Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
to be very limited in terms of the possibility for interpretation of human emotions,
and for the production of usable knowledge out of them, including considerations
on people's cultures, behaviors and relations in their interactions in the city.
Using a different approach, the City of Vilnius (
2013
) has found a way to track
emotions on its territory using a social tool that gauges the average residents' level of
happiness. Residents submit their overall level of happiness for each given day using
their smartphones, or by scanning a barcode on the post advertising the initiative
dubbed the “Happiness Barometer.” Votes are later totaled to determine the overall
happiness level of the town - displayed on a large urban screen and on the website.
Another example comes from an artwork titled Consciousness of Streams (
2011
).
In the work the artists have set up a series of devices or installations in several cities.
Users were able to contribute their geographic location, emotional state, as well as
an image of their face or sound recording. The resulting information is constantly
visible online under the form of a “real-time interconnected emotional map of the
planet” (Iaconesi and Persico
2012
) showing a topography of human emotions,
adjacencies, proximities and distances which are not physical, but emotional.
Another relevant project is Mappiness (
2012
), part of a research project at the
London School of Economics. This mobile app and online system actively notifies
users once a day, asking how they're feeling. The data gets sent back along with
users' approximate geographical location and a noise-level measure, as recorded
from the phone's microphone. In this way users can learn interesting information
about their emotions - which they see charted inside the application - and the
operator can learn more about the ways in which people's happiness is affected
by their local environment - air pollution, noise, green spaces, and so on.
An interesting project is “Testing, Testing!” (
2011
), an experiment developed by
Colin Ellard and Charles Montgomery, and conducted in New York, Berlin, and
Mumbai. By inviting participants to walk through the urban terrain, and measuring
the effects of environment on their bodies and minds, Ellard aimed to collect data in
real, living urban environments. That data would then be available for application
within urban planning and design to enhance urban comfort, increase functionality,
and keep city dwellers' stress to acceptable levels.
The last project which we wish to highlight is the Aleph of Emotions, an
experimental art project by Mithru Vigneshwara (
2012
): a camera-like interface
allows users to point along a particular direction, focus to a place along that
direction, and click to view a representation of emotions in that place. The intention
is to explore and find patterns in human emotions with relation to space and time.
Data is collected based on keywords that define certain emotions. The results are
finally presented with an interactive object. We felt, to a certain degree, this project
to be really close to what we wanted to achieve. The major limitations which we
have identified in its conception lie in the impossibility to comprehend human
emotions in significant ways - due to the keywords-based approach -, and in the
lacking sense of immersion in the information landscape.
