really good at this. I know how to get a response out of you, but to see these 400 people all together, I felt like I was a conductor of emotions and I loved it. I found it intoxicating, but I realized that my orchestra was the film and you know, it takes 18 months to create the work and I thought I really want to find a way to work directly with these 400 people. Is there a way of me doing without the need to go through a film? Could I just work directly with you somehow? And that's when the idea was born. So I thought, okay, I don't know how I'm going to do this yet, but I need to lose the medium of film as my tool by which to get a response out of you. So I carried on working for the next four years, but privately, I was manifesting what would become the world of project and on a personal basis.

Speaker 2: 8:49

At that time, the things that were interesting me were, and still do, but at that point it was contemporary dance, which I love, and there was a. There was a moment where some big choreographers of his sector Schecter, sidney Larby, akram Khan they were all having like peaks of their career and putting on some really interesting work. Ofer Schecter specifically uses music and sound drumming a lot in his work Molecular Gastronomy, which has been born for an Adriatic closed, el Bulli in 2007. But at that time nobody knew what molecular gastroenterology was. He kind of invented this art form which was about to spread like a virus throughout the world. Now it's sort of like, you know, had its day, but back then it was a new art form which turned me on. It wasn't so much the food aspect, it was the idea that I saw it as an intersection of art and science in order to create these, you know, these dishes. Immersive theater was was just being born punch drunk, which is, some would say, I think, certainly the greatest immersive theater company in the world. They were in their early, early days.

Speaker 2: 9:58

In in that time I went to see a show called mask of the red death in 2008, which was only their second big show. So all of these things kind of interested me, my love for electronic music and the kind of emotions it can trigger out of you. So then I thought, well, if all of these things are getting an emotional response out of me. What if I? What if I had like the dream team of of emotional triggers and took all of these disciplines that turned me on and kind of brought them together. So chapter one of which we did in 2012 was was essentially a manifestation of of these disciplines coming together.

Speaker 2: 10:44

So I worked with a with with a young, hot kind of chef that was going down the molecular route, an amazing sound designer, alessio who, who was in a band that um called walls at the time. Now he's called not waving 2011. We I did a pop video for them and they did a live soundtrack for a performance that I was doing and I loved his music and I invited him to do chapter one. One of my galleries in London, which is called the Wapping Project, which kind of inspired my Waldorf Project, which sadly is no longer there. It was in a hydraulic power station in Wapping in East London, a derelict hydraulic power station that had been brought back to life as a gallery. One of the few people actually had was able to stand up to her and and and partner with her and have her actually inspire and and clear work with me because normally she's.

Speaker 2: 11:52

She was very dictatorial and it would be the way that she wanted to do things. She had a history in in contemporary dance and experimental theater before opening the gallery, so she knew a lot of um choreographers, old school choreographers like christina page and lee anderson, and um and I and I and I wanted to bring contemporary dance into this as well. She arranged, she introduced me to some choreographers. Imogen knight was the was the lady that I worked on chapter one, so I didn't really know what this was going to be. It was presented in a warehouse in East London. It ran for five nights. We transformed the space into sort of a hydroponic wonderland where the plants would grow into your food. The dancers will sort of cut the plants and they would drop onto your plate and we really kind of merged disciplines. But it was humble beginnings At the time. It was pretty revolutionary. I mean we were voted top 10 experimental restaurant in the world by USA Today, beating Noma, and we were open five days.

Speaker 1: 13:00

Amazing. I'm so impressed and I'm listening to your story.

Speaker 2: 13:05

It's truly impressive but, um, and it was a huge amount of work and it was the first time that I promoted anything. In fact, there was quite a difficult process to go through because when I, when I, when it finally all came together conceptually, before we actually started to do any of the physical work, which I would say was about six months before we opened my plan was to present this as a essentially an art performance, the conceptual idea behind it being that it there would be 40 guests a night for five nights, so 200 people would experience it. And I thought this could be a limited edition artwork which existed in the form of a memory. And it was up to me to make sure that your experience was Alzheimer-proof in its impact on your memory and that there was a sort of loose justification for it to be presented as an art, even though it was, as I said, it was more like a multi-sensory dining experience. So I was all excited.

Speaker 2: 14:14

I came to my three gallerists and the tickets were quite expensive because, again, it was the first time I produced anything and I had no idea of how to work the numbers. We worked out that it was going to cost about 45 000 pounds to stage this with all the expenses. So I just said okay, I've got 200 tickets. How do we? 45 000 divided by 200 is 240 pounds. So that was the ticket price, which is huge if you think of it as an art performance um, although weirdly now there are some performances that are getting up to that price, but back then it was there's no way. I was like 10 times the price of anything that existed. But if you compared it to a sort of michelin starred meal, then we were roughly in the same place. So I thought I need to get art collectors who go to michelin restaurants. But if you compare it to a sort of Michelin-starred meal, then we were roughly in the same place. So I thought I need to get art collectors who go to Michelin restaurants. That's my audience and most art collectors are quite wealthy and they do go to Michelin restaurants.

Speaker 2: 15:16

And between three galleries, I thought it would be super easy to sell 200 tickets. Divide them up by. Give a block to each gallery, tell them to send it to all the collectors a lot of them that bought my work. I guessed that they would probably buy a plus one to bring a guest. So it's really only selling 100 tickets, if you like, and if you divide that by three, that's 30 a gallery.

Speaker 2: 15:39

I thought no problem at all, brought the idea to them and didn't get the reaction I wanted. Well, one of one of the galleries unfortunately passed away jewels she would have. She would have actually helped, but the other two dropped me. They said not only are we not going to help you in any way, but we no longer want to represent you as an artist because we feel that you've broken the golden rule of the art world, which is to consider your guest when creating the work. And that thinking, I mean it, really pissed me off.

Speaker 2: 16:19

It's one of the reasons why I didn't get into the art world younger, because there's this, you know, there's a world, a contemporary art world, which is, yeah, you have these artists who work in isolation, who, essentially, there's a fine line between being an artist and being a mental patient. I mean, if you think about what happens and that is the way that gallerists like to perceive you you are a burdened genius with an idea in your head that is personal to you, that you discuss with no one, that you consider no one, and you create that work and then, when it's done, you walk away, you hand it over to the gallerist and then they start to pseudo-intellectualize it and use, you know, endless amounts of words and essays to describe and it's's all. I think it's all nonsense. My favorite work Richard Long, james Turrell. You know, they're just. You just step into a piece, you don't need to read anything, you just feel something.

Speaker 2: 17:15

Well, I disagreed with them. I thought not only. I think considering your guest could be an art form, why not? I just never thought that way. I guess I never really was what the art world is considered to be a proper artist, because I always thought I always consider the the guests always, always aware is. I mean, I'm considering you right now. I'm looking at how, how many times you're blinking, whether I've got your attention, and it's.

Speaker 1: 17:39

I saw myself as a storyteller rather than an artist, and if you're a storyteller, you have to create stories that people care about that is actually a fantastic approach, because, with everything you can create in terms of reactions and interactions, of course it was logical for you to take the next step and move towards something what is going to activate your audience in a completely different way, where you create exclusive experiences for them without being detached. Yeah, and that's how you came to the virtual serenity project well, that was it I mean after with chapter one.

Speaker 2: 18:26

Well, just to quickly finish, how I got there? I, when my galleries dropped me. I then I had to sell these tickets and I was introduced to a pr company which I'd never worked with before and they said look, let's just market this, communicate it, we'll sell it to the public. You know, we'll create a media campaign, get press, none of which I'd ever done before now. I'm, you know, a jedi, understanding demographics and you know the various ways that people are described and how you communicate with them. Because I've had to, everything I've done. I promoted my well, except two performances I promoted myself and I've had to, and I've been responsible for marketing and producing, as well as the creative direction of it.

Speaker 2: 19:09

But so then, when we presented chapter one, which, as the audience loved, I actually suddenly realized and this, this is, this is what sent me on the path which ultimately led me to virtual serenity, which is we created something in isolation and all you do is simulate, but when you get a real audience, they never do what you expect them to do. And so certain things emerged which, weirdly, at your performance, the same thing happened 15 years later. It still happens, but with Chapter One, something unexpected happened that I could never have anticipated. But with chapter one, something unexpected happened that I could never have anticipated and it gave me an idea. And so I went in there with a plan and then the reaction was unexpected. And then I studied the reaction and why it was happening, found it beautiful and then reiterated. So then, nine months later, we said, said right, we're no longer doing doing multi-sensory experiences. Now we're looking at consciousness transformation or empathy engineering or altered states of reality or whatever it may be. And that's how we we were able to push and push and push the idea and as it grew, an algorithm emerged for engineering empathy. We moved away from the gastronomy side and moved more, and I brought in neuroscience and endocrinology and understanding the experimental psychology and understanding the patterns that were emerging in the audiences, because they're becoming more and more profound as the language evolved.

Speaker 2: 20:37

By chapter three we had I was starting to see a response in the audience after the show, after the performances. So, rather than just feeling joy and happiness and this was great and then leaving with a smile, I was starting to see a connection between the audience after the experience and it was strangely well. So it was chapters one and two, and the two test performances we did were all very short runs five days, seven days, three days like that but by 2016,. I was getting substantial global media, I was getting a lot of attention, people were flying on airplanes to come and see my work, and so I was in a position of power and I was able to negotiate a sponsorship deal for a venue for three months. So it was the first time that we did like a long, a really long stretch, and there was demand for tickets for that long, and it meant that the first week or so was completely bonkers and hectic. But because we had a three month stretch, after a week things calmed down and we started to get into a flow and the team. It almost felt like a job. Like we'd arrive at 3 pm, we'd clean up from the night before, set up for the next performance and then do the event, and then it was great. And it was really at the end of each night I'd gather with the contemporary dancers and we'd tweak it a little bit and go. Well, this happened. That was unexpected. Well, I had this guest who did this and I didn't know how to deal with it. So I improvised and I liked that improvisation. Let's put it into the show, that kind of thing. But it also meant that, um, something, when this unexpected post experience connection happened had it been a week it would have just gone past me, but because we had three months and I started to see patterns emerge so well, the first time I noticed it after about a week, I was like that's a little interesting, I didn't expect that. And then the next day it happened again and the next day happened again, and then I was like okay, there's something's weird going on here. Let me, let me take this seriously now. And I sat and I studied it and, if you remember, this similar thing happened, which was my proof of concept. It happened with your performance in stockholm, but the first time I ever saw it in 2016,.

Speaker 2: 22:55

Performance ends and the guests would kind of in this particular event, they ended up lying on this massive structure that had been created subwoofers in it, like a giant bed, if you like, a flat bed, but with speakers built into it, in total darkness. The performers were wearing LED light dresses and mingling through them, but then they drifted off and left the guests in total darkness. The performers were wearing like led light, dresses and mingling through them, but then they drifted off and left the guests in total darkness. And then we bring up a little bit of light, a little bit of sound and indicate the performance was over, but we didn't say anything and then the guests would kind of sit up and come back to life, sometimes spontaneous crying. But there was this everyone was talking in a very low voice and they were either strangers we broke up in groups and they hadn't said a word to each other.

Speaker 2: 23:43

The whole experience is done without any speaking. So the first words that come out of your mouth are to total strangers. And there was this curiosity between the people around you, but it was always in a low voice and it lasted about eight minutes. And for eight minutes it didn't matter who you came with, you were only interested in the people directly around you. And then after eight minutes it's like the spell wore off. The voices became quite loud and it'd be like where's? Like the spell wore off. The voices became quite loud and it'd be like where's my friend, where's my girlfriend? Oh, there she is. And they would get up and people would swap places and reconnect and then it became like an after party.

Speaker 2: 24:28

But the next night I got like a stopwatch out, I timed it and it was like eight minutes, 20, and then night after night, after night, and then I was like okay, something's going on here. So I brought in the a couple of scientists, as I said, and they they kind of I had them go through the experience one night and then come back the second night and I was confident that this eight minute thing would happen. And I asked them to explain what was going on and they said we think you might have found a way to engineer empathy. And the key term here is engineer, because and when I say empathy I don't mean, oh, I feel your pain, I mean actual hormonal based, oxytocin based empathic connection between two strangers. And at the time they said that this is so groundbreaking because you can predict empathy, you can hope for it, you can. There are various ways that you can nudge it. There's a lot of science going into it, but to actually engineer it, there's only two ways. One is when a mother is breastfeeding, the body creates these hormones to you know nature to bond with your child. And the second one is if you take MDMA, which floods your brain with oxytocin and serotonin, and that's why you have this chemical, fake chemical empathic bond as long as the chemicals are in your body. But here we are.

Speaker 2: 25:53

We had a third way and then we unpacked it and then an algorithm emerged and the journey that the guests went on was essentially trauma followed by euphoria equals empathy. So we would take you on a long dystopic hell ride for about two and a half hours where we were. You know now, years later, where I fully understand what we were doing. The trauma element which is I don't mean trauma as in like danger, it's just what we're doing is basically creating presence, pushing the outside world out of you for a while, and then, when we have you pushing in something euphoric and the algorithm is really important you have to push the bad stuff out in order for the tender stuff to work.

Speaker 2: 26:44

So I tested after chapter three which, as I said, this happened by accident. But now I thought okay, now I understand it, I want to explore this algorithm Plus. I had a vision of moving beyond audience of 40. I understand it, I want to explore this algorithm Plus. I had a vision of moving beyond audience of 40. I wanted to. I had a vision of one day having the whole world connected somehow, but I didn't know how yet, but I certainly wanted to explore human connection with larger audiences.

Speaker 2: 27:10

So the next thing we did was I partnered with Apple. They were opening a flagship store in Milan, next to the Duomo, and they had carved, basically, the stores underground. They carved a massive crater and then put the payment back in again, whether these big sort of like amphitheater steps that lead you into the shop. And they wanted to have a big event to launch the store. And we were connected and I said okay.

Speaker 2: 27:37

So, alessio, what we did was we took the last half an hour of chapter three, the music, which is the euphoria bit Same contemporary dancers, not in their light dresses, in regular clothes, and we had 300 people lying on their backs over the steps. And it was the first time I worked with a large audience and we had no rehearsal, as we usually don't have any rehearsal. But what was amazing is it completely failed. It was a total disaster from a proof-of-concept point of view, although very educational, because whilst the music was playing and whilst the dancers were weaving through the audience, we had beautiful empathic energy. You could just see everyone blissed out and people holding hands and popping each other was great. But then the dancers drifted off and alessio phased the music down and we didn't even get 10 seconds posts. I was hoping, you know, the 8 minute was my window and literally after 10 seconds, phones come out and it just there was nothing. And my understanding of it was we didn't have the complete algorithm, we were missing the DNA, we were missing the trauma, we were missing the presence, we just had the euphoria. So it had no effect on you other than you feeling nice. So I then thought, okay, how can I work with another large audience, but with the full algorithm this time? And I was introduced to Lufthansa and we did the first ever fully immersive experience on 35,000 feet, on a transatlantic flight from Frankfurt to Austin, texas, for South, by Southwest. It was a normal flight, a ticketed flight, but the audience were primed that something was going to happen on this flight. They didn't know what we build it as the world's highest empathy engineering experiment. That's all they knew.

Speaker 2: 29:30

And this time we had the full algorithm, we had the trauma and I was starting to see ways that I could communicate with audiences and get them, from a storytelling perspective, primed for something to happen, because anticipation is a powerful tool in the trauma aspect of it. You know if I say you know, look at this object, look at this, it's really important that you look at this. You're like why, look at this, it's really important that you look at this, you're like why? And the fact that you're asking yourself why you're already forgetting about the fact that you didn't walk the dog or you're hungry, you're not thinking about what's this thing here? And that's essentially creating presence.

Speaker 2: 30:09

So we had ways of communicating with the audience. We would interrupt their films and have captions saying five hours to the experiment, three hours to the experiment, the captain I had the captain, actually I have the intercom like say, you're all part of an experiment in three hours and 27 minutes. And then we actually installed the guests didn't know a full sound system on the plane, like speakers, proper big speakers all the way down the plane, so that when the music started, you know which you never hear on an airplane a loud, fully immersive sound. We dropped the plane to total darkness. I worked for three months to be able to turn off every single light in the plane, every emergency light, every little green dot. So I couldn't see a hand in front of your face. Hence the trauma Unbelievable.

Speaker 1: 30:56

Unbelievable how far you could go with such a concept.

Speaker 2: 31:01

And it worked. And then the dancers came out in their light dresses. Music turned to euphoria. They weaved through the plane. We turned it out so that every guest got about a minute of connection and then they were holding hands and then at the end of the performance, the dancers went off and I was lying on the ground with a stopwatch and my, my feeling was the first window. It was a day flight, so the first time anybody opens a window, it will flood the plane with light and I felt that I'm going to start a watch and when I see the first window open, that's, that's our window. And it was eight minutes and 36 seconds and then the window opened, so the algorithm worked.

Speaker 2: 31:38

And then I thought, okay, now I want to work with an even larger audience. So I partnered with Wonder Fruit Festival in Thailand and we did the world's largest empathy engine. We did 4,500 people lying on their backs with 250 dancers all wearing the light dresses weaving through them. There's a whole. I could talk for an hour just on that project, but I won't because it'll go down the rabbit hole. But actually there are films. Maybe at the end, everything I'm talking about now is documented with various little films if your audience wants to go deeper into this. But we did this for 4,500 people in Thailand and the algorithm held. We got about eight and a half minutes as well.

Speaker 2: 32:17

And then I was standing on the stage looking at this incredible experiment work and I realized that's it. I can't scale this anymore. I can't go to 50,000 or 500,000. The logistics were just insane and I thought, well, if I could somehow, you know, leave the body behind and work with the mind, maybe there's a way to scale further. And we had already been using virtual reality to pre-vis, pre-visualize our environments since a few years back.

Speaker 2: 32:52

It was actually the three-month project because we had there was an 87-meter corridor, wide corridor that ran through that building and, as part of your experience, I wanted you to run straight through that corridor, but it was pitch black, so you wouldn't be able to see anything, but for you to run at full speed and obviously that can be quite dangerous and we didn't want to hurt anyone. So we had to figure out how we're going to do this and the the solution was actually to have an enormous bright light and then fill the whole corridor with very, very, very dense smoke, because your visibility drops to about a meter. So you're running through the dark and then, as you approach the what would be the wall that you could hit there, there's a light there, but you see the light and you slow down. But I said to my designer, greg, my partner in crime in all of this we need to find a way for us to test this, because I can't put up a wall and then realize we need to move it. I just didn't have the budget for it. So he created a way for us to pre-vis in VR, which we actually invented and it's now used in film sets.

Speaker 2: 33:58

But we basically took 2D sketches, made them into 3D, then converted them to Unity and put them into VR, populated them with NPCs, one-to-one scale replicas, and then I could literally navigate through these environments and test everything. So we've been doing that for years, but in stealth and for previs purposes. But when I was on the stage I thought I think, if I can actually create content that is meant to be in VR, rather than just using it as a tool for previs, there could be something there. And then two or three years of prototyping and a lot of user testing. And then it led me to what you experienced, which is now the beginning of a long journey stockholm, as as wonderful as it was and as stressful it was, and it wasn't all wonderful.

Speaker 2: 34:48

We had four performances and two of them didn't work for some. Again, as I said, humans don't do what you expect them to do and to to build something in vr. And then have I mean the logistics of what we did in stockholm to put a wi-fi network that can handle 128 headsets all speaking to each other. Nobody's ever done anything like this before it's it's. We're in completely uncharted waters. My devs are going out of their minds of how to get this sorted, and and the content requires people connecting with each other, which, unless you have a network pre-installed and access to hundreds of people to test, you can't test.

Speaker 2: 35:28

So we had to work off simulations. We were able to use a test two, four and eight people and we did one test with 16 people, but that was as far as I got. Everything else was my imagination and simulation. But on the first performance, when we had 120 and eight people and we did one test with 16 people, but that was as far as I got, everything else was my imagination and simulation. But on the first performance, when we had 120 people, like the most obvious of mr of, like, oh god, why didn't I think of that? But how could I? Until I see it and it was essentially that and this was the second performance, which was regretfully the press performance about 70% of the ones had never used VR before, and the way that this content worked is people would look at each other and if you looked at each other you would then form a connection.

Speaker 2: 36:13

But there were people that were sitting there like this, basically with their arms crossed, and they were just staring ahead as if they were watching television, and I was like there's nothing I could do because the performance had begun. So you had half the audience who kind of either had used vr before or understood what we were doing, and they were very curious. They were looking and they're like, okay, I've got to connect with this guy. But this guy is just sitting there and you have very tight peripheral vision of you know, so they couldn't see there was somebody over here and you can see this person just getting super frustrated in this person. So literally on that second performance, half the performance were bored because they were just sort of staring again nothing's happening, and the other half were frustrated because they were like I exactly experienced it firsthand, because I realized that people need to turn around to move their focus, otherwise it's not going to work.

Speaker 2: 37:06

No, I know, and that was on me and I, regretfully, we kind of had to burn that performance. But then I learned fast and then for the next performance, I gave an introduction where I was very clear Look around, there's stuff everywhere. If you're looking somewhere and you're getting bored, look somewhere else. The thing that you're looking for can be just here. And it was just that little short, simple kind of onboarding where I needed to see an audience do it wrong in order for me to understand how to do it right. And then it transformed everything. The difference.

Speaker 2: 37:39

The evening performance on Saturday. When the second performance on Saturday ended the one that didn't work everyone took off their headsets, literally sat there like meerkats, silent for about two minutes, gave a kind of awkward clap and got on left. Yeah, and I spent the next three hours like mortified and depressed, you know. And then Greg and I had a chat and he actually primed me on how I need to describe the technology. The evening performance, on the other hand, was wonderful. It was beautiful. Everyone looked around, the technology worked, the content had worked, and then, when everyone came off, we had that same thing from 2016. People talking to each other in a low voice wow, I tried to connect with you and you connected with him and that connected them. Everyone's swapping stories and people staying there for 25 minutes of just people talking and talking, and talking and we just sat there watching my adrenaline going crazy with excitement amazing.

Speaker 1: 38:42

That's absolutely amazing. And that's how we met in Stockholm, because I I've got recommendation about this event from a friend of mine. It sounded so different, so modern and so future-proof and human-centric. And that's exactly what was exciting for me, because it was somewhere on the intersection between extendedenity, contributing to deeper empathy and emotional connection for those who feel isolated, disconnected or misunderstood. Because I could see as well that some people they could feel even more disconnected and traumatized during that short period of darkness and being isolated, and some others they were still finding themselves quite grounded, curious, excited about what's next. So it reminded me so much about how it is actually happening in real life, on the soul level, and how we mitigate those periods of uncertainty, of lack of input, data, and how we can react and move forward based on that, and it was a mind-blowing experience. So how do you feel this is impacting those who are really not 100% in their power yet?

Speaker 2: 40:26

Well, when you introed me, you mentioned Arwen, which is this kind of offshoot of World War Project, which was kind of. It was born from World War Project but it represents the more technology-based idea, idea. But when we were user testing the content, so we tested the, the early prototypes, on over a thousand people, because this was a new territory for me, new new technology. Working with devs, for example, is a new thing because it's a different way of creating work. Devs are very, you know, techno, techno based, very. They follow strict um instructions, but then when I see the result I want to iterate it. So we needed to use a test, the language, basically, where you have no avatar, no agency, no controllers. These are things that in virtual reality-based experiences. We broke all the rules and I think it's good.

Speaker 2: 41:18

I think one of the main reasons why we haven't really seen an xr you know revolution is because, well, firstly, the tech itself is is not quite there yet, but it's getting there, but the content that's been created is making a lot of mistakes. It's. I believe that that vr is one of the most profound technologies that we've seen in a long time and it creates instant transhumanism. You know the idea of taking your mind out of your body and taking it to somewhere amazing. I mean, even looking at the menu on on a quest to home screen is like holy shit, this is amazing. But then you immediately shoehorn the body back in as an avatar. You basically re-embody after disembodying, which creates nausea, creates a clash, creates boredom, stress, anxiety. A lot of the experiences are adrenaline based and and cortisol based, and you focus on something at hand. There's no moments of bliss or contemplation or relaxation. So I thought, okay, I'm going to just completely be. You know, I'm going to throw all the rules out the window. I'm going to do everything the opposite.

Speaker 2: 42:33

But we had to test it on a lot of people. We ran very basic Instagram ads looking at Gen Zs and we were using terms like cyberdelics and exploring, you know, connection and human connection, and what I realized, as these kids would show up to test, is there was this mental health crisis in Gen Zs, especially. I mean the level of like, because they're grown up with technology and all the anxiety that comes with it, and they were very vocal in their what. What was amazing is I was seeing, you know, 18. We ran 18 to 26, but we got mostly like 19 to 22, but 75 percent were female, which was interesting, and they all had no.

Speaker 2: 43:17

When we were in a very basic office, you know, doing some really rudimentary, nothing exciting user testing, and what I saw was them saying they were able to identify that they had a problem, willing to communicate it without any issues and wanting help. You know, it's like I have anxiety and I need help and I've come here because maybe this can help and so we kind of like we went deeper into the. I'm not trying to create a mental health solution for anxiety or anything like that. There are other people that are exploring that. Some of them are even using VR, but my feeling was not as a scientist, maybe this is and trying to relate to me personally thinking that, okay, there's loneliness, lack of human connection, real hormone where you can smell somebody, as opposed to the digital connection that's happening that are probably leading to these issues no-transcript, but it was always creating this connection between people, and the irony is that I'm now using technology, but in a different way, which is why, as you experience, you have no avatar. You're represented emotionally.

Speaker 2: 44:49

Stockholm is still at the early stages where this project is going to go. Unlike my previous work, this is going to continue to evolve. This is my journey now for the next few years. We're going to evolve and grow and tweak and just find a way to make this more effective. But the interesting thing is is your body is in the room. We're abusing storytelling. I bring people together to experience something in vr using technology.

Speaker 2: 45:17

But then it's that moment where you take the headset off and you start to talk to strangers and, if you remember, you were set in groups of four. We had 128 people, but in group tessellated groups of four, and I was there studying everything and you sit down as groups of four. You're four strangers. You say hello, most at most no. What's your name? That's about it. You have zero interest in these people because you're there for the experience.

Speaker 2: 45:43

But as soon as the headsets come off, bang, it's like who are you? The connection begins. And that's what I need to do now is we need to evolve the content in order for the post-experience connection to become more profound. And something will manifest at some point when we reach a certain level where we have a sort of shift, whether it's direct connections between people or, as I found, maybe just a shift in your own mentality. You become more curious. You're more interested in having somebody a friend come over for dinner and actually have them in the same room as you, which is, for some reason, something is dying out or however it will manifest in various people's journeys, but that kind of exploration of human connection, physical human connection, aided by technology.

Speaker 2: 46:34

So, although you know this is a VR experience, it's just a tool really for what happens afterwards. It could become a mixed reality or augmented reality or who knows what. You know we're actually looking at external projections where you don't actually wear anything on your head, but you're. You're in a massive screened environment. You know there's a number of prototypes we're playing with and they the disciplines might merge together. I'm also have access to some prototypes of stuff that aren't yet out that we're playing with. It's all for the it's. It's what happens afterwards. That's, that's where I'm.

Speaker 1: 47:08

I've always been interested in and that goes right back to 2008, when I was in the room and just had a vision of working with people's emotions directly it is incredibly beautiful and incredibly impactful and and, at the same time, when I think about the levels of technological advancement required to introduce those initiatives and land them in reality. It is truly so impressive, and integrating immersive virtual reality with biometric data is a very ambitious project. I wonder how did you go about connecting all the technical elements? What was the biggest challenge in bringing this vision to life? What was that? Music is it a part of the emotional design too?

Speaker 2: 48:02

Absolutely so. When I moved into VR I ended my relationship with Alessio, which was 12 years and flawless work, but now I was in a new space and I felt like I'm in a new direction. So I partnered with Tom Middleton, who's a legend, an absolute legend in the electronic music scene. In fact, in my early 20s, when I was living in New York, I stumbled across his music. He used to have a band with another guy called Mark Pritchard, called Global Communication, reload and a number of other manifestations of their music Beautiful, I mean. It just made me cry.

Speaker 2: 48:42

And one of the scientists that I partnered with did an experiment with him at Ravensbourne College about four years ago and they used me as a guinea pig. The scientist, carl, knew that I loved Tom's music and he deliberately and Tom needed a volunteer from the audience he was going to downregulate me, my heartbeat, using his music as a demonstration to an audience. I was chosen and then we met and then we became friends and then I suggested working with him. But his path he's my age now and he he said that he spent 20 years as a dj keeping people up all night and now he wanted to make them go to sleep.

Speaker 2: 49:20

So he partnered with the neuroscient and he's now looking at creating soundscapes that down-regulate your heartbeat. He's written this amazing album, which has got 10 tracks on it, and he never wants you to hear the last song because you're asleep, and so that mixture of me loving his music and the kind of scientific thinking behind his work was perfect, and we tested it out here and there and then it really worked, and so now he's going to now grow with me as this project grows. And, as you saw, we had a new way of experiencing sound, where he split the soundtrack between external speakers and internal speakers. So you're in this kind of like cloud of sound, which was amazing and it was yes, it was.

Speaker 2: 49:57

I have very few tools to work with light and sound is pretty much it, so the sound is crucial and every single note as you were moving through the levels of consciousness, the music was growing with you. It was all considered, it was all part of the of the experience and, from a biometric point of view, biometric data in some shape or form is already kind of heavily implemented in a lot of the technology we use, but it won't be long before it's in everything we use certainly in in any xr technology I mean we had transitioned from nothing to eye tracking.

Speaker 2: 50:32

But, putting you know, galvanic skin response sensors in the headset, putting hrv sensors in temperature uh, there's a, it won't. It's. It's very easy, it's happening. There's even a company that's looking at doing eeg. You know across the band here which I've worked with for a while.

Speaker 2: 50:48

But the important thing is is it was that time when I worked with the endocrinologist, when we understood the algorithm, trauma which was extended, cortisol and adrenaline spikes to create presence, and then euphoria where we've had serotonin, oxytocin, and then, once I tested the algorithm, I understood that I have an algorithm, I have the ability to create content that takes you on the journey which triggers those hormones at the right point. But then, as I went deeper into it, these hormones actually create a physiological response which can be tracked with technology and converted into data. As we're working with digital content, that data can be fed into a game engine and actually control your experience. So again, stockholm was early days. We basically had we had MetaQuest 2s, which has got only one biometric, which is gaze. But gaze is an enormously powerful biometric which we heavily used and we actually I worked with another biometric super genius lady who knows every, every sensor out there and she also understands the kind of what physiological you know like if I lean forward or if I lean back. There's a huge amount of data in where and how you look and we had a thermal camera which was projected onto the big screen but that really we weren't getting live data from the thermal camera. That was more just for show, for the audience perspective. But there's also testing for us, because for the next one we're looking at using getting multiple data points of multiple people from one camera.

Speaker 2: 52:16

So I wanted to test how that might work and how that would look like, because we did a test where I asked tom to write a piece of music that would say two minutes long, that at the 90 second part would have a crescendo of some sort that would make me get a chill, so like a soft ambient for about 90 seconds and then this crescendo and then another 30 seconds of ambient. Pointed a thermal camera at me, played the music, I got the spike and then we looked at the data and the spike equaled a serotonin response and the data showed a three and a half spike in my body temperature. And there we had it. That was suddenly the power there. It's like I can create content that creates a hormonal response. We have the tech that can monitor your physiological response. We have the tech that can monitor your physiological response. We created a bespoke way of actually converting that data into usable data that could be fed into a game engine, and that's what we're going to be developing as we move down, as well as other biometric markers.

Speaker 1: 53:16

It is so exciting but at the same time so deeply meaningful, and for me, I see it on so many different levels, outside of our human perspective as well, so it becomes much richer from the point of view of who we are as human beings and who we are in fact, that we are much more than just bodies, than just what we can see with our eyes. Why do you believe experiments like this are important for our time? What has virtual serenity taught you personally, and what do you believe it can teach humanity?

Speaker 2: 53:56

I'm so happy for the third performance where we saw albeit on a small scale scale. I saw it manifest for the first time and then I knew that there's something here and then I knew that it's worth continuing on, giving my three more years of my life at least to this to get to where I want to go. But we spent a lot of time creating content that can scale. That's the other thing we had to do is it had to work. It had to be something that could grow, because when I was standing on that stage in Thailand looking at the 5,000 people and 4,500 people and realizing that that couldn't scale, I had to have something that could become 100, 1,000, 10,000, etc. People all around the world at some point all connecting in this kind of like mycelium network, digital mycelium network across the globe on a platform that we would build. But I just seeing I mean there were some people. There were quite a few people that got on airplanes to come to the stockholm event, people that were part of the border project journey and just wanted to see the next manifestation of it, and it's completely different to what I was doing before. You know, very, very, very subtle, in fact, compared to what I was doing before, but it seemed to have the same post experience response.

Speaker 2: 55:04

And I'm not on a crusade. I'm not trying to like, I don't, it's not like. I believe that humans need to connect more, but they do, and I find the process intoxicating. It's almost selfish. As an artist, I am feeding off the art form that I've created, which is, I believe that there is something in orchestrating somebody's emotional response and forming this connection. So the irony is I never actually get to experience any of my work because it's in my head, but watching people connect is my experience and their experience is the connection. So it's win-win on both sides, and I don't know where the end game is.

Speaker 2: 55:54

I don't know where this is going to end up. I see the next few steps in the journey. I see this growing. I'm already having conversations to scale this up now for a substantially larger audience with an enormous infrastructure that we need. Maybe there's a tipping point. After a certain audience size, something beautiful, unexpected, will happen. It will happen. There's always a known unknown that will manifest itself and I think that's yet to emerge. And whatever that is, it'll be beautiful, it'll be new. Nobody will have ever experienced it before. We'll be there to understand it and find a way to scale it. But at the end of the day, I'm also an artist, so this is an ongoing experiment without really an endgame, as I said, other than it'll be exciting.

Speaker 1: 56:48

Fantastic. This is absolutely fantastic. So beautiful, sean. What is your vision for the future of AI and virtual reality integration into everyday human life, especially when it comes to learning, healing or even leadership development?

Speaker 2: 57:07

Well, I think we're in an interesting time now. It's a really weird time to be alive. We're all experiencing the birth of AI and how them all manifest. In fact, greg, my partner, he's actually heavily actively involved with that. When he's not working for me, he's actually heavily actively involved with that. When he's not working for me, he's exploring that and we're clearly seeing a dystopic and a utopic pathways in front of us.

Speaker 2: 57:30

In fact, there's a really interesting scientist called Jeremy Berlinson who for 20 years, has been looking at virtual reality and its impact on humanity, and I've watched some of his talks and I find him really interesting. And there's this there is, um, his feeling that there's a, there is a dystopian utopia vision head when it comes specifically the virtual reality. Something along the lines of a utopia might be the kind of beautiful vision of connecting the globe that I have. A dystopia might be playing beat saber for five minutes and an algorithm understanding with AI through your body movements whether or not you might have early onset Alzheimer's and, you know, selling that data to insurance companies so that you can't get protection 10 years from now. That kind of thing. But I'm firmly in the camp of utopia. So I believe that whatever this AI revolution is happening now, the dust will settle at some point Because we're seeing, like, incredible tools being talked about that people aren't using necessarily.

Speaker 2: 58:43

About that people aren't using necessarily. I mean just because I mean the worst thing about anyone who's in the tech startup world knows that you go build the tool and hope somebody would use it. You know, find a problem and then fix it, and we're being presented with a lot of tools now that were just being invented and hopefully some will. So I think there's we'll go through a rough patch where things will evolve and die and this and that and who knows, it might be that, that, the, that the number one way I use is in people's refrigerators to stop their food going bad. You know something as weird as that, but for me, we're using it as a as a tool, simply as a tool. And again, I I honestly I don't know what, what the future holds, but I'm excited to see it. I'm a little bit scared by it, but yeah, let's come back in five years and see how the world looks.

Speaker 1: 59:28

Exactly. I feel that this is exactly how many of us are experiencing this development and feeling at the moment. It is impossible to know which one of those two ways is going to be pursued in the long-term perspective, but at the same time, I feel that at least we can do everything we can on the individual level to choose the option we want to see in reality and the direction of development of all those new technologies and support them. And you are clearly on your way to support human connection, and it is so brilliant, thank you. This conversation is so beautiful, so deep and wise. I'm enjoying it extremely much. What is one powerful piece of advice you would give to today's leaders who want to stay relevant and truly human?

Speaker 2: 1:00:38

exponential technology, and maybe not just leaders, but all the humans well, I would say there's a very simple and beautiful mantra that I've had, and actually slipped it into the introduction of your experience, which is two words be curious.

Speaker 2: 1:00:58

Because what that means if you are curious and the greatest compliment I've ever had is people saying that they have become more curious as a result of coming to my work when I was testing on these thousand people, there was one young man who was a student at the LSE and he would get off at Holborn Station, underground Station, walk down the main road, then left to go into the university every day for two years and he came and did our test and his feedback was that the next morning for the first time, he instinctively decided to take a different route to school and he had new flavors in his brain for the first time by looking at new trees and new this, and he said it was directly because we had somehow flicked a switch and I think that was a huge. You know that was good for me to hear. But being curious, saying yes, you know it just puts the right hormones in your brain and everyone can benefit from that, whether you're a leader or whoever.

Speaker 1: 1:02:02

Brilliant. Thank you for being here with us today, sharing your experience, your story, and also sharing your vision for the future, for what's to come and for what you are doing. I'm truly grateful for your engagement, your gifts shared with the world, with humans, because this is needed today, so much more than before, probably, and you are just starting, and this is so exciting to see what the future holds and how you're going to land your vision and your new ideas in reality. I am so excited about meeting you in a while and seeing what you bring in form of next coming projects and initiatives. Thank you so much, sean. Thank you so much, sean.

Speaker 2: 1:03:02

Thank you.

Speaker 1: 1:03:04

Thank you for joining us on Digital Transformation and the Earth of Humans. I'm Amy and it was enriching to share this time with you. Remember, the core of any transformation lies in our human nature how we think, feel and connect with others. It is about enhancing our emotional intelligence, embracing a winning mindset and leading with empathy and insight. Subscribe at Statium for more episodes where we uncover the latest trends in digital business and explore the human side of technology and leadership. Until next time, keep nurturing your mind, fostering your connections and leading with heart.