#cmfantasy

“Snow White is Dead is what we ended up calling neurofiction”, author Hannu Rajaniemi explains in Wired’s podcast. “It’s an interactive fiction piece, but without conscious choice.”

Would You Let An AI Read Your Mind?

The 38 years old Finnish science fiction author, along with data scientist friend Samuel Halliday, got his hands on a simple wearable brain scanner and started wondering how he could use the technology to tell more engaging stories.  

So in 2012, they came up with a story that could be read wearing the wireless headset, and branch and change depending on whether the reader showed more affinity for life or death imagery.

Think of it as a modern version of the text-only interactive games of the late 70’s, or a Choose Your Own Adventure eBook, but where your brain’s electrical activity determines the choices.

The project has been open-sourced to encourage innovation, meaning with a $400 piece of hardware, some machine learning and writing skills, everyone can venture into the depths of the design space created by emerging brain-computer interface technologies.

The EMOTIV Epoc wireless EEG is an off-the-shelf brain scanner sold for $300 US. © EMOTIV

A window to your soul

While there is a lot of fuss these days around whether we can make artificial intelligence (or AI) truly intelligent, giving ‘brains’ to machines might not always be enough. For instance, a brain without eyes can perceive much less of its environment.  

This is where connecting machines to our brain can become extremely powerful, and not just for medicine. And with the soaring number of patents awarded for “neurotechnology” since 2010, its safe to say a lot of corporations think so. Enabling machines to get a better understanding of the way we think and feel could give them an artificial form of emotional intelligence.

Electroencephalography (EEG) itself has been use for decades to diagnose and study conditions such as epilepsy, sleep disorders and brain death. Recently, however, its use has expanded outside of the realm of medicine and into the for-profit world.

One of the first application to emerge from the rise of brain-wave measuring devices and wearable tech was neuromarketing, where volunteers would put on an awkward swim cap covered with sensors in a Clockwork Orange type of experiment, in order to measure -more of less accurately- the cognitive and emotional responses to advertising.

Now, if the added value for the consumer might be a little bit harder to see with marketing, storytelling in general could benefit greatly from having access to a window to your soul.

Telling better stories

Since Rajaniemi’s Snow White, more sophisticated -and less awkward- brainwear has made its appearance, leveraging performance metrics, mental commands and facial expressions.

In the entertainment world, this gives storytellers such as film and game makers a whole new set of possibilities. Developing adaptive and personalized story lines according to the audience’s reaction isn’t a fantasy anymore.

Can you imagine yourself, a few years from now, going to see the same movie three times in theatre and each time, discovering a different possible ending because the audience’s vibe wasn’t the same?  

Similarly, artists such as Lisa Park have been exploring how connecting mind and machine can lead to beautiful and authentic music pieces: "I started working with EEG headsets because I questioned, 'how can I take this invisible energy and emotions and make it visible?" said Park in an interview.

This gave me the chills, no need for a headset to confirm!

Aside from entertainment, education is another area that could greatly benefit from these technologies going mainstream. I don’t know about you, but as a child, I would gap out very quickly once I understood where the teacher was going. Education at the time was meant levelling down to the lowest common denominator which, as a result, left the restless minds feeling quite stuck.

Today, education has learned its lesson, and a lot of new philosophies have emerged, making learning much more experiential, and using storytelling to captivate and encourage creativity.

Much like marketing, schools are now trying to differentiate themselves by delivering a unique experience. People such as Pierre-Majorique Léger work on improving educational apps by analyzing massive amounts of bio-physiological data, such as eye movement and pupillary response.

Generated while users interact with a product or an app, the data serves to determine whether an experience is intuitive and fun, or too complicated to understand. For example, the absence of light is not the only factor which can cause pupil dilation; difficult mental tasks produce the same effect, and can easily be measured using eye tracking glasses.

SMI’s eye tracking glasses can help design better learning apps © SensoMotoric Instruments

With VR and wearable tech entering the world of storytelling, the next few years could see the dawn of real audience-centrist content, from entertainment to education… and beyond.

Text: Audrey Raby

What do you see when you fantasize about the future of SaaS?

The tech industry is one of the fastest changing industries in existence, with new advancements being made all the time. SaaS is no exception. In fact, in the last few years alone this sector has seen dramatic growth.

The SaaS market is set to continue its rise as service users become increasingly dependent and more knowledgeable about the products they’re using. Industry leaders such as Slack, InVison, Shopify, etc. are not only serving up functional products but also beautifully designed, and aesthetically pleasing products. So how important will design be in the fantastical future of SaaS?

Today many B2B software designers aren’t all that concerned with the appearance of a platform. Instead, they’re focused on how the platform functions in the context of the day-to-day life of their users. Function—not form—is the main aspect of product design that SaaS companies have focused on in order to add value for their customers. But the mediation between user and product is a prime place to add value – with intuitive design cutting down training costs, increasing efficiency, loyalty and making for an overall more enjoyable user experience – and companies like the ones above are masters of doing just that.

So what does the melding of form and function look like for a SaaS product, and how can it better connect users to the product’s unique features? Let’s chat about it next Wednesday, November 30 at our November CreativeMornings with Steve MacKenzie in partnership with SAAS North – Canada’s largest SaaS conference – at the Shaw Centre in Ottawa!

Get your free tickets here!

This month we have invited Eva Mohr with Allthatiwant.com. She will talk about this month’s global theme ‘Fantasy’. But before we all get to meet her at Solution Space, we’ve asked Eva to answer a few questions about herself and what we can expect from her talk on Friday, November 25th:

What's your creative profession? I’m the co-founder of Allthatiwant.com an e-commerce platform for fashion and urban cycling couture. I don’t think I have a creative profession by definition – if there is such a thing.

I simply like to take action on creative ideas and make them happen. Sometimes I’m successful at it and sometimes I fail, but I always get something good (at least for myself) out of it.

What will you be sharing with the CreativeMornings community on Friday, 25th November? I will be speaking about fantasy and imagination in order to make better use of our creative potential. We (as adults) need to become more confident in the way we let our imagination run free. It’s not a breakthrough thought, and we actually all already now that. But it’s good to be reminded sometimes to simply allow ourselves to be and feel “fantastic”.

How is Cologne and its creative scene special to you? I moved to cologne after living and working abroad and have to admit I was a bit worried about the move. Mainly because in the past I've been very fortunate to always be surrounded with very creative minds. But fortunately I was wrong and soon after arrival I met people that share a similar creative and entrepreneurial spirit.          

The only thing I realized is, that people here are sometimes not very confident about their creative work and are quite hesitant about sharing their thoughts, ideas and work in public. What’s very special about the community here, is that it’s a quite small, close-knit community and once you dig deeper and build closer relationships with people you find great potential for creative collaboration and conversation. It just takes some more time than elsewhere I think.

What's your creative clue for the community? Be more confident and proud of the amazing things you do. Period.

Where could our society need some fantasy? It’s a very complex topic. But in my opinion many fields like politics, education or the economic sector could use the help of more “fantastic”, creative and playful minds. Mainly to help people think outside the box. And I’m convinced that this will eventually lead to happier, healthier and more tolerant communities.

Thank you Eva for this interview! We look forward to your talk next week at Solution Space. For more information on the event and how to grab your (free!) ticket, visit the event page. Tickets go live on Monday the 21st at 9am.

For our November event we have invited freelance director and all-round paper craft master Mandy Smith to talk about this month’s global theme ‘Fantasy’. But before we all get to meet her at TQ, we’ve asked Mandy to answer a few questions about herself and what we can expect from her talk on Friday, November 25th:

What is your creative profession?

I suppose the clearest answer is “I’m an artist” for it covers a lot! However, I work a lot in film and stop motion so I am also an art director and director. I execute most of my work with one material - paper!

What will you be sharing with the CreativeMornings community on Friday 25 November?

I work with a material that everybody knows, or thinks they do, and this is where I like to have some fun. By taking something so ordinary and everyday as your starting point you can surprise people by the structures it forms or the stories you tell with it.

I’ve been lucky enough to constantly keep learning through new collaborations. From submerging a paper sculpture into fluid, to sending a sculpture off into space, paper has lead to some interesting adventures and so I hope to share some tales of what i’ve seen along the way. Things that I didn’t even think were possible!

How is Amsterdam and its creative scene special to you?

Amsterdam is special to me for it was the first place that inspired the creative journey I am on now. When I moved here I was initially work for an advertising agency and I loved how so many people had other interests and passions outside of work, like creating their own artwork, so they inspired me to find my passion. I think as this city has creative people from so many different countries you can always learn a new way of thinking or opinion by talking to people and that’s very inspiring. 

If stuck in a creative rut, what’s your trick to get free and let loose?

I’ve learnt that being busy on something else sparks creativity for future projects. So when I am on a job I use these creative thoughts to try and trigger new ideas for personal projects I can move on to after.

Is fantasy important to you?

Totally, when I first started to build my twisted paper buildings I watched so many fantasy movies  and pretty much only fantasy movies to keep inspiring myself that if other people are making a living off creating weird and wonderful things then maybe I can one day do so too. I think, when I left advertising to follow my paper dreams, if I hadn’t kept brainwashing myself with these dream big movies I might not have had the energy to do so.

How would you describe your ideal fantasy world?

I’d say I like fantasy worlds that play around with the world we’re in now and create a version of it where gravity isn’t the same or doesn’t exist like we know it. The most recent example of this being the production design of Dr Strange. I love seeing our world bend and distort to become something unbelievable.