🗣XR Interview: Deepa Mann-Kler, Neon

Nerd Pirates
Virtual Library
Published in
5 min readJun 19, 2020

Welcome to the #VirtualLibrary. Here’s our latest ‘XR Interview’ — a collection of the best & brightest in virtual reality, uncovering their stories & documenting their insights into all things immersive.

Deepa is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist working with everything from neon to AR. Dedicated to using technology for good, her projects are deeply rooted in ideas of authenticity and equality.

Her company, Neon, has produced acclaimed work in VR & AR including: BreatheVR, Whack A Mo & Retne.

Tell us about your first encounter with immersive technology. What was it like?

To answer this question, I have to start with the 1st January 2016 when my father passed away. .

So I bedded myself down for the grief that was to follow. Eleven months later we are on a family break to Iceland, and we stumble across Bjork’s latest album Vulnicura, available to experience in VR at the Harpa in Reykjavik. Now on that day I had been feeling really unwell and achy and had considered staying in at the Airbnb apartment, instead I took a couple of neurofen and struggled on. By the end I had become so immersed in the VR experience of dancing with Bjork that something remarkable happened — I did not feel unwell — something lifted and I felt lighter than at any point in the preceding 11 months. I decided right there that I needed to find out more about virtual reality. That was November 2016. That was my first inkling of technology connecting me back with my humanity.

A lot of your work at Neon focuses on the intersection between technology and well-being. What made you decide to create VR/AR experiences centred around mental health and mindfulness?

When we arrived back from Iceland I set up a new company called Neon and we took our first VR project RETNE out to SxSW17. Then over the course of 2017 three things happened. The prescribed opioid crisis blew up. I began to further my knowledge of the therapeutic benefits of VR. And Neon was invited to a pain hackathon. I learnt that 150 people die everyday from prescribed opioids which is the same as 3 planes crashing every week and how for years drug companies have lied about how addictive opioids are and how the stark reality is that daily long term use can make your pain worse. Also my motivation to work in tech for good, is part of my value basis and who I am as a person. I spent my first eleven years professionally working in equality, diversity and inclusion and I also come from a strong rights based family. So its no wonder that everything I do has to have a positive impact on people and society. So my company’s values are to develop products that meet consumers needs and are designed in response to and alongside this need.

We believe successful technology teaches people skills they can use in real life and enables people to feel human. Technology is enabling consumers to choose how, when and where they use products and this is disrupting old modes of interaction and formats.

What about your work in the XR industry might surprise people?

I have no idea what I am doing! This is what I love about XR, it is the new frontier of experimentation, research and development and that is so exciting.

What’s your average day like at Neon?

Above all things I hate to be bored. It only happened one time in my life and I hated it. So my working day actually reflects the full variety of jobs and roles that I have. An average day will be funding applications; writing scripts or treatments; pulling partners together for production meetings; preparing and reading Board papers for my non-executive roles; painting; riding my bike or a walk in a forest. If I am writing I always try and do this in the morning as that is my most productive time of day. And then because I work from home there’s also a bit of housework spread across each day.

You have a background as a painter, photographer, and an artist working with light-installations. How have these other disciplines informed your work in VR/AR?

Do you know I have realised over the last few years that everything I do intersects with everything I have ever done. it all flows and feels very natural. And I think because I am really lucky to pursue my genuine interests and passions, it never feels like its too much. Equality has definitely been a huge motivating factor in my tech for good projects with VR/AR where I have developed apps for pain management and relaxation with BreatheVR; pain distraction in AR with Whack A Mo; Talking Sense, an AR platform using machine learning to support parents of children with autism and which has been short listed for the Digital DNA Tech For Good award 2020; Tsuru, which is exploring peace building in AR between Belfast and Hiroshima; In My Shoes a 360 VR experience for Barnardos where young people with disabilities are able to share insights into lived experiences; ARt exploring the use of AR in street art; Pain & ME which is my 360 VR project working with chronic pain sufferers.

What do you wish you could change about your industry?

Greater equity of opportunity; representation; funding across all aspects of the industry across all equality characteristics. #Blacklivesmatter is so important in moving this discussion forward and I hope we see real meaningful change and not just people jumping on a bandwagon. Each one us has a responsibility to understand how society is structured within discriminatory and biased systems and we have to take responsibility for understanding our own privileges.

What VR/360 experiences inspire you? Why?

An easier way for me to answer this question is by answering Who inspires me and that has to be Nonny de la Pêna, the CEO of Emblematic. She has been at the forefront of pushing the boundaries of VR and storytelling. Her work is always challenging. The entire XR industry owes a massive debt of gratitude to Nonny.

What’s the best bit of advice you’ve ever been given?

You will always learn more from failure than from success, if you allow yourself too.

What’s been your proudest moment in the XR industry?

There have been so many, from being at SxSW17; to launching BreatheVR; to being shortlisted in the Royal Television Society Awards; to speaking at TEDx in 2019 to getting to work with incredibly talented and genuine people who love what they do — and I am so lucky that I get to do this every single day.

Any parting words of advice?

Do not be afraid to fail. The worst thing you can ever do is to never try. And enjoy what you do, life is too short.

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Nerd Pirates
Virtual Library

Twins | Freelance PR/Marketing duo in entertainment & games | Team Virtual Umbrella | WIGJ ambassadors