For this blog, I am asking different people who have been involved to add to the blog. Karl has been invaluable over the last week, to discuss ideas, and help build the work. He is interested in the exploration of emotional contagion and interaction in the Chameleon Project.
I have had to cut this blog into four parts, the a-n blog allows a post of 500 words at a time
Dr Karl Broome Is currently a research fellow in the sociology department working on the project ‘Supporting Shy Users in Pervasive Computing’, an EPSRC funded research project on the WINES programme, undertaken by the departments of Informatics and Sociology at the University of Sussex
KARL BROOME PART TWO
The low-resolution Pixy screen aims to provide a sense of ‘immersion’
but with minimal detail. When choosing which ’emoting’ characters filmed
as part of the Chameleon project are to be shown on the Pixy screen,
details such as the profile of the shoot- is the person filmed side on
or face on- are taken into consideration as this affects to what extent
a face can be seen when interacting with Chameleon, and arguably to what
extent one can identify the emotional response of the character on the
screen. But after sitting and watching the screen for some time, I kind
of feel that emotional contagion is achieved whether or not the face is
identifiable – ’emotional’ immersion is still achieved… To borrow from
Brian Massumi , what ‘objectively speaking’ we see when we look at the
Pixy screen is squares of green light (pixels) in vertical lines, but
what we ‘feel’ we see is the faces of a man or a woman crying, or
laughing hysterically. I still have the compulsion to feel like the few
pixels on the Pixy screen, even when they no longer ‘objectively’
resemble a face. But how does one ‘feel’ like pixels on the screen if
they only appear as nothing more than movement?.. perhaps it is the
result of my prior understanding or experience of the screen when the
face was more clearly identifiable, partially the product of memory, but
I am not so sure… I have a sense that the Pixy screen can potentially
express emotions without the need of a face being discernible in the
pixels. Am experiencing a compulsion to become and behave like something
else?
