​🎧 Listening Beyond: Sound, Brainwaves, and Virtual Connection

​A special immersive session in the Melody of the Future series
https://www.melodyofthefuture.com

​🌀 Overview
Listening Beyond is a multi-sensory event held in virtual space. It invites participants to slow down and enter an immersive world where neuroscience, ambient music, contemplative sound practices, and digital art converge.
Set in a custom-designed VR environment on Spatial.io, this 75-minute session offers a rare opportunity to experience sound not just as data or performance, but as a force that shapes emotion, attention, presence, and creative perception.
This is not a webinar. It’s a shared, interdisciplinary space for deep listening and reflective exploration - hosted in a digital environment crafted to support calm, curiosity, and connection.

​🎯 Purpose
To explore how sound affects the way we feel, think, and relate to both ourselves and each other, blending scientific insight with artistic expression in an immersive virtual format.
Through live performance, guided meditation, neuroscience, ambient composition, and visual art, Listening Beyond cultivates presence and deep listening across multiple dimensions: neurological, emotional, and experiential. It invites participants into a felt understanding of how music, brainwaves, and digital space intertwine to shape consciousness, creativity, and connection.

​📅 Program Flow (Approx. 75 minutes)

Arrival + Orientation (5–10 min)
A gentle welcome and soft landing into the virtual space. Participants are guided through the Spatial interface and introduced to the mood of the experience. Headphones encouraged.

​Handpan Interlude (15 min)
🥁 Tony Koniak – composer and multi-instrumentalist
A meditative solo set performed by 15-year-old Tony Koniak, blending handpan and subtle percussion to invite emotional stillness and sensory presence. A musical doorway into the world of Listening Beyond.

​Keynote Talk: The concept of "Feel" as a Framework for Human-Machine Co-Creativity (20 min)
🎤 Dr. Mark Sheppard – neuroscientist & producer, University of Kent
An exploratory talk unpacking the elusive quality of “feel” in guitar performance - analyzing iconic solos and EEG data to show how emotion, phrasing, and attention manifest in both music and the brain. Not about imitation, but co-creation: how AI can learn to support human expression without flattening individuality.

​Guided Meditation: Inner Listening (15 min)
🧘‍♀️ Natalia Słoma – meditation and wellbeing expert, Zentra/Longevity Center
A sound-based mindfulness session combining awareness and ambient music. Participants are gently invited inward to explore listening as an embodied, reflective act.

​Ambient Premiere: “A folded light becomes unseen” (throughout meditation)
🎼 Dr. Aled Smith – composer & sonic futurist
A newly composed ambient soundscape woven into the meditation, designed to deepen focus, attention, and emotional depth through audio.

​Optional Reflection & Exploration + Digital Gallery Introduction (5–10 min)
The space remains open for free movement, quiet conversation, or continued listening in the ambient zones. Participants are welcome to stay and explore at their own pace.

​Digital Art Exhibition: Metamixer Artists
🛠️ Virtual Environment: Listening Beyond by Anita Wielgosz/New Daring World
An immersive virtual world designed as a vibrant, emotionally engaging hub for an international community championing ethical innovation - including AI, Web3, cybersecurity, inclusive education, and systemic sustainability.
🎨 Curated by Magda Judejko & Piotr Koźniewski
A curated gallery of visual works exploring perception, emotion, and hybrid creativity.
👩‍🎨 Special feature: painting by Ania Koniak - a 13-year-old Warsaw-based artist whose visionary work merges art, science, and imagination. Her painting “Space” was digitally sent to the Moon as part of the Copernic Space Moon Mission I.

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​🧭 About the Organizers:

• ​Anna Lenarcik – Creator and Host, Music Curator, Melody of the Future

• ​Anita Wielgosz – Immersive Experience Designer and World Builder at New Daring World: Listening Beyond space

• ​Magda Judejko – Art Curator, MetaMixer

• ​Piotr Koźniewski – Art Curator & Educator, VReszcie
  
  🌐 Access

• ​Hosted on Spatial.io – no VR headset required (browser access available)

• ​Best experienced with headphones

• ​Suitable for creatives, researchers, educators, and anyone curious about sound and presence

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Event co-financed by the National Recovery Plan and the European Union, supporting the implementation of projects aimed at mitigating the effects of the crisis, strengthening economic, social and territorial cohesion, and building a modern, green and digital economy that is resilient to future challenges.

👉 Follow Melody of the Future

⏺️ Please note that the event will be recorded.