Welcome to Randyland

After hearing the name Randyland multiple times in the past few weeks, I finally had the chance to go. And boy, was it randy… I’m just kidding, it wasn’t (don’t worry this is a PG-13 blog).

Randyland is home to Randy Gilson, a local artist who bought the property in 1995 and began to build a wonderland of eccentricity. The property is completely free and open to the public to enjoy. Sometimes Randy himself even appears and provides history or just preaches love (unfortunately, I did not have the chance to meet him).

Entrance to Randyland.

It’s a beautiful space filled with colorful patterned murals, a wall of mirrors, lawn ornaments by the dozens, chairs hanging from the stairs, and kinetic wind spinners; an explosion of colors and patterns reminiscent of Mexicali blankets, Peruvian textiles, and Warhols. Which makes it the perfect place for an instagrammable moment (which was happening all around us. constantly.).

What I love about places like this, is that it’s the expression of someone’s inner child. Someone (in this case, Randy) said, I’m not going to stop playing, and I’m not going to let you stop playing either. These hidden gems disrupt reality. They make you stop and think. And they make you smile.

Visiting Randyland made me think back to the talk that I attended at SXSW in which Ed Purver asked, “how do we disrupt the rules of engagement?” How do we redefine our environment? How can we create moments in which people can become more present, more aware, more alive, and just a little more happy?

Sometimes it just takes some paint and a well-curated lawn ornament collection.

Thanks Randy!

SXSW Day 5: Imagination as a Revolutionary Act and Thinking Like You're Drunk with SFMOMA

So you might be wondering, “what happened to Day 4????” Well anyone who has been to SXSW will tell you that pacing yourself is key to surviving the week. So on Day 4, while I got up early to check out the trade show (which was crazy - there was 3D printed sushi, sloth robots, and real sloths), I couldn’t make it to afternoon sessions due to pure exhaustion. But that’s okay, because then I was very well rested for Day 5!

In the morning, I started early with a panel hosted by Kim Cook, the Director of Civic Engagement and Art at Burning Man Project. Prior to this panel, I had absolutely no interest in ever attending Burning Man. Funnily enough, a friend had just asked me the day before if I would be interested in going to Burning Man with her, and was met with a resounding no from me. I deeply dislike being dirty. However, after this panel, I’ve become determined to one day have my own installation at Burning Man complete with a built-in shower.

The panel, named “High Impact in Public Space: Art, Spectacle, Tech” featured Noeline Kavanagh from Macnas and Ed Purver from Cocolab. I had only recently become familiar with Cocolab, when I heard a strange noise emanating from a random room in the Austin Convention Center. When I walked in there was an incredibly mesmerizing installation piece called “Weaving,” a beautiful light and sound installation inspired by loom textiles produced by Mexican artists.

Weaving by Cocolab. Image courtesy of myself.

Cocolab is a multidisciplinary design studio based in Mexico City that focuses on activations of public spaces. In Purver’s work, he is curious about:

• Changing our relationship to place

• Questioning our assumptions

• Changing our role in context

• Changing the rules of engagement

In his early work, he explored these topics through performance art. As young artist, he engaged in a passion project with his friend. They would board the London Tube separately during rush hour, and then he would ask his friend (who pretended to be a stranger) if he could sit on his lap. His friend would then reluctantly agree, and then after several stops, Purver would get up thank him and then leave. Their goal was the disrupt the rules of engagement. If people could witness acts of generosity they wouldn’t expect, would people become more generous?

Purver also worked on projects to open the windows of possibility to redefine the environment in which we live. He stated that most of us don’t think about the context of our environment, but when we become more present, we become alive, and from there we can be happy.

Kavanagh shared her work with Macnas. She stated that imagination is a revolutionary act and a universal sensibility. Her work is dedicated to making the invisible into visible, making the unfathomable into fathomable, and making thoughts into words. Macnas is a spectacle theater in Galway, think Cirque du Soleil but in parades with Giants. They create giant moving installation of fantastical creatures, exploring strange themes, like a hermetic Giant that has a bluetooth beacon in its beard that can transmit its inner thoughts.

When it came to Cook, she questioned how Burning Man can be used to disrupt the norm and how cultural knowledge can be transmitted. She asked: What is the invitation that we want to give to people? What’s the connection? She stated that context is everything, that Burning Man is an act of joy and imagination.

Slide from Kim Cook’s talk on Burning Man. Image courtesy of myself.

These creators all seek to create moments of imagination in public spaces. I can’t help to think how incredible it is that everyday they nourish their inner child with the work that they do. How can I sustain and foster my own inner child with my work?

In the afternoon, I joined a talk with Suhair Khan from Google Arts and Culture. She discussed Google’s initiatives to use the power of technology to preserve culture. Working with major institutions, Google has been digitally scanning artwork and providing public domain access to high res versions. They’ve also embarked on the digital preservation of cultural landmarks with #OpenHeritage with CyArk, open source 3D renderings of cultural treasured. In addition, they’ve started Once Upon a Try, a journey of invention and discovery, using VR/AR/videos to highlight discoveries. Campaigns like #ArtSelfie and #ArtPalette, use machine learning in combination with these new archives to help guests find their famous portrait lookalike and artists to find color palettes that have been used through the centuries. All of this derived from a 20% project inspired by how Google’s technology can be used to preserve culture. I had absolutely no idea that these resources were available online for free. What a beautiful use of technology to enhance cultural preservation.

Ending my trip on a high note, my last session that I attended was titled, “Art Museums as Space of Digital Play.” Speakers Sarah Brin from Meow Wolf, Chad Coerver from SFMOMA, and Charles Yust from frog design discussed how play can be used to open up new experiences.

Coerver opened up discussing SFMOMA’s new initiatives to change the way that they bring in new audiences. We all know that emotions and creating moments can help people learn. So how can the museum tap into that?

Coerver discussed creating an emotional pathway for guests from curiosity to welcome to delight to belonging. The institution challenged itself to think like it was drunk (and to actually get drunk to think). They asked how play could change their relationship with the audience?

SFMOMA’s newest philosophy. Image courtesy of myself.

They worked with Adobe to create a self-composing piece of artwork that exposes your face in a selfie the more you added to the installation. They created Send Me SFMOMA, an SMS service that texts you a picture of a related artwork image depending on what you ask for via text. And they started PlaySFMOMA, an initiative to encourage the development of games as an art medium. With Yust at frog design, they created an AR/MR Magritte exhibit that allows guests to connect with Magritte’s artwork in a playful way.

Ultimately, their hope to create a place in which guests leave saying “This is a place for me.”

In spite of all of these well-thought out planned projects, by far my favorite project discussed was one that was not even commissioned. MoMAR was a group of eight internet artists that hijacked the Jackson Pollock room at the NYC MoMA with their own guerilla-style campaign. They released an app that added their own interpretation of the artwork as an overlay to the pieces. Their goal was to make a statement against elitism in art.

What I loved about this work, was that it took advantage of what already existed in the space, and added more meaning. It allowed guests to “play” with the artwork, and explore through another artist’s eyes. So not only were you able to enjoy a Pollock (which quite frankly I still don’t get the hype), you were also able to enjoy another artist’s artwork (which I deeply appreciated their humor). I also loved that they didn’t ask permission to do it! Why should we ever have to ask permission to bring more play, joy, or laughter into this world?

All in all, my trip to SXSW was a fantastic learning experience and I returned feeling inspired to keep doing my work. Sometimes it can be a drag to get through grad school; it’s easy to forget the big picture amongst the slog of everyday. But I guess all it takes is attending 10 amazing sessions by professionals in your field to remember why you’re doing what you’re doing: to bring more play, imagination, and spectacle into the world.

While I’ve been able to share all that I’ve learned from my sessions. I haven’t even begin to cover the amazing people that I’ve met at the conference, or share the incredible work that they’re doing. I hope that you’ve enjoyed reading about what I’ve learned, and I hope that I have the opportunity to return back to this conference next year!

Until then, wish me luck through the rest of this semester! Hopefully I have enough inspiration in the tank to help me make it through...

SXSW Day 3: Girls in Science & Science in Cirque

I entered Day 3 of SXSW feeling exhausted, but left feeling reinvigorated.

In the morning, I attended a panel discussing how to rebrand STEM as cool for girls with YouTuber/influencer Sara Dietschy, Justina Nixon-Saintil from the Verizon Foundation, Rowena Patrick from the Ad Council, and Francesca Rossi from IBM. With this diverse panel of women in STEM, they discussed how to stop the high dropout rate of girls from STEM in middle school and the importance of having women representation in the field.

Nixon-Saintil used “Reviving Ophelia” as a story for how girls start to become socially aware of themselves, of boys, and of being smart in middle school. She strongly emphasized the importance of role models and media to keep girls feeling confident in themselves. Rossi emphasized the role of family in making girls feel like they can do anything. And Dietschy advocated for social media as a way for girls to find niche communities to support them.

All the while preaching for the need of girls in STEM to think about how to design for women. Rossi gave examples of how the dummies used for car crash tests have men’s proportions, how medicine is predominantly drug tested on men, and how women can bring empathy to the development of AI. While Dietschy asked the hard pressing question: why are women’s pant’s pockets getting smaller while phones are getting larger? No but seriously, why?

In the afternoon, I waited for a good 45 minutes in line (the earliest I arrived at any session) to snag a seat at the Cirque du Soleil talk: “Defining Awe: The Science Behind Cirque du Soleil.” I was very torn between attending this talk and the immersive experiments in museums talk. The latter would have been better fitted to my current educational needs (I am currently pitching a student project to design an interactive art/tech installation), but when would I ever get a chance again to see a talk by the Chief Creative Officer at Cirque du Soleil? AND through the lens of science (which if you haven’t already picked up on, I’m a fan of).

My parents were strong believers in experiences over things. I was never bought the latest toy or gadget or gizmo, but my parents did take me to travel all over the world. And when we would travel to new places, if there was a Cirque du Soleil show, you could guarantee that we were going. Quidam was the first Cirque show that I ever went to, and I was blown away. I remember wanting to become one of the Diabolo girls. I even got my own Chinese yo-yo (and that’s when I discovered that hand-eye coordination is not a skill of mine).

As we walked in, we were handed a red clown nose before getting seated. That’s when I (k)nose I made the right choice in my selection.

Nose provided by Cirque du Soleil. Image provided by myself.

Dr. Beau Lotto from the Lab of Misfits opened the talk with a deeply passionate and heartfelt presentation of the introductory science. He began with an experiment using our finger placed up to our eye to obscure our vision of his body. Lotto explained that we obviously know that his body and our finger are not the same size. Our brain uses history and biases to figure out what’s in the world, and simultaneously we project our own biases into the world. He quickly yelled out “When the tree falls, does it make a sound? No!” He described sound as a human construct, we must be there to hear it for it to make sound. But the tree does release energy.

He showed us the famous Heider-Simmel Illusion, in which we impose characteristics onto inanimate objects and feel emotion towards these shapes even though they are just shapes. He described how the brain has evolved to determine certainty, and how certainty was crucial to survival. Which is why, when we are uncertain, we feel emotionally unwell, and why we typically respond to uncertainty with anger and judgment as a way to immediately resolve the feeling.

We stood up together as an audience and conducted Strauss up until Lotto left us hanging without hearing the final drop, which was deeply unsatisfying. He explained that we all need closure, and that DJs rely upon this when they mix their music. He even showed that animals need this closure as well.

But Lotto emphasized that the only place that we can be creative is in uncertainty, that it all begins with not knowing.

From there, Chief Creative Officer Diane Quinn took over. We all put on our red noses and took a big selfie together. She emphasized that their team does their best creative thinking by working through vulnerability, with a “yes and” mentality where nothing is impossible (thank you Brenda for teaching me this in improv). She demoed videos from their newest shows that use drones, cold fire, and moving audience seating to push the edges of entertainment.

But back to the science! Lotto is a neuroscientist studying perception and awe. He defined awe as a feeling in which you feel small, but fundamentally connected to the world. In this experiment with Cirque du Soleil, he measured the brain activity (with EEG caps) and unconscious bias (with surveys) of 60 participants witnessing a live Cirque show.

After collecting the data, Lotto’s team found that after watching the show, in perception guests feel:

• Closer to others, demonstrate more prosocial behavior and a diminished ego

• Less need for closure, comfortable in uncertainty

• Increased desire for risk

• Change perception of self (they believe they are someone who can experience awe)

In the brain, they found:

• Lower activity in the prefrontal cortex, which is the source of control, if it is lower, guests are more immersed in their environment

• Increased activity in the default network, which is responsible for daydreaming and contemplative thought

• Asymmetry in the prefrontal cortex (which I am going to be completely honest, I don’t remember what this does, but I do have a note that says “step forward” - so if anyone can interpret that please let me know)

• The brain activity is similar to being on psychedelics (that’s pretty rad)

• That they could use AI to predict that people were feeling awe to about 75% accuracy, which shows that there is a synchrony brain waves (which explains why we feel connected to others)

Overall, Lotto concluded that people left Cirque being transformed.

But why does this matter to Cirque and how will they apply it? Quinn answered quite bluntly, “it doesn’t.” As the Chief Creative Officer, she expressed strongly how Cirque is here to tell a story, to take the guest through an emotional journey. While it is great that the data suggests that what they are doing is transformative, they didn’t need that data to tell them. They both emphasized that science has its place and time, but not in the circus.

This was by far the best talk that I have ever attended in my life, and if I had only seen this one talk at SXSW, it would have been worth my time to come. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time, enthralled by their presence. Their presentation was an experience within itself. They kept the audience captivated with case studies, videos, and interesting visuals. There was never a dull moment.

During questions, an audience member asked if Cirque is planning on using XR ( an umbrella term for mixed reality, virtual reality, augmented reality) in their future performances. They responded that the technology is not there yet to touch all audience members at the same time. They have prototyped an experience, but it can only reach 20 audience members. I genuinely appreciated their answer to this question, because while I’ve done work in VR/AR and see its potential, I don’t believe in the hype. I also don’t believe in just throwing tech at things to make them better, and appreciated how Cirque is not just jumping on the bandwagon.

However, my favorite quote from this talk was “science is play with intention.” As a former scientist, I have never heard of science being described that way and I absolutely love it. Because science IS playing with intention. It’s figuring out the rules to a game defined by nature. And play is something that everybody likes to do. If we can just teach science in a way that focuses on play, we can bring more people into the fold and make science more approachable.

SXSW Day 2: Domes, Waiting Rooms, Play, Oh My!

Being a true Bostonian, and a long-time fan of the Museum of Science (MoS), of course I had to attend all of the sessions hosted by the MoS at SXSW.

I grew up going to field trips at the MoS and even attending a sleepover in the bird wing. As a adult I attended planetarium shows hosted by my friend and co-worker, Ari Daniel, and scoured the job listings for employment opportunities. But alas, I only made it to final interviews (one day hopefully!).

The first session that I attended, “Do it in a Dome! The Planetarium as an Arts Medium,” featured Monica Bolles from Resonant Interactions, Ben Gondrez from the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery, and Danielle LeBlanc and James Wetzel from the MoS. I learned about the world of the fulldome, which I didn’t even know existed. Prior to this panel, I was very familiar with planetariums, but had no idea how much work was being done to explore the medium.

I was blown away by J-Walt’s Lucid Dreamscapes and the work being done in fulldome gaming. I was also impressed by how the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery organized a makerspace/meetup in their planetarium as an educational opportunity to create content. I also loved the idea of the Dome Artist in Residence program, as a way to explore planetariums as a medium for art.

J-Walt’s Lucid Dreamscapes. Image courtesy of J-Walt.

In particular, I loved how the MoS is using the planetarium as a new venue for musicians and shows in Boston. Back in Boston, I was always looking for fun events to attend in my free time. Having attended Ari Daniel’s Stories Under the Stars for two years running, I can say that I am a huge fan of the planetarium as a storytelling medium. (Also, a huge fan of Ari Daniel as a storyteller.)

Although this panel did give me huge FOMO (fear of missing out). Wetzel talked about the drag shows that he’s been organizing at the planetarium, and his future plans for a music festival this summer. Never have I wished I was back in Boston so badly.

But this wasn’t the only MoS session that I attended. In the afternoon, I attended James Wetzel and Lisa Monrose’s “Waiting Rooms: A Building-Sized Installation.” Which again, made me have huge FOMO. I can’t believe I missed this event back in Boston, and really hope that they do it again.

Session image courtesy of SXSW.

With architect Nathalie Pozzi and game designer Eric Zimmerman, they organized an experiential participatory experience that took place across the entire museum. Guests were thrown into the experience with no explanation. As soon as they arrived, they were split from their group and commanded to follow the blue lines. Guests had to figure out the unspoken rules enforced by guards, and their roles in the experience. In order to enter rooms or leave them, they had to pay an arbitrary amount of currency in the form of tickets, pennies, and candy, that were earned in a specific way in each room.

Each room was like a puzzle. In one room, guests could accumulate currency just by sitting in a chair. In another, they had to line up by height, only the shortest people in the room could leave. My favorite described was the bingo room, in which guests had to win bingo to leave. However, the boards were tiny, the pieces were made of confetti, the guards walked around quickly causing the confetti to blow off, and the announcer either announced numbers very quickly or very slowly. All of these puzzles were designed to tap into the guests’ frustrations.

At the end of the night, the experience abruptly ended, and guests were guided into the planetarium for a town hall with the creators and a psychologist. Guests could share their frustrations and joys. The experience was designed as a metaphor to explore “bureaucracy, immigration, economic inequality, and the systemization of contemporary life.”

This experience was powerful in using simple, mundane tasks to manipulate the emotional arc of guests. While I was really impressed by the gamification of these tough topics, I was really more impressed by the commitment of the adult programming producers to shift guests’ perspectives of the MoS as a venue for entertainment. They discussed afterwards how important these types of events are in attracting new audiences to the museum, and exploring how to get people to become members of the MoS for entirely different reasons than the normal programming.

I really appreciate how these events can bring new audiences into the fold. While this particular event is not directly STEM related, these topics are still relevant in the scientific field especially when it comes to the bureaucracy of research.

Aside from attending MoS talks on the second day of SXSW, I also attended a talk by Ryan Swanson, the founder of The Urban Conga. Swanson and his team build interactive installations for open-ended play to break down barriers in cities. Their motto is to activate the inactive; reinvigorating dead spaces in cities.

The Hangout, an installation by The Urban Conga. Image courtesy of The Urban Conga.

They started off guerilla style, installing swings in underpasses, driving across cities with their station wagon covered in graffiti, and rolling around 12ft beach balls in dangerous neighborhoods. Now they install Xbox Kinect murals, ping pong tables, and Marimba benches into cities (with their permission). They’ve also explored using conductive paint and theremin-like structures for sound installations. All of this with the goal of getting people to play together.

In this talk, I loved the central idea of play as a way to break down barriers. Play is something that we forget about as we grow up. As children, we’re told to play nicely with others and encouraged to play. But somewhere along the line, we stop playing. Or at least I stopped playing. This talk made me really think about how I can introduce play back into my life.

In the process of focusing on my career, working hard at my first job, applying to grad school, and being in grad school, I’ve forgotten to leave room for play. But play is so central to the work that I do. How can I hope to build experiences that transform, awe, and inspire, if I don’t personally ground my being into play? I hope that returning from this conference, I’ll think about creating more opportunities and space in my life to play.