Soul Paint uses Extended Reality (XR) to allow users to paint images of their bodies … [+]
Here is the “soul” reason why Hatsumi has developed interactive extended reality technology that allows you to ‘paint’ on yourself. It can help you better understand what emotions you have and where in your body you feel them. Oh, and it can also help other people understand these things about you better, and you can better understand these things about other people.
The technology is called Soul paint. And in this case, you’re not painting with real paint on your real body. That can get a bit messy. Instead, you put on an XR headset and use an XR version of your body, an XR paintbrush and pallet to create the painting. Different colors can portray different emotions or feelings. The result is a very colorful version of yourself, which allows you to portray yourself better. And imagine this: if you want others to better understand you and your experiences, you can choose to share your images. Soul Paint also allows you to record a story describing this image. Think of it as a distinctly different domain of biofeedback in a 3D-like way.
Soul Paint demonstrations have already won the award Special Jury Prize at this year’s SXSW XR Competition and the Best in Health and Wellness award at the Games for Change festival in June. It will be visible in the near future London Film Festival mid-October as part of a special exhibition on XR, health and storytelling and a special screening at the United Nations with Games for Change at the end of October.
If you try Soul Paint, you may recognize the voice of the narrator of the experience: actress Rosario Dawson, who has appeared in films such as Men in Black II, Rent And Seven pounds and starred in the HBO miniseries DMZ as the character Alma. For example, you can hear Dawson’s voice when you follow trailer for Soul Paint:
In the trailer, Dawson said: “Everyone has a hidden story, this is a chance to discover yours.”
To better understand what Soul Pain does and where it comes from, it helps to hear the story of Sarah Ticho, the founder and director of Hatsumi and the soul behind Soul Paint. “Often we don’t have words to describe how we feel,” Ticho said. “It’s the interaction between compelling storytelling and healthcare and research.” She added: “Such body mapping can show the connections between emotions and sensations, serve as interactive stories and be a fascinating way to start conversations.” The technology also includes an archive of body mapping images that people have voluntarily shared, so you can see what others have done and said about what they’ve done. “There is a therapeutic value in seeing yourself in the context of others,” Ticho explains.
If you think of Soul Paint as a place at the intersection of anthropology, psychology, other forms of healthcare, education and art, this is no surprise. That reflects Ticho’s background. Ticho is the opposite of someone who only does one thing and more of a Renaissance person, who has done and continues to do a wide variety of things. In fact, in her spare time she is training to become an end-of-life doula.
Ticho described how she started in anthropology and dealt with her own experiences with grief and mental health challenges. Her path included working in the UK’s National Health Services and volunteering at an art gallery. “When I saw an exhibition about grief, I became interested in immersive art,” she recalls.
Along the way, she lived in Australia for a while and worked on mental health-focused projects, such as using breath control for anxiety regulation. After discovering virtual reality, she became interested in using VR as the basis for a PhD. But life decided to set a different path for her, leading her to found Hatsumi and lead the development of Soul Paint.
However, Ticho was quick to emphasize that she was not the only force behind Soul Paint. She mentioned a team of artists, researchers and healthcare workers who helped this XR technology become the reality it is today. They have made an effort to scientifically anchor the processes and experiences used in Soul Paint. Ticho even explained that it is an XR extension of methods that have been used for years.
“Soul Paint was inspired by body mapping,” Ticho recalls. “It seemed simple to do it in an interactive environment, turning the idea of body mapping into a story and making connections between different senses.” She added, “There’s so much feeling animated too. For example, someone may feel like their elbow is buzzing.”
Sarah Ticho, founder and director of Hatsumi, can be seen here with co-director Niki Smit (R) and … [+]
What wasn’t easy and seemed to fail at first was getting everyone into the idea. “Investors laughed at me,” she remembers. “They didn’t believe in the idea of hospitals buying a VR headset.” But over time, more and more people began to realize the potential of XR for such healthcare applications. She found partners like Monobandaa studio that has created several interactive healthcare experiences such as Mirror voice and helped co-produce Soul Paint. Interest in XR in healthcare has since grown so great that Ticho eventually led and co-authored its development a report for the UK government entitled: “The Growing Value of XR in UK Healthcare.”
What has happened in recent decades has resulted in an additional need for new approaches such as XR in healthcare. Many communities and countries are in the grip of the growing loneliness epidemic and a range of different mental health crises. It certainly doesn’t help that various political leaders continue to try to tell people what to believe and what not to believe and sow more and more division between different people – such as encouraging racism, sexism and a whole host of other -isms. Then there is the continued increase in non-communicable diseases and the emergence of new chronic conditions such as the long Covid-19 epidemic, which leaves many people struggling to understand and communicate what is happening to their bodies and minds.
That’s why you see the value of XR technology like Soul Paint, which offers a new way to look at yourself and other people – both literally and figuratively. With so many distractions in society currently painting all kinds of artificial images over everyone and hiding who people really are, it can be easy to lose ourselves and sight of who everyone else is, to the point that we forget that we as humans in many ways that are more similar than different. Although superficial characteristics such as appearance can drive people apart, what goes on in people’s souls can be the very thing that unites people. And that could ultimately produce a completely different and much more harmonious picture for society.