GENERAL INFO
The title of the performance is DROODZ Manifest Visualizer.
Droodz is a medicine mentioned in the second fiction The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, which can cure people’s emotions. We visualized the process of the medicine healing the emotions into a machine that can sense the emotions and fix them to peaceful moods with healing visuals and music.
Although the performance seemed a bit embarrassing for us, I considered the whole artifact itself a success. We came up with the idea of using “magical” images and healing music to fix people’s emotions. For the further design, we tried to make the work more interactive. We used body scanning to demonstrate that the machine can read people’s health information and recognize emotions. Also, the information could be shown on a prototype of a TV monitor that we slide the sheets in and out to show the change of information on the TV. To show that the machine is interactive and actually working on the patients, we connected the people to the machine with a wristband and glasses. In the performance, we used two examples of patients one is well healed by the machine and the other feels that the machine makes no sense, which also shows the importance of the power of believing in technology.
It does agree with the definition of interaction in my research. The machine senses the patients’ emotions with the scanner, which acts as an input. Processing the information, it can recognize the health states and emotions. Also, it outputs the results and gives the patients treatment. In this process, the patients and the machine are continuously interacting. I think we showcased quite clearly the detailed interaction of the artifact.
For improvement, maybe the illustration of the healing process may be a bit abstract and oversimplified now. Probably better music can be included (maybe adding a music instrument and making it into a duet can work) and the switch for the visuals can be elevated. Also, we should make it clearer that the saxophone player is defined as a robot, which is a part of the machine. The explanation of the different influences on patients should be clear that it can also be understood that the outsider of a certain town (probably the town in the fiction) cannot be cured.
PEERs’ PROJECT
I’m quite interested in the project of The Mirror.
Using the mirror and having visuals (even a 3D one!) on the back of it to demonstrate the hidden emotions of people is really impressive. Also, I like the horse head made of cardboard as it is so cute to appear with the horse on stage.
The performance was good and there was not much explanation as required, and most things are delivered by actors performing and demonstrated with the prototype. It seems a little bit abstract as it is just a prototype now as the interaction of looking at the mirror and seeing the depressive visuals cannot be shown really clearly. In the performance, the audience has to rely on the performance and lines to understand the concept.
For suggestion, I think the idea is great to have this mirror as a reminder for people to know about their depressive emotions and accept them. But if it is possible to get one step further than people just feeling shocked about the reality, it would be more interactive. For example, the mirror can let people also express their feelings and deal with these emotions instead of just seeing them, probably with simple healing or just giving a chance to talk about it.
OUR SCRIPTS
(Ellen) Patient 1- sad
(Jean) Patient 2-anxious/angry
(Sylvia) Doctor 1-monitor controller
(CJ) Doctor 2-scanner
(Luna) Doctor 3-panel controller
(Fred) Saxophone Robot
*The doctors at their positions and the saxophone robot heading down*
*Patient 1 walks into the room*
Doctor 1: “Good morning, how can we assist you today? How are you feeling?”
P1: “I’ve been having the worst week, I got an F on my assignment and I don’t know what to do. I can’t focus, and I can’t study through these tears!” *cries*
Doctor 1: “I see. No worries, we can fix that. Just step over here and we can see how to treat you”
*directs person 1 to the scanning area*
Doctor 2: “I’ll just scan you real quick, so we can better assess what you need.”
P1: “Okay. . . “
*doctor 2 scans patient 1*
*everyone turns their heads to the TV monitor*
*doctor 1 flips the cover of the TV to reveal the poster*
Doctor 1: “Um. . .”
Doctor 3: “Oops! Sorry, I was watching something. You can just switch the channel”
*Doctor 1 flips the card on the monitor to loading and then to the first vitals card*
Doctor 2: “Hm, it does seem that your vitals are a bit unstable, the machine has determined that you are suffering from sadness.”
*Doctor 1 put the SAD brick on the TV monitor*
Doctor 1: “Not a problem though, we can treat this easily! Follow me and have a seat.”
*Patient 1 sits down. Doctors 1 and 3 put glasses and wristbands on Patient 1*
Doctor 3: “Now just listen, watch and relax.”
Patient 1: “Listen?”
*Doctor 3 shows the blue panel*
*The Saxophone Robot stands up straight and starts playing soothing music*
*Music stops and the doctors take the glasses and wristband off of patient 1.”
Doctor 2: “How are you feeling now?”
Patient 1: (Acting healed and curious) “This is amazing its so relaxing! I don’t feel like crying anymore! Thank you!”
*Doctor 2 scans P1 again and Doctor 1 flips the brick into peaceful*
Doctor 3: “It seems you are all fixed. Have a nice day!”
*P1 exits stage*
*P2 enters stage feeling stressed*
Doctor 1: “Good morning, how can we assist you today? How are you feeling?”
Patient 2: “I just came to visit a friend in this town, and she said you were able to fix the emotions. I‘m having 5 assignment dues today, and I’ve been so stressed lately. I was hoping that you could help me out. ”
Doctor 2: “Of course! Come stand over here, so we can scan you to better understand how your body is feeling.”
*Doctor 2 scans patient 2*
*everyone turns their heads to the TV monitor*
*Doctor 1 flips the card on the monitor to loading and then to the next vitals card*
Doctor 3: “Hmmm… you seem very stressed. Come sit here and listen so you can relax.”
Patient 2: “Listen? What is all this?? What are you putting on my wrists? These glasses are weird. I don’t want to wear them.”
Doctor 3: “Just calm down, so we can help you.”
*Robot stands up straight and starts playing as panel shows gray*
*Doctor 3 switches the gray panel into the red one in the middle of the process*
Patient 2: takes glasses off* “I don’t think this is working. I feel really strange. It’s like the images are making me feel worse”
Doctor 1: Maybe there was a mistake in your reading. It’s also weird that the panels switched automatically. Why don’t we scan you again?
*Doctor 2 scans patient again – P2 is now angry – P2 looks at the monitor that says angry*
Doctor 2: See, that was the problem. It might have misread how you feel at the beginning. It seems you’re actually angry. Let’s try one more time.
They sit the patient down again and put the glasses and wristband on them
*music starts playing normally but then starts sounding strange, notes are off*
Doctor 1: “Hmmm…that’s never happened before”
*patient 2 angrily throws glasses and wristband”
Patient 2: I knew this wasn’t going to work! I told my friend this was stupid.
Doctor 3: don’t blame us. This machine fixes people every day, but you are the first that has caused this kind of reaction.
*Patient 2 runs out and meets P1*
P1: What’s wrong? Why do you look so angry? Didn’t you go to the healing machine?
P2: I did. But I don’t know what’s wrong! I even feel worse after that. That machine totally makes no sense.
P1: What do you mean?
P2: It just messes your emotions up. I don’t think it’s good to forcefully change people’s minds like that.”
P1: I don’t know, I like it. I already have an appointment with them for next week!
The End.
OUR PROPS
Main Machine
TV Monitor+Emotion Bricks
Scanner
Other Visuals
SKETCHES
This is the first version of the whole system of the interactive machine.
cr. Sylvia
These are the sketches for the visuals.
cr. Luna
PERFORMANCE
TEAMWORK
In my group, I participated in every part of the project. It’s a bit like I’m holding the group together like the link for most communication.
For the roles, Luna came up with the general idea of the visualizer and she was the main art designer who took charge of our visual panels and decorations. Luna and I started with the basic construction of the machine box itself. Then, Sylvia and I designed the interactive system for the machine and worked on it. Yuxing, Sylvia and I, dealt with most of the crafting, including the whole prototype and detailed revision. Also, Fred offered help with crafting, and he practiced a lot to bring us the impressive music part. In the performance part, Sylvia, Ellen, and I worked on the scriptwriting, and everyone in the group gave ideas on the plots and performance. Everyone had their own role and all helped with adjusting performance and lines in rehearsals.
Our team worked well together. We always found a time that worked for everyone and built the artifact together in the studio instead of allocating the jobs and working alone. We did argue a little bit when it came to details or some concepts, but we always quickly voted to reach a consensus or integrated the ideas into a better one. Our communication was usually successful and we had a lot of fun in the process!
