Make Magazine has an interesting piece on emotionally interacting with a digitally created piece of art in their January 2010 issue. The two links below are the creator’s own website showing the ‘creature’ and then the link to the Make Magazine blurb titled ‘Emotional Aquatics’. The article goes into a little bit of depth about how the interactive process actually works – namely a person comes to observe the piece, the ‘creature’ detects that someone is watching and has one of two reactions – ‘shy but playfully curious, or totally terrified.’ Apparently the viewers tend to favor the more dramatic, terrified response!
http://www.eyalohana.com/axolotl/
http://www.make-digital.com/make/vol21/?pg=23
Anyway, there are some fascinating things happening here. The article describes the piece as inspired by Julio Cortazar’s short story about a “man’s emotional obsession with aquarium life.” I’m not sure, exactly, if what is happening here in this setting is really based on emotions, although it certainly makes sense that the story would inspire this piece. Clearly, artificial beings elicit an emotional response in us as we interact with them, but as the technology becomes increasingly more sophisticated, what happens when our emotional state begins to influence them? For example, our car may be a computer and may elicit an emotional response in us, but isn’t trying to manipulate us (advertising aside, of course!) Isn’t an artificial creature ‘emotionally’ responding to us always going to be entirely contrived? Do we need artificial emotional intelligence?
I’m curious what others think…
March 7th, 2010 at 9:41 pm
Hi Alex, thanks for the fascinating links. Has anyone reviewed the Princeton University studies regarding people’s emotions, especially heart centred ones,altering predicted outcomes on random number generators on computers? As well, the ‘mood lights’ that change colour apparently affected by the mood in a room. What I found interesting was that distance had no bearing on outcome. I have had some experiences, I think most people have (or is that defensive
) regarding emotional ‘messages’ that are received by people who are in some way connected. I am also interested in the phenomenon of group adaptation to mood, and even instruction given silently by one or more dominant members of the group, which people respond to.
Some people are definitely susceptible to other people’s mood, while others seem impervious. Sorry Alex, your article prompted my fascination with this topic. The aquarium creature seems to be based on some scientifically driven computerised animation, while the studies I am referring to were based on transmitting emotion and intention to a computer. Anyone have any understanding of this? cheers, Sandra.
March 8th, 2010 at 8:29 pm
Hi Sandra,
Thanks so much for your comments. Interesting questions! I like that your points illustrate the complexities of people/machine interactions, or any interactions for that matter. What kind of power do our emotions really have over others or even over machines? Group dynamics are indeed an interesting topic as well, especially since each situation is it’s own case study based on the given group. I liken this to something I mentioned in an earlier post about how our reactions and indeed, our very personality, are influenced by the people we are with. When you add in non-living ‘creatures’ or computers, of course the equation changes.
Thanks! Finding this a fascinating topic…