A little lecture I gave at Colin Owens' RISD course 'Design for Dynamic Media' on Tuesday, April 9, 2013. I talk about: my work as Senior User Experience and Innovation Architect at Mobiquity; how I leverage satire, parody and various degrees of humor in my design approach; and my thesis work and research into cyberSurrealism out at Dynamic Media Institute — MassArt's future-forward MFA graduate degree program for design, technology, creativity and innovation.
110. laugh infection
project description
i will create various public scenarios that examine laughter taken out
of context as a means to explore social dynamics and laugh permission
systems ‘out there’ in the world
111. laugh infection
what’s the definition of ...
infectious
1 a : capable of causing infection <viruses and other infectious agents> b : communicable by infection <an infectious disease>
— compare contagious
2: that corrupts or contaminates
3: spreading or capable of spreading rapidly to others <their enthusiasm was infectious> <an infectious grin>
— in·fec·tious·ly adverb
— in·fec·tious·ness noun
112. laugh infection
what’s the definition of ...
contagious
1: communicable by contact : catching <contagious diseases>
2: bearing contagion <contagious people>
3: used for contagious diseases <a contagious ward>
4: exciting similar emotions or conduct in others <contagious enthusiasm>
— con·ta·gious·ly adverb
— con·ta·gious·ness noun
113. laugh infection
what’s the definition of ...
virus
1 archaic : venom 1
2 a : the causative agent of an infectious disease b : any of a large group of submicroscopic infective agents that are regarded
either as extremely simple microorganisms or as extremely complex molecules, that typically contain a protein coat
surrounding an RNA or DNA core of genetic material but no semipermeable membrane, that are capable of growth and
multiplication only in living cells, and that cause various important diseases in humans, lower animals, or plants; also :
filterable virus c : a disease or illness caused by a virus
114. laugh infection
what’s the definition of ...
virus
3: something that poisons the mind or soul <the force of this virus of prejudice — V. S. Waters>
4: a computer program that is usually hidden within another seemingly innocuous program and that produces copies of itself
and inserts them into other programs and usually performs a malicious action (as destroying data)
115. laugh infection
live user testing
all quantitative results will be captured using a simple
tripod + my flipVideo Mino HD — through these
experiments i hope to discover critical insights related to
context, audience, delivery, presence and non-verbal
communication
119. laugh infection
added note
one of the main objectives of these cyberSurreal experiments with laughter
is to determine the invisible boundaries between what is funny ‘ha ha’ and
what is just funny ‘weird’ — i am interested in the very primal aspect of the
human stimulus-response mechanism to these different delivery modes for
laughter and how shifting the context will effect reception + reaction to
these laugh episodes
124. laugh infection
some conclusions
•people are extremely camera-focused
•the current laugh trigger system reacts too slowly
•context | location can totally change participant permission structures
125. laugh infection
some conclusions
•people are extremely camera-focused
•the current laugh trigger system reacts too slowly
•context | location can totally change participant permission structures
•the most delighted participants were the ones ‘in’ on the joke
126. laugh infection
what’s next?
results from these very simple first few laugh explorations should point out
some obvious areas of exploit for me to consider in my next rounds of
prototyping and testing — shifting the environmental context to the subway,
a library, restrooms and other interesting settings could provide interesting,
valuable data about social dynamics, laugh permissions and delivery
127. laugh infection
project plan
as a limited time, bonus feature — i will also then ‘infect’ multiple
machines in a local Mac Store with both the pure audio laugh +
audiovisual pre-recorded loops
photograph from a quick Google Search
134. laugh infection: Apple Store, Boylston
some conclusions
•i’m really great at the failure thing
135. laugh infection: Apple Store, Boylston
some conclusions
•i’m really great at the failure thing
•i learn best by actively doing things improvisationally
136. laugh infection: Apple Store, Boylston
some conclusions
•i’m really great at the failure thing
•i learn best by actively doing things improvisationally
•next infection will need at least 30 people to ‘set off’ the laughs
137. laugh infection: Apple Store, Boylston
some conclusions
•i’m really great at the failure thing
•i learn best by actively doing things improvisationally
•next infection will need at least 30 people to ‘set off’ the laughs
•there are many ‘anti-fun’ forces embedded in the world
138. laugh infection: Apple Store, Boylston
some conclusions
•i’m really great at the failure thing
•i learn best by actively doing things improvisationally
•next infection will need at least 30 people to ‘set off’ the laughs
•there are many ‘anti-fun’ forces embedded in the world
•coffee makes everything seem achievable