Guy Laliberté invites the creative community into a “phygital” world

seperate words physical – physical And the Digital (digital, in French), the vegetal (Physical Connection) Intended to be a concept almost identical to metaverse, where digital reality is enhanced by virtual and augmented reality.

The businessman, who sold his stake in Cirque du Soleil in 2020, has been relatively conservative over the past two years on social networks. He boosted his internet presence in early 2022 as he unveiled some of the artistic-style pieces he had created, and paid tribute to his recently deceased parents.

But since the end of January, the eccentric billionaire has been unleashed on Instagram with mysterious videos showing him with frogs, straight from his home on the island of Hawaii. In one we can see him dressed as an amphibian, at the end of a table set up for a dozen stuffed frogs, in front of the sunset.

In most of his posts, he was asking his fans to find him online on 2/22/2022 at 10:22 PM. Greenwich Mean Time for a big announcement.

We can understand between the lines that she was content to further his DJ career with the artists of Frog Collective and the record label. I want to be a frog. frog It is the pejorative nickname that English speakers sometimes call Quebecers.

But Guy Laliberte’s ambitions go further: he wants to build the future of entertainment through inclusion Arts, Technology, and Human Communications.

The future of entertainment

The entrepreneur with his company Lune Rouge launched in Montreal at Hanai WorldOwns (A new window)Owns Almost a year ago. This platform uses Mixed Reality (Virtual and Augmented Reality) technology from Microsoft Mesh.

Then it was about adding these technological elements to the shows, both face-to-face and virtual. Lune Rouge plans to launch its first virtual reality events by the end of 2021, but nothing has been broadcasted yet.

The February 22 announcement was based primarily on an invitation to the art community to join Hanai World, mainly through the Discord server, which currently has around 830 members.

” My goal, with the phygital realm of the Hanai world, [est] To nurture and inspire the creative young minds of this world. »

When I founded Cirque du Soleil, I was making theatrical experiments for a traditional medium – the circus. By creating Hanai World, we offer theater experiences based on a contemporary platform – the metaverseCan we read on Hanai World’s Facebook page.

Guy Laliberté also announced that the first physically connected set of non-fungible (JFN) tokens will be launched this spring.

As for the frog videos, he wants to be reassured: Some of you may have thought I had lost my mind, but I can assure you, I have simply reconnected with a character, as in the days of Les Échassiers de Baie-St-Paulwrote in an Instagram post after the announcement.