Assignment 2

Suggested by Karen Huang (our class member who is studying the psychology of empathy at Harvard):
 
This article follows up on some of the neuroscience concepts that Tenzin introduced:
 
The iPad version of Compassion: Bridging Science and Practice by Tania Singer (who Tod met a few weeks ago at the World Economic Forum). It is long and Tod can’t vouch for it yet, but Singer runs the Social Neuroscience group at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, and is someone we should know about. There are versions of the ebook on most platforms, but apparently openly the iPad version has all the media components (audio and video):
 
 
Three projects recommended by Jonathan Bobrow, a Masters student in the Playful Systems group at the Media Lab (with his commentary):
 
1. A beautifully analog piece in which a translucent mirror allows the two people in the mirror box to see features of their own and the other's face in the mirror:
 
2. A piece by media artist Kyle MacDonald takes a similar idea of sharing a mirror, but has a very site specific installation and makes the relationship 1 to many instead of 1 to 1. Taking advantage of openCV with the ability to match facial expressions, the piece is much more technical than the mirrorbox, but the end goal is clearly to have the tech fade away and feel like a realtime mirror experience.
 
Jonathan mentioned the olfactory piece he was going to smell this weekend.
http://ict.usc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/ScentCollarBrochure1.pdf is authored by Tod's former colleague, Jackie Morie, who created a scent collar for VR applications back in 2004. 
Her work in virtual worlds might be relevant in general, but thought I would put her on your map as a great resource.
 
Happy reading!
 
Next Class:

 

We'll discuss concepts and technologies for multisensory “8th Art” experiences with Peter Torpey and Ben Bloomberg.