The Ming Shan Digital Experience goes live

The Ming Shan Digital Experience explores the use of technology for meditation. Combining traditional practice, artistic approaches, emerging technologies and scientific observations, this research project has led to the creation of immersive installations for meditation, suitable for both novices and advanced practitioners.

These installations support guided meditation in three phases; entering relaxation, meditation, and wake-up. Practitioners are immersed in a luminous ring that reflects their inner changes and stimulates attention to their own body. Colors produced by the light ring evolve over the meditation phases. This system uses physiological information from sensors to generate visual and acoustic feedback in the room. Evolving according to the state of the participants, this immersive environment aims to facilitate not only individual practice, but also to strengthen collective meditation.

Since the launch of the first prototypes in January 2020, the impact of the project has been observed and measured in the Ming Shang Taoist community. Qualitative and quantitative scientific evaluations have been led in collaboration with UX psychologists of the University of Fribourg.

While this initiative has produced a new generation of design-driven meditation devices, the EPFL+ECAL Lab continues its investigation to understand how the learnings could impact daily life with the development of systems to reduce stress in workplaces, urban environments and homes.

The complete research results will be unveiled in Summer 2020.