After spending time last week in Tampa presenting to the attendees of ABC’s Annual Conferenceand in New York City talking to interior designers for The Business of Home(both fantastic experiences), I was traveling back to Northern California on the early flight and thought I would get a few hours of sleep before getting home. In a huge nod to Cindy Novotny, you never know when life is going to smile on you on a plane.
Before closing my eyes, I see my awesome friend Michael Benevillewalking down the aisle. A few favors later and we are sitting next to each other. I figured we would catch up for an hour or so then both check out for a little bit. When the captain announced we were getting ready to land, I was like, “but we are just getting started”. We had literally talked for five hours straight and it felt like five minutes.
Here is the deal: the best way to describe Michael is that he is a futurist. He imagines the world as it might be and shares that vision with his clients. He is the force behind IHeart Radio’s corporate offices in New York City, the Empire State Building’s new observatoryand the coming Area 15 in Las Vegas. Oh, and he does incredible personal bespoke projects for private clients that are mind-blowing in their combination of media and state-of-the-art technology —think juke-box as a 50th birthday present in a way you would not think possible — holograms, video mapping, etc.
Michael is very deep into the possibilities of virtual reality, blockchain (still trying to wrap my head around it) and bridging the gap between our world and the digisphere. He is working with companies like High Fidelityto figure out how to create a real, real time experience for everyone globally and virtually. Crazy.
Here is an example. Take Jeff Antoniuk’s Jazzwireand its function to bring together a community of avid adult amateur and semi-pro jazz musicians to learn and get better together. Even though it is only two weeks old there are members from literally thirty countries —everywhere from the U.S. and Canada to Hong Kong and Singapore to Europe and Australia and New Zealand. All musicians evaluated by Jeff and placed into communities at their playing level. Imagine for a second if Jazzwire was a members only club in High Fidelity (to play, not listen — anyone could do that) where, if you wanted to grab a set, you just walked in, entered a room at your level and started playing with others who were there — all in real time, with no lag and with avatars that looked exactly as you did in reality.
You might think this is a distant fantasy but it is not. More like next year than 2025.
So what does this mean for you, your art and your creative business? The size and scale of human interaction is going to shift immeasurably. The convergence of digital life and reality is only going become exponentially more integrated. Pokemon Gotimes a thousand. Knowing your role as a creative in this space is singularly expansive and narrow. You might be the proprietor of Jazzwire and also simultaneously host workshops, camps and meetups. Value in the digital world will transfer to the physical and vice-versa.
Think about what that might mean for deeply personal events like weddings and how that will play out. Will the wedding occur digitally and then be experienced physically a week later? How will we tell the difference? Will we want to? This decision is something those in the event business ought to be thinking about today.
Given the state of our world, how important is it for temporary shelter to offer VR so that those families displaced can still eat dinner at their table in their home as they always have until their actual table can once again exist. If you are an interior designer, what is your role now?
Now you can see why five hours felt like five minutes with Michael. Hopefully, you can also see the work ahead for all of us as we seek to (re)shape what community means from a creative perspective. No doubt tomorrow will look nothing like today and it is high time that we kiss yesterday goodbye. Truly, it is a brave new world.
