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Space Machina creates automated and interactive multi-sensory experiences.

Principles: Creative vs Smart Automation

  • Entertaining vs Functional

  • Thought-provoking vs mindless

  • Staged vs Decorative

  • Experience centric vs Technology centric

  • Surprising vs Expected

  • Interactive vs Reactive

  • Emotions driven (surprise, curiosity, intrigue, delight, amusement, introspection) vs Comfort inducing

  • "Time well spent" vs "time well saved"

Design for the Heart: Emotional Palette Design

Includes "Negative" emotions, that can paradoxically be desirable and transformational:

  • Pleasurable fear

  • Healing sadness

  • Uncertainty leading to introspection

  • Deflected anger

 

See : The Uses of Enchantment: the Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales, by Bruno Bettelheim​

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The Happiness Track, by Emma Seppala, in HBR article

Diagram : The Happiness Track, by Emma Seppala, in HBR article

Physio-Emotional Design:  Frisson

  • 55 to 86% of population experiences this pleasurable esthetic chill as a reaction to emotionally moving stimuli

  • Measured by galvanic skin response : elevated electrodermal activity (EDA)

  • Influenced by temperature, humidity

  • Listeners who experience frisson also scored high for a personality trait called “openness to experience.”

  • Arousal is created through positive violations of listener's expectations: suspense, musical passages with unexpected harmonies, sudden changes in volume, entrance of a soloist or choir, speeches' unexpected lessons

Functional Design:
Designing for Modes and Moods

  • Experience consent should not be implicit

  • Memorable positive moments are created when the time is right: a person's "mode"* should be respected

  • Vulnerability in intimate spaces (bodily function, bare skin, isolation, respite, self examination) is an opportunity for self examination: invite participants to choose the mood they want to indulge in.

*Cf Joe Pine/Norton HBR article: Are Your Digital Platforms Wasting Your Customers’ Time?

Perception Design

  • Using the power of optical illusions to mesmerize. For example: Negative and positive after image, flickering lights, holograms

  • Integrating multiples sense, including touch and smell, to stimulate imagination

  • Limiting visual representations to focus on suggestion and day dreaming

  • Creating a safe and sheltered space to allow for suspension of disbelief

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  • Interactive AI: Incorporating AI that not only reacts but interacts with participants in meaningful ways, enhancing the depth of the experience

  • Ethical Design: Ensuring AI interactions are disclosed prior to the experience, respectful, and prioritize participant consent and comfort

  • Reflective Engagement: Encouraging participants to reflect on the implications of AI and automation in their lives through immersive narratives and scenarios

  • Adaptive Experiences: AI-driven personalization to adapt experiences based on participant responses, ensuring relevance and emotional resonance

  • Ethics of AI Artistry: Promoting discussions on the ethical dimensions of AI in creative processes, highlighting the balance between technological advancement and human values

AI interactivity and Ethical Reflection

principles
Heart
Frisson
Functional
Perception
Ethics

© 2023 by Space Machina

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