Archived XR Research · Development discontinued
2023–2024
GOYO MEDITATION PLANET
PROJECT OVERVIEW
GOYO Meditation Planet was an immersive XR research project developed by SPACE MOUM between 2023 and 2024. It explored how a virtual environment might intensify awareness of the physical body rather than replace it, and how physical installation, headset-based experience, live sound, and the return to shared space could be composed as one continuous work.
The project drew on Soojin Pray’s research into Donguibogam, Korean traditional body practices, meditation, and the relationship between human life and the wider environment. Its first prototype, Gyeonghaeng — Slow Walking Meditation, was produced in 2023 with support from the Art Korea Lab Super Test Bed programme.
While seated, the participant entered a guided virtual landscape and imagined walking in synchrony with breath. Images, ambient sound, spoken guidance, and deliberate pauses redirected attention toward the remembered sensations of movement, breathing, and the physical body.
GOYO did not treat virtual reality simply as a place of escape. Its central concern was how an XR experience might return the participant to embodied and shared reality with a changed quality of attention.
RESEARCH QUESTION
How can virtual and physical worlds be composed as one continuous field of attention?
GOYO examined whether an immersive environment could lead the participant away from passive visual consumption and back toward awareness of breath, posture, movement, sound, and the surrounding physical space.
GYEONGHAENG — SLOW WALKING MEDITATION
Gyeonghaeng is a walking meditation practice structured through quiet and deliberate movement. In the GOYO prototype, the body remained seated while the participant imagined walking through a virtual landscape.
The virtual journey was synchronised with breath, spoken guidance, ambient sound, and a sequence of visual thresholds. Rather than simulating physical locomotion, the work used imagined walking to draw attention to sensations that continued to exist in the participant’s actual body.
PHYSICAL + VIRTUAL EXPERIENCE
The prototype combined a staged physical environment with a headset-based virtual experience and live sound performance.
The participant first entered a physical installation composed of a wooden frame, cushions, light, sound objects, and a designated place for the body. The architectural frame continued visually within the virtual environment, linking the two spaces.
During and after the headset experience, live sound and the presence of performers returned attention to the room, the body, and other people. The work therefore extended beyond the duration of the virtual image.
“True meditation begins the moment you step out of virtual reality.”
NEWIMAGES FESTIVAL, PARIS — 2024
GOYO Meditation Planet was presented at NewImages Festival 2024 in Paris through the XR Market / Korea Focus programme.
The presentation introduced the prototype’s relationship between physical installation, immersive meditation, and live performance. Festival visitors experienced the headset-based prototype, and the project was discussed with international audiences as an experiment in connecting embodied practice with XR technology.
NewImages Festival, Paris, 2024
NewImages Festival, Paris, 2024
ARCHIVE NOTE
GOYO Meditation Planet concluded as an XR research and prototype project after its 2023–2024 development and presentation period.
It is not currently under active development as a platform or commercial service. The project remains in Soojin Pray’s archive as an earlier investigation into the body, attention, Korean traditional knowledge, immersive technology, and the boundary between virtual and physical experience.
CREDITS
- Project
- GOYO Meditation Planet
2023–2024 - Creators and Directors
- Soojin PraySeoRyoung Kim
- Production
- SPACE MOUM
- First Prototype
- Gyeonghaeng — Slow Walking Meditation
- Format
- Immersive XR environment, spatial sound, guided meditation,
physical installation and live performance - Prototype Duration
- Approximately 10 minutes
- Supported by
- Art Korea Lab 2023 Super Test BedKorea Arts Management Service
- International Presentation
- NewImages Festival 2024XR Market / Korea FocusParis, France