In this ShowbizU interview, host Tim Kashani talks with Sebastian Herscher, co‑founder of Parallax (Parallux) and a PhD candidate in virtual and augmented reality. Herscher recounts his path from a reluctant computer‑science student in New York to falling in love with graphics, VR/AR, and eventually building applied systems for real users. He shares his personal theory that today’s younger generations live in heavily mediated, screen‑based lives, and argues that VR/AR should reverse this by fading into the background to enable human‑centered, shared experiences. To address a gap in existing tools, Parallax developed technology that lets large audiences—up to 50 people—co‑experience immersive stories together, blending the spatial tension of theater with the visual spectacle of movies. He explains how VR can deliver unique emotional effects, such as horror sensations that cannot be replicated on stage or a 2D screen. Looking ahead, Herscher highlights emerging trends like live comedy performances in VRChat/Altspace and the rise of deeply personal narratives that make audiences feel both present and like observers, suggesting a future where immersive media delivers both communal and intimate storytelling at scale.
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I'm Sebastian Hirscher. I am a co-founder of Parallax and work on the tech behind all the stuff we build.
Parallax, it's an interesting name. Where'd that come from?
It's parallax and lux. Parallax is the phenomenon that objects look different when you view it from different angles. And Lux is light and luxury and all that fun stuff.
Sebastian, what got you to this couch today? How did, how did you find yourself in this crazy world of mixed realities?
I came to go to college in New York City wanting nothing to do with tech, and at the behest of my parents, I took a computer science course and fell in love with computer science, which led me to fall in love with computer graphics. And which led me to fall in love with virtual and augmented reality. And now I'm finishing my PhD in virtual and augmented reality.
Perfect. So do exactly what your parents think you don't want to do, but do it your way.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's my way. Frank Sinatra, you know, all the way through.
Now, sometimes when you say PhD, a lot of people think, oh, okay, well, they get theory, but what about real world?
So all of my PhD has been in applications. So what I focused on is building systems and actually putting it into the hands of people and saying, what do you like about it? What works? What doesn't work? What excites you? What ideas spawn out of you using this? And it's very focused on building systems for people to actually use rather than some algorithm that might sit in the back of a theory textbook somewhere.
And talk about those theories. You obviously have some theories of your own that you've come up with about where the industry came from and is going. What are some of those?
All right, so I— my personal theory is that we are living in a really mediated environment right now. My— especially the younger generations, myself included, are living through screens, through apps that are mediating what we're experiencing. And VR and AR have been kind of introduced this time around in the same way, where you're plugging in and you're living an isolated, mediated life in these headsets. And that's kind of the opposite of where I think this industry can go. The VR and AR headsets and this technology and these amazing things that are possible really kind of are best used when they're servicing the human condition, spending time with the people that you love, the people that you commit to. And I feel like the way that we do that is by making the tech fade into the background and become ubiquitous and serve stories, serve experiences that at the end of the day are about bringing people together to have very human experiences.
You're an artist.
Sure.
But I mean, you love to tell stories. You love to be involved in that process.
Yeah.
What was missing in the ecosystem when you were building some of this content that said, oh well, I'll just build it for myself? And then how did that turn into what's now the company?
So we— what was missing was the ability for everyone in the room to be part of the story. A lot of what's available and supported now is 4 people at a time playing a game together, or you're beaming in remotely, you're coming in from home with your own headset, but you're not there with your friends. And what it ended up happening was myself and Chris and Gabe and Ken all kind of said, we want every single person in the room in large audiences to be in an immersive world together and experience a story together. And that's what led us to build our technologies and our systems to make it so that you can have 50 people in an immersive environment together. We can go and see something like a future movie together at a low ticket cost with all of the people, whether or not it's just the two of us or it's our whole extended family, 20 people at a time.
And can, can people get an emotional experience wearing crazy things on their heads?
Absolutely, yes. Absolutely. Stories will be told through theater, stories will be told through movies. There's amazing stories you can tell through both. There's something that you can do with virtual and augmented reality, which is you can add the tension of space into your content in a way that you get in theater, but then you have all the limitations of theater and the way that you don't really get in the movies. You don't get the feeling of something looming over your shoulder, potentially looming over your shoulder. In a movie, you just don't get that feeling. You get, you know, everything's on that 2D screen, whereas in VR and AR, you can have all of the special effects and magic of movies, but you can have all that sense of tension and intimacy and immediacy of space that you can get in theater. And it allows you to create moments and reactions from an audience that are like this weird new, new thing that's kind of where you'd want all media, all media to go in the, in the long run.
What you're telling me is my wife, who already hates horror films, is going to hate them even more now.
I mean, the first— you— when the DK1 came out, or even before that, the first ones in this VR experiences were all horror experiences because it's what people jump to to just try, because you could have like the spider crawl across your face kind of thing. Like, you can't do that in live theater, and you can't make someone feel like that in a movie, but you can in VR.
What wakes you up when you look in that crystal ball to say, I need to be part of that?
I want to walk into the worlds of the stories that I love with my family and with my friends and with my, with my significant other. I want to enter the world and experience it with everyone. I want that, that, that, that cross— crossing the threshold kind of moment. That's what really excites me.
And lastly, what are some trends in the industry that you think are super cool, some things that we should all be looking out for in the future?
One, totally tangential, there's live comedy in VRChat, and I think still in Altspace. That is— it's the coolest, weirdest thing you could possibly imagine. Just people who would never ever even consider being or standing on a stage just tearing up the crowd in these like virtual live comedy sessions. So definitely look out for that.
But I know you are also passionate about emerging stories, new types of stories, non-trivial stories.
Yeah, so there's, there's going to be stories that make the audience both feel like they're there but also feel like a fly on the wall, that are telling some really deep, important personal experiences and stories through this medium in a way that can be captured digitally and distributed to millions. And I think that's what's something that this industry is going to be able to really take and kind of take to the next level.
