Mindfulness in the Mix
We…
As Tellers of Story…
As Creators of Experience…
…Have an opportunity to make a difference that is sorely, if not desperately, needed on our planet.
Adept at connecting the audience to a story, at creating sudden Moments or a Sense of shared intimacy in theatre or stadium, we regularly thrill audiences with a burst of recognition across demographics and cultures.
Just as any of us can stand on a beach in an ocean breeze and knowingly smile at the others on that beach doing the same, knowing they are sharing the lift that breeze offers…as we humans are wired essentially the same.
Can we take this experience deeper to profound results?
It’s almost cliché at this point to say the world is divided. For decades, marketers and politicians have sown division among even the most common of communities; defining Difference as Threat, railing at groups to Protect the Self and Fear the Other rather than Approach, Discover, and Befriend.
We don’t have much time. International Artist Ai Weiwei’s 2017 film, “Human Flow,” (Amazon Prime) is already a harbinger of what is to come as uninhabitable climates, economics and wars push the world population away from the equator and into the temperate (politically as well as atmospherically). The practical definition of Personal Space is and will continue to rapidly change and, in the next few decades, we will all be living in much closer proximity to one another than we now are.
We know how to address and counter this.
We know that a shared intimate experience can create intangible moments of community through spectacle. When it’s wordless…no narration…evoking an entire story sound and light without words creates a moment of community In that audience, in that briefly shared, intimate experience is an opportunity to notice that across cultures and demographics that everyone is feeling a similar thing…if not the actual same thing.
We have the opportunity as storytellers to dig deep…noticing that a well-crafted experience can accomplish across cultures and demographics, it behooves us to spread our gifted wings and create environments that reflect our similarities versus articulating our differences, that bring people together in ways that they can recognize one another as co-inhabitants of the same planet…and do this outside of berms, FECs, museums, stadia, and theatres.
Let’s not (and not all of us do) define Experience as a Thing that happens in a Place or destination: rather, let’s look at the world, discover, embrace, and augment experiences throughout public and private spaces that capture and engage…creating stand-alone or architecturally interstitial, momentary experiences that serve to found not only a connection between story or experience and the person(s) but inspire a recognition of inclusion, of global community, an awareness of our responsibility for the quality of life of everyone on the planet.
I don’t suggest that there is any sort of blanket approach to this philosophy. I believe the non-secret is that of Mindfulness; keeping in mind as we unleash and focus our inspirations, passions, talents, and skills that the World needs what we’re doing to be, ultimately, universally effective.
Further, this isn’t about proselytizing or campaigning. I simply believe that if we keep in our minds the subtle and dire need for more than a connection to a story, institution, IP, or the rest of the audience in the space; it will show up in the end product or as the residual effect of an experience we create of any magnitude in ways that will manifest without being specifically articulated.
With today’s official launch of my new website, my overarching and subtextual mantra is…
Creating Global Community through Shared Experience.
We are needed. We can do this.
Kile Ozier
The Guy @ Ozier Creative LLC
