Daniel O’Sullivan

You live with illusions. The nature of these illusions has long been described in mystical practices but is now increasing corroborated by modern research such as neuroscience, behavioral economics, social psychology, embodied cognition and evolutionary psychology. What does this have to do with computational media? With technology do we have the ability to revisit some of the illusions that made sense for natural selection of your
genes in other contexts but that might limit our personal happiness or the overall functioning of society. Will the the computer’s ability to run more objective statistical analysis on data gathered tirelessly over time, across individuals and locations allow us to to more accurately see ourselves and the world as it is. Can we build computer interfaces that give a fuller expression of our experience when we are not limited by an illusory view of ourselves? The insights into how into how to reach people more fully comes with a responsibility to then ask what should say to them. As the computers are able to understand us better than we understand ourselves will we relinquish control to them?

At a practical level the class looks at interfaces for capturing the less consciously controlled parts of your body using things like biosensors and cameras. Then we look at such things as subliminal displays for reaching past the normal conscious model of human understanding. It then moves on to trying to find meaning in the mounds of already digitized expression you have produced everyday for years in emails, text etc…. Finally we
will look at how we can manipulate shared media, for instance using browser extensions, to see if we can get beyond vestigial antisocial ways of perceiving the world. This class will use skills from Physical Computing and ICM.