Curtis Hickman How to integrate tech into the experience

My name’s Curtis Hickman and
I am the chief creative officer
and co-founder of a company
called THE VOID.
THE VOID is an immersive
virtual reality company.
Something we call hyper-reality.
It’s where you not only see that
you’re in this new world
by wearing a virtual headset,
But you actually feel
like you’re there.
So, if you see a wall,
you can walk over
to the wall and touch it.
If you see fire, the fire’s hot.
If you’re walking down a hallway
You can lean against
any wall you see.
It’s all there.
It’s as if it were real.
We take virtual reality and
we make it as real as possible.
And not just for you,
but for the friends
that are with you
Well you can also see and talk
to and interact with inside
of these incredible experiences.
I have a long
background in magic
and studying magic
most of my life.
What magic does is it creates a
new, impossible reality
for people.
Why can’t we use some of those
same magical principles
and apply them to this
virtual world.
How can we make people not just
see that they’re somewhere else,
but use illusion design
to have them believe that
they’re somewhere else.
I want the technology
to provide that without
getting in the way of that.
It’s just enough to convince
people, like a good magic trick,
that it’s real.
To give people that willing
suspension of disbelief.
And to shorten the gap,
or the amount that they have
to suspend their disbelief
as small as possible.
To achieve a sense of
presence in that new reality.
When travelers leave THE VOID,
what I hope they take away
from that is a memory.
A memory of an experience,
of a thing they lived
that they can share with
someone else as a story.
What I don’t want, or what I
hope is that they don’t come out
and just talk about
the technology.
Because again,
the technology is the tool.
It’s the background that
provided the experience.
But if people are coming out
and they are sharing
their experiences,
To me that’s the goal.