A Unique Proposition for Museums Around the World
Beginning in the summer of this year, our firm has been painstakingly recreating the interior of the Zen temple Gyokuryu-ji (Temple of the Jewel Dragon) in Gero City, Gifu Prefecture, Japan, in virtual reality. The goal is to provide a fully immersive experience of a Zen temple to people all over the world for the first time. For instance, guests can interact with the abbot as though they were in the same room together.
It is also possible for priests and others connected to the temple to record their presence in the space, which can be re-experienced in virtual reality by visitors at their convenience. The history of this ancient temple will be presented through a wide range of rich media formats in these recordings.
"Gyokury-Ji was founded by the monk Gyoki during the Nara period, about 1,300 years ago. Gyoki, who was on a pilgrimage around the country, visited this area and enshrined the Yakushi Nyorai (Medicine Buddha) there, as he felt it was a sacred place. It has been worshipped as a sacred place with great spiritual significance. In the Kamakura period (1185–1333), among other works, a statue of the Kannon (Goddess of Mercy) by Jikaku Daishi was brought to the temple from Kamakura, and a statue of the Sakyamuni Buddha by Eshin Szu was brought from Mount Hiei in Kyoto. Both statues, created by famous Japanese high priests, are more than 1,000 years old."
(Excerpt from the Gyokury-Ji crowd funding campaign)
Working with this temple and its young chief priest, we have found them to be remarkably receptive to the potential of new technology and to opening up to the outside world. You may be aware that Japan was isolated from the rest of the world for hundreds of years during the so-called Sakoku period (1633–1853), and that this created a cultural and language barrier that has persisted to the present day and hinders communication between Japan and the rest of the world. Without having to travel, we can now facilitate face-to-face meetings between Japanese and non-Japanese, opening up the possibility of a brand-new kind of cross-cultural dialogue.
A walkthrough of the PC VR (high-end) version when it was about 80% finished. This versions is made for local base installations.
Museums and their curators all over the world are invited to collaborate with us to make this possible for visitors at any time and from any location through live performances that include audience participation and dialogue with the priests, the artists and artisans involved in the restoration of the temple, and so forth. These events can take many forms, such as Zen meditation sessions, lectures, Q&As, etc.
Introduction to the cloud-based version, which we provide for social VR events. The temple serves as a stage which we populate with a variety of rich media for events and meetings.
Sessions can be accessed through the Engage Link platform on a wide range of devices, from the most common flat screen devices like smartphones, tablets, and PCs to, of course, VR headsets, which will enable the immersive experience afforded by this new medium.
Mimir is documenting the temple's construction with videos and providing directions for visiting and attending events. Our team also contributes to the presentation of the temple's cultural history and helps arrange actual temple visits.
I look forward to discussing the possibility of providing this experience to your visitors.
Hans Karlsson
CTO, Mimir LLC, Japan
About Mimir LLC
Mimir is a virtual reality creative agency based in Tajimi, Gifu Prefecture, Japan. Since 2016, we have provided VR experiences for visitors to the country, including interactive virtual travel experiences and on-location VR. Our work has focused on cultural heritage, such as the collections of the Gifu Prefecture Museum of Modern Ceramic Art and the Daijuji Zen temple in Aichi Prefecture, which we transformed into a fully gamified VR experience. We have extensive experience working with local and national government agencies.
About Engage
Used extensively for virtual events, corporate communications, education and training ENGAGE is used by clients such as 3M, Stanford University, Lenovo, HTC, KIA and many other fortune 500 companies globally to help make their virtual metaverse strategies a reality.
ENGAGE is a metaverse platform designed for professionals, event organizers and corporations to build their own virtual worlds to provide metaverse services directly to their own clients and to build out new business models.
ENGAGE is a metaverse platform designed for professionals, event organizers and corporations to build their own virtual worlds to provide metaverse services directly to their own clients and to build out new business models.
