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4.
Published in Paradox Magazine, Issue #57, December 2000
Spheres of Healing
Ed Lantz
Imagine yourself walking into the theater of the future. You sit back comfortably under a huge spherical screen that completely fills your peripheral vision. When the lights go down the theater disappears, and you find yourself completely immersed in another world…a world created by artists, musicians, performers and storytellers with the purpose of healing and uplifting. Your brain is totally engaged as the show invokes in you a deep sense of awe and wonderment, mystery and surprise. Now imagine hundreds of these theaters all over the world!
Technology Revolution
You may have heard about digital cinema technology that will soon replace your local film projector with a video projector. Digital projection provides an image that is free from film artifacts such as dust, scratches, splices, and image jitter. Digital films can be easily transmitted to theaters through wide band network connections, eliminating the waste and environmental impact of the film medium. What you probably have not yet heard about are the recent advances in a field called immersive visualization. Immersive visualization systems utilize digital video projections onto wrap-around screens such as cylinders or spheres to create the illusion of being totally immersed in a real or virtual environment. A modern digital version of the IMAX™ Dome theater, Immersive immersive visualization systems allow spherical movies to be produced using less expensive video cameras, computer graphics software, and desktop video editing tools. And because video is projected live, it also allows the audience to interact in real-time with computer generated virtual environments.
Immersive Visualization
Planetarium of the Future
So far the most extensive use of immersive visualization in public spaces is in the modern planetarium. Most people think of the planetarium as a chamber that recreates the night sky. A central star projector accurately simulates astronomical phenomena, including the daily rotation of the celestial sphere along with lunar, solar and planetary motion.
New digital video systems, variously called immersive video, full dome video, or digital dome video, promise to transform these aging theaters into immersive visualization environments. Planetariums already have a hemispheric projection screen. The installation of a new fisheye video projection system is all that’s needed to create this theater of the future.
This is a new and very powerful medium. And this powerful medium is becoming accessible to just about anyone with animation and video production skills. Many recent dome video systems have been installed at schools, universities and museums associated with local universities. Student projects in dome video are proliferating.
Exactly how these theaters get used will be up to each individual institution. Some will remain planetariums or star theaters. Others are already exploring alternative content, including evening entertainment shows similar to the old laser light shows, including live video performances. My vision is the use of immersive theaters as tools for spiritual worship, social transformation, consciousness expansion and healing.
. Immersive Theater
Healing Visions
As a teenager I had a vision of a theater that projects the performer’s mind onto an immersive dome screen. The performer’s consciousness had to be perfected, as the audience was essentially immersed in the their mind. An unbalanced performer could make the audience ill, while people experienced spontaneous healings from their experience with a clear performer. This vision inspired a science fiction short story that I never published.
An immersive video theater is the closest thing to experiencing the mind of another. We can now tell stories from the point of view of being inside the protagonist’s head. We can immerse an audience in an environment of brilliant healing colors, forms and sounds. And we can transport an audience to far away places as if they are actually there, instead of peering at this world through a window as in ordinary cinema. In short, we can engage the audience’s brain more profoundly than ever before.
Greater engagement of the audience’s brain can be used to inspire, uplift, entertain, educate and heal. Or it can be used to frighten, confuse, fatigue or drill brand names into the audience’s minds. I feel that it is important to explore the healing aspects of these spaces.
Unity Consciousness
Deep ecologists believe that we must recognize our environment as an integral part of our beings in order to move into the proper relationship with our planet. The oceans, forests, earth and the many diverse forms of life on this planet sustain us in the same way that our heart, lungs and blood sustain us. With this realization, who would want to cut off their breath or cast aside their vital organs?
While countless sages, saints and wise ones throughout history have echoed the claim that we are all one, few people on this planet can sustain that realization for any length of time. We go about our lives reacting to appearances instead of listening to the truth that lies within our hearts. Extreme circumstances are required to draw us into unity consciousness: disaster, loss, near death experiences and the like. I do not believe that we have to wait for disaster to strike to experience our essential unity.
Cathedrals of the Information Age
My hope is that this new medium can help lead people into a realization of our oneness. Well-produced films can already lead to life-transforming experiences. Immersive cinema, I believe, has far greater potential for invoking such experiences. Using combinations of traditional and next-generation storytelling, awe inspiring visuals, emotionally provocative music, and trance-inducing use of color, forms and rhythm, I am confident that very powerful spiritual experiences can be invoked.
Immersive cinemas will be used to invoke awe and reverence, just as the cathedrals of old did. But while the religions of the world feed a world view that is seeped in myth and cultural idiosyncrasies, the cathedrals of the future will show us our place in the universe based on the latest scientific knowledge, cosmological theories and metaphysical intuitions. Yet, unlike the planetariums of today, with their smug pretense of understanding the universe, these presentations will invoke a sense of the mysterious, revealing our true place in the universe: children who are just awakening to a reality that is greater and more magnificent than we ever imagined.
Limits of Technology
While technologies such as immersive cinema, virtual reality, and other media can be of great assistance to us, we must use technology such that it truly serves us. All too often we become obsessed with our information delivery systems, whether they are magazines, television, cell phones or computers. These media draw our attention away from our bodies and our environment, placing us in a virtual world of mind and information.
© by Ed Lantz
Edlantz@aol.comVirtual experiences will never be as rich and full as real life. Properly applied, however, media technologies can uplift and inspire us in many unique ways. I look forward to connecting with artists, musicians, performers and storytellers who wish to pioneer these new applications of immersive cinema. Shalom
For more information on immersive environments, check out
www.spitzinc.com.Ed Lantz is currently Product Development Manager at Spitz, Inc., a 58-year-old planetarium manufacturer located in Southeast Pennsylvania's Brandywine Valley. He is responsible for developing Spitz's Immersive Visualization product line, including the ElectricSky Theater. Ed was formerly Chief Engineer at the Brevard Community College Planetarium in Cocoa, Florida. In addition to a Master's degree in Electronics Engineering, Ed was ordained as an Interfaith Minister at Pebble Hill Church in Doylestown, PA.