The Glow Up - Fabulous conversations with innovative minds.

Using Art and Science to Make Emotions Visible - Sarah Ticho & Niki Smit

• Nathan C Bowser • Season 1 • Episode 13

Share episode

Sarah Ticho and Niki Smit are the creators of SoulPaint, an innovative virtual reality (VR) experience designed to make emotions visible and help people connect with their bodies and feelings. Here are the key takeaways from their conversation:

  • Origin Story: Sarah's personal experience navigating the healthcare system and feeling unheard led her to explore VR as a tool for expressing complex emotional states. She discovered body mapping, a process where individuals draw their emotions on a physical body outline, and saw potential in translating this to VR.
  • Collaboration: Sarah and Niki met while working on a breath-controlled VR experience called Deep. Their collaboration on SoulPaint began when they discussed combining Sarah's healthcare insights with Niki's game design expertise to create an immersive experience where users can paint their emotions onto a 3D avatar in VR.
  • Innovative Features: SoulPaint allows users to express emotions through painting and embodiment in VR. The experience leverages the visual and associative nature of human thinking to bypass language barriers in describing emotions. Users can paint their feelings onto a 3D avatar and then reflect on their creation, providing a new way to understand and communicate emotional experiences.
  • Therapeutic Benefits: The platform aims to address challenges in communicating complex emotional experiences, particularly in healthcare settings where time is limited. By using play and embodiment, SoulPaint helps users access their subconscious feelings in a freer and more instinctive way.
  • Future Vision: The creators envision SoulPaint as a tool for mental wellbeing and emotional regulation, leveraging the engaging nature of VR and game design to create healthy behaviors.

--- About Soul Paint - www.soulpaint.co

Niki Smit is an interactive artist creating playful experiences at the intersection of art, science and education. As co-director of Monobanda he has directed several award winning experiences including Explore Deep, Remembering, In My Absence and The Shape of Us. In 2020 he was awarded the Dutch Directors Guild award for Best Digital Storytelling.


Sarah Ticho is a multi-award-winning artist, strategist, and entrepreneur. She is founder of Hatsumi, a multidisciplinary agency dedicated to advancing human-centred experiences at the intersection of immersive art, scientific research, and healthcare. As co-director of the XR HealthAlliance, she supports the equitable adoption of immersive technology for healthcare across strategy and policy. Her work is featured in Forbes and BBC, and she speaks at festivals and institutions globally.

A "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself.

At The Glow Up, we humanize the startup and innovation landscape by focusing on the essential aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. Groundbreaking ideas are often ahead of their time, making resilience and perseverance vital for founders and product leaders.

In our podcast, we engage with innovators to discuss their transformative ideas, the challenges they face, and how they create value for future success.

If you're a founder or product leader seeking your own glow up, or a seasoned entrepreneur with stories to share, we invite you to join our guest list via this link.

Nathan C:

It's Monday, y'all. Let's get real.

Sarah Ticho:

Sunday!

Nathan C:

Okay. Welcome to the Glow Up Fabulous Conversations with Innovative Minds. I'm Nathan C, and today I am talking with Sarah Ticho and Niki Smit. Thank you both for joining me today.

Sarah Ticho:

Aw, thanks for inviting us!

Nikki:

Yeah.

Nathan C:

Okay, so let's get into it. Sarah, we've met and talked previously on the AR Minute and others about the number of projects that you're on. Niki, this is the first time I'm getting to chat with you. so excited to learn about your journey. The first question we usually start off with is just, could you briefly describe, the core problem, that you're working on? And usually I ask that your company is working on, but, this is more of a partnership. So, could you tell me about the core problem space that your partnership is working on and, the journey that brought the two of you to working together?

Niki:

Ah, this is interesting because I think we both have different answers, so that is so great. Sarah, do you want to take the first one

Sarah Ticho:

my gosh, alright, let's it! Stories how we ended up working together. I think that, I guess origin story of SoulPaint, I guess does with me, is that I had no interest in VR or was particularly aware of it at all, it was of through my own experience of navigating, the National Health Service here in the UK and being quite unwell a few years ago, I just found that I just wasn't feeling particularly heard by healthcare professionals, that they're so to prescribe medication, but have very limited time able understand you, and like, how do we find words to be able to talk about experience? I think started to see the doctor's is almost like this performance space where you have a limited of moment explain what's going on. And, I ended up sort of discovering the broader world how virtual reality can be used as a tool for providing insight into, lived experience, like we've amazing projects like Goliath by Anagram as a, clear example we can visualize all these different worlds, also how it be used therapeutically, which Niki and I also talk to about kind of other that we've worked with in the past. I discovered this incredible arts and health research method when I was a VR and mental health curator at a festival in Australia, called body mapping, which is this process where traditionally you would trace around your body on a big piece of paper and go through this mindfulness experience and imagine, where do I I feel anxiety in my body? Or what does pain look like? How you locate it and how might you illustrate that? And I loved it as a process of how you can use Drawing to express things that are really hard express, I'm also not good at drawing, even though that's not what body mapping is about, but we have this desire to be, you fantastic artists. I tried like tilt brush and I just loved you could paint and sculpt spatially, you can paint with animated brushes. so, I started to explore like, wouldn't this be really interesting if you could paint where you feel emotions and sensations in your body in 3D onto a 3D avatar, with different brushes as a way of expressing that experience? And so I started to work on that myself and was like learning about how does the world of VR work? do you need to work with? And it was through that process, I'd made a couple of prototypes, but it just felt like there was about the story that was missing, or how can you use like game design in it, and Niki and I had been working together for a few years already on a breath controlled VR experience called Deep. but one night we were chatting after a work call, and he was telling me about this piece he made called Copy Paste Dance, where you are moving and dancing in virtual reality. and I just loved how he was using embodiment and movement and really thinking about, VR from a game design perspective rather than I was looking at it quite pragmatically. And so, I think we said like, what would it be like if you could dance with your sadness? and that was the moment we were like, okay, we need to write an application together and we need to kind of expand this concept more. And that was really where our collaboration first began.

Niki:

about

Sarah Ticho:

how we've ended up developing it.

Niki:

I think that's jumping ahead a few steps. Like, if we go back to the question, what's the main problem that we're solving? I think for me, there is the frustration that we have this beautiful medium that we almost instinctively are drawn to. And by that medium, I mean video games in the narrow sense and embodied play in the broader sense. And that especially embodied play, Embodies, almost everything, all the building stones, building blocks we need for a, for a sort of healthy mental well being, emotion regulation, connectedness with your body, connectedness with the other, checking in with yourself, but you rarely ever, if ever, see it in video games, or at least, you didn't. 16 years ago when I started my company. The question was always, how can we leverage this beautiful new interactive medium of playful behavior, in a technological setting to not only be entertainment. Not even only be art, but be something that can help us in the long run, especially in this world where We are in a mental health epidemic We are in a world that goes faster and faster it's getting harder and harder to regulate all those stimuli that are fired towards us every day and what if we can use the things that we're already drawn to as escapism, video games, and play? What if we could use that and leverage that to actually be the healthy behavior? and that is where I met Sarah. we met on a previous project, And then, one evening we were talking about her project, and I was showing her things of mine. And she just said, ah, just to repeat you Sarah, wouldn't it be so great if we just took your project, and my project, and we just smooshed them together. And then, you could paint your own emotions, but then also embodiment them, and then dance with your own sadness in VR. I was like, oh, yeah, let's do that. Even though you, Sarah, you had been working on SoulPaint, which had been previously known as Hatsumi for, I think, seven or eight years? It sort of got an evolution when we got together and said like, okay, let's make this, this sort of, is this bigger thing.

Sarah Ticho:

And so to answer your question from the beginning as well, because I think we love the story around it. so particularly what we've created together is this piece that's really about Inviting people to connect to their body, and how we can understand our emotions, and kind of felt sense in a more deeper way. how we can use that as a way of having conversations with people, and connecting to others. and how we can create a space where people can Like, emotionally express themselves as well. So it's really about kind of exploring the embodiment of feeling and that that is therapeutic in itself, that connect, that being able to express feelings is valuable, but also how we make sense of things when we, we don't really have the language to.

Niki:

Because that, like, as a very clear and concrete example of how play can help with this, is we as people are deeply visually associative creatures. that's the reason we have things like abstract paintings. The moment you look at a bunch of colors and textures, you go, Oh, this makes me feel like sad, or this makes me feel like happy, or this is like very pressure or aggressive. so we do that already. Then if we go back to sort of the core problem of how can we talk about our emotions in a more instinctive way that we get to be introspective and we get to keep a finger on the pulse on our own emotional well being, but do it in a way that is not complicated and not filled with judgment because language can be so binary and so, you know, I'm depressed. It's already hard to, acknowledge and say out loud, I'm depressed and not just a little sad or a little burned out at the moment, you know? So what SoulPaint does, I think, so well and what it surprised me that, you know, Jumping on Sarah's train a little later, with this concept is that drawing your emotions in VR in your body is playful, but it's not thinking about your emotions yet. Because what happens is the moment you start drawing, that instinctive, playful mind kicks in, and you go into free association. So at that moment you're not thinking anymore, Hmm, should I use red to convey my anger? No. Yeah, you have a starting point and then you just start instinctively grabbing brushes and textures and going wild. It's only after you're done in the experience that we then ask you, so this is how you feel. Now that you take a step back, could you describe what you just made? And that describing, that is then actually the moment where you start reflecting on your instinctive, playful, Sort of stream of thought sort of thing, what that you did. So instead of just offering you a new way to reflect on your own emotions, what we, I think actually do is we leverage play to make you access your subconscious and freer way to think about that.

Nathan C:

I can't believe. How many, critical topics of the moment are all kind of wrapped up into this immersive experience that you're talking about in SoulPaint. I've spent a bit time with family at the hospital recently and this idea that there's barely any time you need to communicate your story to somebody, you know, incredibly quickly. And often these are moments where you may not have your words or your faculty or that full, bravery. You're off and in these awkward scenarios, there's this, right as an ADHD person, I struggle with interoception in general, just understanding what my body is doing at all. And some of the most powerful things that I've experienced, to understand. You know, my own brain has been that act of just like, well, what does it feel like? You know, where is this showing up? You know, that curiosity, can really not just tell you about where you are, but like help you, move through it just by having a little bit more of that information. So there's a number of these things here that I just. want to get into, but you're pushing on one of my core sort of assumptions at Awesome Future is this idea that like products have to have a purpose first. And that's how they're really good when you're like working into new technologies. You're like, well, I had this really practical idea that I wanted to work with, and it wasn't until I brought somebody in who could help me engage in that native magic. And to put the content in the channel in the right way, is my marketing framework of it. Right. you want to pick the experience and then you pick the technology for it. And I love that you actually came up to these barriers of like the pragmatic use case side and needed to get into that like creative interaction side. And that's kind of what's bringing this partnership. Often one of the questions I ask in these conversations is like, tell me about the moment where you chose to bet on you, but like, in this case, you've both bet on you already, you're already moving forward with these audacious ideas and these companies that you founded. When do you know? How did you know to bet on each other, in that same way? tell me a little bit more about the partnership and, how you decide to bring.

Sarah Ticho:

Cause makes me feel really emotional. what a beautiful way to frame that as well. of want I kind of want to be like you first because I feel scared to say it but I think maybe I'll be brave. I was really scared of Nicky when I first met him because he's just like Dutch.

Full cloud niky:

and

Sarah Ticho:

so, because the way that I first came across Nicky was that, he was part of DEEP, which

Full cloud niky:

this

Sarah Ticho:

like, awesome project that had been, on the road for a long time. This beautiful breath controlled experience that had been co created with scientists and Niki,

Nikki:

like

Sarah Ticho:

the motor behind it. And I remember when I got invited to like be a producer with them and Niki asking me all these questions and I was just like, Oh, I get a bit nervous sometimes. And I don't know if I always know what I'm doing. And he just asked me a question. I was like, Oh, I'm really scared of this guy. and then we started working together on on Deep for like two two and a half years. and so I think it was through that time that we, really developed our relationship. and I think it's so hard with finding collaborators and co founders cause it's like this really weird, intense, almost form of dating, right? That it's just like, do you want the same things that I want? like what is actually like, What drives us? And what values do we have? And like, where do we want these things to go? and particularly in the world of VR, because like, no one's doing this to become a millionaire, right? That it's just like, what, what is the thing that drives us? And I think it was through being able to spend that time together, that really, made me have such a deeper appreciation for Niki, like, just as a, as a human, as an artist, as like a founder, that like, I already felt so safe in, in so many different aspects of him as a creator and a person. That, felt like a no brainer, and I was like, I just need to, charm him into this, and, how do I do that?

Niki:

I was very lucky to have Sarah on my team with Deep, because the way I describe you, Sarah, is, you know, you're a rocket that one day will make a dent in the universe. it was really synergetic, because, Sarah had, Everything that I was lacking around me up until that point. Which is this energy that could keep up with my energy, that, extremely deep frame of reference around healthcare, therapy, science, and health innovation. Like, if you, Let Sarah talk for 20 minutes, you'll get the most beautiful anecdotes and quotes and, knowledge tidbits and there were all these things that resonate with my work, but that I couldn't necessarily express myself. So, she together with my, with my, scientist colleague, Dr. Johanneke Weertmeister, also good, good friend of ours. It was just this sort of elevation of what I was already doing. So it was like, oh, I know what I'm doing. From sort of an instinctive standpoint, what I'm doing is important, but I can't really put it into words. And then, yeah, Sarah came along and, she was like, Well, actually what you're doing is this and this and this, and it's important in a broader sense because this and this and this. Also, being so deeply curious that if you put something game design adjacent in front of her, she'll dive into that and learn that, and so it was just, yeah, came just together in a very logical way. And then she invited me into her project and we talked about that for a while, like, look, I mean, we're friends now, and working together also brings with it stress and different ways of working, so are we sure we want to do this? but at that point we already had, like, We already shared so many sort of deciding deadline moments, that we kind of already knew each other and each other's sort of pitfalls communication and way of working when we're, pressed for sleep or energy. So we're like, yeah, I think we can. so yeah, how did that really start, Sarah? Do you remember, did we just start and started writing that funding application? Did we do something before?

Sarah Ticho:

I think we'd been, like, talking about it for a while, and meanwhile, I'd also been speaking to Anna, who's our, like, and line producer and I think it started out of, like, this? Be cool. I wonder how that's possible. And meanwhile, yeah, I had a good friend that I'd also been having these kind of meandering conversations with that also has a background in science communication and working in VR and she worked with places like Marshmallow Laser Feast and the Welcome Collection in London. I was just like, wow, you really get this, but also like, you're a producer and you know how to do these things. And again, like, had that like, really close connection, but it was also like, oh, you're a friend, but how does this, change the relationship? And then we saw this funding, to do some, prototype funding, through the Dutch Film Fund. And I was like, oh, maybe this is, an opportunity for us to, work together. So, us, Anna, who has been through the project ever since, and Joe. And it just felt like the right people coming together at the right time. But I think she was such a valuable part of it in that I say that I'm a producer, like whatever a producer is, which is kind of getting stuff done sometimes all the time, but also someone that can have that strategic analytical, like what are we actually making? How do you do that? How do you turn that into like a really coherent application where you're not so, saying you're going to over deliver on all this stuff for like, not enough budget. and, and someone, and she's brilliant because she can oscillate between that like deeply strategic planning, but also like hold the creative and having someone that was like this kind of, like referee between us when sometimes we could have like totally different opinions on what we wanted to make and how we were going to do it. And so, yeah, it definitely wasn't just us.

Nathan C:

This expansion, right. one of the pieces of advice that I hear a lot for founders, especially anybody with a big idea, is, you know, to stay in your wheelhouse and do the things that you are strongest at, where your inspiration and interests and energy come from, is often, a founder's biggest challenges, as well as having enough time in the day to attend to all the things, founders need mentors, they need people to vent to, to bounce ideas off of. And because it seems that you had this working relationship and took some mindful steps. to really lay out the goals and foundation of the partnership, you're able to support each other to recognize each other. I mean, the way that you recognize and appreciate each other's strengths, and talents here, I get goosebumps hearing, each other talk about the team. you sort of naturally filled in a lot of these gaps or struggles that founders have, in those early stages. And I love how, a funding moment, was kind of one of these watershed moments that, allows you, to take that bet to dive in. I love the way that you seem to have grown on. Sarah, could you describe for me the SoulPaint experience, like, in one minute? I want to just make sure that we have a super succinct, description of the experience as it is today, because I think it'll help. we'll put it back at the top. It'll help folks, join us on this ride.

Sarah Ticho:

I wonder if you might be better at this.

Niki:

I can take a step and then we'll take it from there.

Sarah Ticho:

Yeah. I feel like you do the poetry better.

Niki:

Well, thank you. I think you do the poetry better and then I'm good at being very Dutch, which if you look at their landscape, it's like very square and segmented. I can sort of segment it off and go like duck, duck, duck. with that being said, SoulPaint is a, virtual reality experience where we ask you the question, where do you feel? So not how do you feel, but where do you feel? And in it, we ask you to take a virtual paintbrush and a virtual palette and step out of your body. And then look upon your body and think, this emotion that I feel now inside of me, or maybe another emotion that was really impactful for me, where in my body does that live and what color would it have and what texture would it have, So we give you a new way to reflect upon and talk about your own emotions. And then we take you through this. Poetic embodied ritual where you're taking through this sort of magical journey where you can control yourself and at the end You also get the chance to tell a story about what you made and then also meet the creations of other people What other people made and thus in that last sort of climactic moment you realize, hey, I'm not alone in this. other people also have this invisible hidden world of emotions inside of them. And that generates, as Sarah says that so beautifully, a sort of kinship with strangers.

Nathan C:

That feeling of kinship is often today. So infrequent that I am always impressed how impactful just a little bit of positive connection with strangers or with others in your community, can be. I think it is something that people really, you know, really value and appreciate.

Sarah Ticho:

Hmm.

Nathan C:

So Sarah, one of the things that I have just. loved seeing in the journey that SoulPanks has had has been how public and open you have been about prototyping, about testing, about getting user feedback from things. and I know, you have these strong relationships to the national healthcare system and the sort of clinical needs, to document and measure. Could you talk about, how your approach to user testing and feedback along this journey has maybe changed or impacted how you thought about the project or even choices that you've made along the way?

Sarah Ticho:

Oh, what a lovely question that I don't know how to explain succinctly, but it is just such A fascinating area of research of how we represent the body, how we visualise feelings that to do it in a silo would just be so, like, irresponsible. I think it's been so fascinating the process of just being like, how would someone use this? Where would you use it? Even, like, would you use this for showing a doctor how you feel? Would you use this as a public engagement tool to have a conversation with people as part of an art installation? Do we use this as, a form of research? And so that's been a really big part of the process, but I think, like, over the years we've had co design groups where we've done body mapping workshops with people and also worked with concept artists to think about like, how do you even translate this concept and create brushes for example, like what, how do you even select what sort of brushes you would use to visualize like the full spectrum of feeling? And I think one of the questions that we've also been asking internally is like, how many do we make? How do you make it so that you're not overwhelmed with options? But also that you have enough that you can freely, like, express yourself was a really big challenge, as well as all the kind of UI and functionality. we even, like, represent the body in VR. If you have this body as a canvas, like, Like like when I was first starting them, we were, I was trying to find, you know, OBJ files online and it was like hypersexualized women or like really like muscular men. And it's just like, it's not, it's not that binary option. And so throughout the process, we did a lot of user testing. We did a big kind of research pilot in a library. In Maidenhead, where we were looking at how it could be used as like a tool for social prescribing, so engaging the public in conversations about the embodiment of emotion and feeling, but also thinking about how, if people are in a, in the system already, that they could be referred as a tool to improve their well being. And so we did lots of testing within that of like, What happens if you have different sized bodies, like, is that valuable to people? And we found absolutely not, because it was horrible and you're kind of assessing how large or small you perceive yourself. So that felt like a big moment of like, okay, no, we're not going to do it like that. And so Niki and I spent hours talking about just how you even represent the body in VR. And that's how we ended up, landing on this quite ethereal, body where it's almost made out of smoke and it's kind of never meant to be a consistent, solid thing. It still has like more work to be done, but I think that kind of testing with people was, So valuable. And I think, you know, I'd heard about the importance of user testing, but like, technically, this is really like the first VR project I've ever been involved from the beginning. And I've just learned so much about what feedback you take from people that you constantly need to show people and see all the different kind of bugs and challenges. I think another thing we also found really early on is that people don't draw just inside the body. The emotions and feelings are something that actually people feel around themselves. Like, when you're feeling super overwhelmed, like, so many people would do, like, smoke and, like, static and all sorts of things. Or, you know, of course, so many emotions are also relational. When you think about love, it's not just, like, you experiencing that, but it's, like, between you and somebody else and so we knew that we wanted to continue to develop it in a way that people could draw outside the body but a big part of soul paint is that you get to re embody your, your drawing and you get to see yourself in the mirror wearing what you've created and so there are also a lot of technical challenges of like how do you attach Those, pieces to the body in a way that we can rig it as well. There were so many different aspects of the development where it's like, how do we represent human experience? How do we get the right people consulting on it? Like, how do we like land on those particular options, but also from like a game design perspective, how do you onboard people in a way that, you know, 94-year-old Ethel can try it in a library and still understand all of those interaction mechanisms, and feel like they've created something well engaged in, in a really complex topic that they've been able to understand in a really short period of time and feel like they've been able to represent their experience So. a really long journey and I think that also the kind of testing that we've done and even like technically the finished product of what we've created now is also like a vertical slice and it was like through the process of now showing it at festivals that we continue to get more feedback as well that people say, I want to use this every day. I want to turn this into a journaling experience where I can create, a museum of all my stories and experiences. or I want to use this in a kind of therapeutic setting to show my doctor. And so we're continuing to take all that feedback on board to also inform the next stages of what we do, because there are pillars to how we want to apply it because it is such a broad tool in many ways. But I think that's really informed. Our kind of plans to develop it into an at home journaling experience, how we could make it social as well, so you can share your artworks with your friends, do you share those artworks outside of the headset as well and make it more publicly accessible, so we're continuing to collaborate with, you know, A range of different sort of organizations and institutions to think about what that development journey looks like, as well as continuing to have our like researchers embedded in the team so that we're still framing it from a, with with kind psychological principles of what inspired the piece and how that can improve well being and health in a way that feels informed.

Niki:

Yeah and funnily enough to add to that, working together with other institutions and the ambitions that we have now, most of the time translates to making that infrastructure ourselves. Because everybody that we talk with agrees, yes, I would love this in my practice, or my patients would love this, or I would love to use this myself, but the infrastructure to get this into the right places with the right support, or even with the right funding, just are not there. So what we're doing A lot of the times is not being like producing our own project or being really creative. Now, strangely enough, most of the time we are laying the groundwork of a greater infrastructure or just educating older, institutions that have no idea and just being, being, They advocate not only for our own project, but just for this new wave of working of science and art coming together for mental well being. which is fun, but also there's a bandwidth to how much you can do by yourself. The, Niki, this idea that, right, even when you have a customer base that's ready for it, even when you've seen that, like, people engage with it, that sometimes the ecosystem, In the US, and this is purely hypothetical, like the electronic health record system and just the way that patients and doctors communicate is so incredibly challenging that trying to integrate anything into that is like multi hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars, consultant job, right? so often, there are these component pieces that enable access, that enable scale, that enable cost, reductions for ideas to really make it. they're not in, the control of the founders or the people with the great ideas. And so, you have to make those choices about do we build it? Do we wait? You know, do we pick a different path? you know, is there a channel that we scale back to while we wait? and, you know, you see it going on with AR glasses and headsets all the time. but it's, you know, we don't often think about it in terms of maybe like mobile apps or games or things, but it, it's always there. So many technologies have professional services arms for that exact reason. So I usually ask, but you already answered, you know, about this, this glow up view of where, SoulPaint is going. I mean, I heard, you know, continuing to build into new markets. I heard, you know, exploring these applications and values. So let's just take it like a whole nother step forward and how do you measure the impact of this work? And how will you know? That you made it. How will you know that your vision has come to bear? Shake it, Sarah.

Sarah Ticho:

how do we measure impact? Oh, juicy question. I mean, working of scientists, that is always such an interesting question, right? Because, we are working towards more rigorous research where we can demonstrate, this can have a positive impact on people's well being because, our theory is the more that you use it, that you have like a deeper understanding of the connection between emotions and feelings in your body. but I think I already feel like we've had that impact because I think it's just shining a light on this, Strange, bizarre concepts that I think everyone can relate to, that is, that we all have this hidden world of feeling, and that we have created this extremely extravagant way that you can visualize that we can use art making to express feelings in the body. But I think like, there is the impact in terms of, seeing it actually applied in the world. And I think that's why we really are pushing for more, public engagement exhibitions, like we want to create like giant installations where it's not just about the VR but creating like a physical terracotta army of emotions where we could take over public squares and it could be about grief or love or, what the first day of, you know, school feels like as a way of having these big conversations about experience. But I think another area that I've always been interested in as a sort of anthropologist by training is like, what can we learn from it? Like, how can we discover new ways to that people really, how language and culture informs the way that we talk about our bodies. What sort of kind of fascinating data could we gather from this that could tell us something about the human experience that's been hard to research before? But also just in a very pragmatic way, like going back to the origin story of this, like the impact of a patient in a doctor's office asking for help and not having the words to describe their experience? Does it help someone communicate their experience, like, in a way that can really facilitate this conversation or, help a doctor understand them faster and more accurately? I think, there's multiple layers to it. And I think we can already see the impact of it. It's just about finding the best places to implement it in a world where the distribution of VR is still so fragmented. and finding that kind of positioning way as a company, that it's sustainable to do that. but also is really in line with our values of making sure that people can access this. So we're also asking ourselves questions like, is this actually impactful as a, sensory educational tool in schools as well? How can we use this as a way of talking to young people or neurodivergent people that may struggle to connect with emotions and develop a curriculum around it? There's so many different paths where we can see it being impactful and I think we do measure a lot of that through the researchers that we work with, but also through expanding it into these different avenues, I think we see a kind of a range of impacts, a range of ways that it can be impactful. there's so many different about who funds that, how do you demonstrate a return on investment, and is that financial or is it social impact? I think that's the kind of journey that we're on at the moment being like, what is, what is the low hanging fruit and where can we like, expand to from there?

Niki:

Yeah, I can take my A few on this question, into the answer for the next question too, which is how we measure impact is so closely linked to what kind of people or partners are you looking for in the future? If you just heard from Sarah's story, This tool is about, this product, this artistic experience, is about facilitating a new language to make it easy to talk. about your own emotions and reflect upon your own emotions. So that puts it at the nexus of a whole bunch of different things we can use it for. And that is our strength, but that is also definitely our weakness because the infrastructure is not there. Our time is finite. We're just small. is the champions on the other side of the fence to help us decide, you know what, out of all of these paths, a social, emotional education for youth versus, end of life sharing of your stories versus, diagnostic tool. at the end of the day, From a business perspective, we can only do one of those things at once because we want to do it well. And science, we do everything in, collaboration and in co creation with our scientists. Science takes a while. So for this to land in the world in a good way where, we do it responsibly and nurturing, We need to network the infrastructure that is there, the powers that be, the existing institutions, the existing funding, the ways in this world that make up the infrastructure, to also reach out to us and say like, let's do this one first, here's an opening, we can get traction here. So, yeah, that's the people we're looking for. Amazing.

Nathan C:

Amazing. Y'all are so in sync. You're practically doing this podcast together. I hope we don't make people feel like this is, the level of, partnership and flow that happens with every co founder because we're going to make some people jealous out there. I have been fascinated, Sarah, with this idea of our digital avatars and our digital identities and this idea of, our metadata as people in a digital space. And this idea, I've always tried to figure out, you know, when we're talking about this. Multiple immersive worlds, you know, how do you have persistence of clothing or, of objects or all of your kit? Where I've been interested is like, how do I just have like a persistence of Nathan ness? And this idea of like, potentially having my, emotional and My wellbeing metadata as something that I could like wear into the classroom or into different conversations. And that people could just be like, wow, Nathan's a little TV static today. Or like, whoa, you know, there's an electric fire in Nathan's stomach. Like, I'm just mad about this idea that like your wellbeing and your wellness data could be a communication tool that digital. Connections would enable NSF, just out of all the things you said, I'm totally distracted with this. So, Niki, thank you, for making that call out, to folks you're looking to connect with. I guess a question to the both of you. we love to make time, and platform to share a bit of community spotlight. Is there a group that you work with or a nonprofit community that you wanted to, give a little bit of a shout out or spotlight to, in our time today?

Sarah Ticho:

I like the idea of a shoutlight. That's a whole new project waiting to happen. man. Oh, I love it. It's just like, where to even begin? I think Mafjay Alvarez is an incredible game designer, artist, who works with, another artist and researcher called Camille Baker. called Mamrie Mountain, that's kind of interviewing, Women with like lived experience of kind of going through chemotherapy, I think what they do is amazing, Thomas Buckley is also like an incredible multi sensory artist that can just like make magic on a shoestring, and really is like pushing that field of, you know, what does smell feel like in VR, and taste, and touch, and just Speaks to this kind of poetry that I just love.

Niki:

I would, definitely have a shout out for GEMLAB, which stands for Games for Emotional and Mental Health, G E M H, which is a scientist run lab where they not only do research on existing entertainment games and start that dialogue but also talk about what's healthy about these games. but also put out lists, you know, just for parents to go like, you know, these kind of games are games that would be nurturing for your kids, etc, etc. So there, it's I mean, they're amazing because they are, you know, it's all behavioral scientists, some psychologists, and etc, that's what they're, that's their team, but at the same time, they're young, they speak the language, of today to make it, less science y and more just, Normal everyday lives. So it makes that needed bridge between, science and our daily lives, As an advocate for games to be melthy, healthy and good for your emotional and, I suspect, there's a few generations, out there who would really appreciate that mission. Thank you both for both of those. we have, I've had such a good time with you both today. what's a way that people can follow up? They can learn more. How do people connect with you if, they have an idea or want to host, an activation of,

Sarah Ticho:

our website is Soul paint.co. you can email us at hello@soulpaint.co. Or Nick and I available over LinkedIn, Sarah tko and Niki Smit, and Instagram and all the other platforms, some of the other platforms. Increasingly less platforms, but you can us.

Niki:

we're nice and active on Instagram. but yeah, give us a shout by mail, or hit us up on LinkedIn for business questions and hit us up for weird artsy stuff on Instagram. Yeah.

Sarah Ticho:

Is the SoulPaint experience available publicly or is it just, through targeted activations at this point? yeah, at the moment then we're doing a little festival world tour. So on our website it's got a list of all the different places that we'll be showing SoulPaint at. Some we can't announce yet, but, there will

Nathan C:

Been very busy.

Sarah Ticho:

yeah, we've got an exciting and intense, like, month ahead of us. Yeah, we are bracing, but also we are looking towards the idea of having like, a proper touring experience as well, so if there are any art spaces that are interested in showing, and funding, that as well, then we're also very open to those conversations.

Nathan C:

Amazing. Sarah Tico, Niki Smit, the partners and co creators behind SoulPaint. such an amazing conversation today. weaving Game development, virtual reality, emotional wellness, technology, and science, all into, a vision, that's empowering people to be more connected to their bodies and advocate, for themselves in the world. I'm so inspired. It's Monday. This is going to be a great week if this is how it started. Thank you so much for joining us on the Glow Up.

Niki:

Thank you.

Sarah Ticho:

Thank you for inviting us,

Nathan C:

That's so good.