WHAT IS The Future in PLAYGROUND OF EMPATHY?

In other words, how can emotionally introspective spaces create an evolution of empathic choice making within communities around the globe? This question is, in essence, Playground of Empathy.

Playground of Empathy is a living vision of the ideological question,

1.) How can the design of aesthetic, technology, and narrative experience, founded on the research of emotions, advance the research and communication of findings in psychology, neuroscience, and the humanities?

2.) How can we create the most introspective, and detailed personal, immersive experience for the individual on a particular emotion concept, or social emotional topic?

3.) Thereby, how can we allow that individual to have granular de- and re-constructed conversations with themselves on that topic - and thus, create within themselves, the greatest emotional space for other’s expressions and perspectives of that emotion concept?

Think emotional hubs in cities all over the world.

A live location city harbor for emotional conversations.

Imagine that we -

learn about you in as much detail as you enjoy to talk about yourself. Imagine we give you the opportunity to see your own physiological data before, during and after the experience.

Imagine that you -

get to choose an inner adventure, with whatever emotional spaces you want to embark upon. A room for the emotion of sadness, a room for laughter, a room for the concept of economics, a room for gender identity, expression, and awareness.

Imagine also -

a Harry Potter style portrait gallery, where the portraits of different cultural backgrounds interact with you to create deeper insight on racial bias and equity, (which we're currently prototyping at the Interdisciplinary Affective Science Lab, at Northeastern.)

Imagine a space for -

the feeling of infancy, based on infant pattern recognition and movement research. A space for the feeling of death where you share what you deeply want to give to this world, based on the accounts of 1000's of final requests accounted by EMT drivers.

Once they leave the rooms,

we’ll invite them into a post discussion about their feelings, what they think about them, and what it would mean to live their most proud futures. We'll listen inquisitively and let them feel seen as they share their vision for a better community - the skill sets they have and those they wish to cultivate - the future they want to co-create. The paradigm shifting question that will underly these experiences, is who do you really want to be, and how can we support that happening as a community?

Then, they will be invited

Then, with great care and a highly researched selection process, certain members of this group, based on their responses, may be invited into a small team of three to six other individuals with similar visions, and complementary skill sets. We will provide these groups with infrastructures, and remove the typical barriers which slow down effective collaborations. They will receive access to spaces at centrally convenient locations where they can convene. They will provide ideal planning, and be matched based on their schedules. The development of their team will be supported, through cultivating an in-group team mentality and letting them know all the normally unseen ways they’re already succeeding. Through various historical, philosophical, and behavioral economic perspectives on self-determination theories, we will support their team creating their own goals and balancing their competencies.

We will check-in your progress as a team over time.

We will check-in on their progress as a team, from meeting to meeting. Not transactionally, but as one does when making caring connections, in a marketplace which resembles the communal role the marketplace once had in many societies. We will check in often, and empathically measure the whole self, the results of the flock into their communities, and the growth of their inner selves. Measurements will be developed through an interdisciplinary team of researchers and scientists. We will use innovative assessments of data systems and design stacks that best assess a broad definition of emotional success and its effect on communities. We will create formulas which help us understand the makeup of powerful flocks (groups), and less effective flocks. This knowledge will become available to all, as a model for small group coordination: in short, we will find effective ways of sharing our innovation in designing effective teams capable of pro-social community building.

Playground of Empathy begins with a location, and never ends -

We will learn how to create a deeper global awareness around the globe, through this commitment collaborations, networks, and infrastructures. We may call the first location in a major city, *‘The Future’. This way, you can tell your friends or colleagues, "I'm going to the future this weekend". You can buy your partner a "ticket to the future". If you’re in an underprivileged community, you will be personally invited and receive a complimentary ticket to the Future. You can come home to find out that "the future called, and would like it if you could call back?". If you feel it’s your personal calling, you can work at the future.

How was this my path?

With all misadventures in mind, I am gratefully awestruck by what is already happening now. Additionally, I've learned how to successfully redesign that which could serve deeper. I sang classical song for 20 years, beginning at the Metropolitan opera when I was 10. Performing opera wasn't about performing for me, it was about the way sound could change the meaning of language, so I redesigned my life. I became an immersive artist that thought they could be most effective by making subversive artworks for businesses. 

I made strange interactive experiences for Microsoft, for giant supermarkets organizations like Albert Heijn, for governments and municipalities, while living in the Netherlands and Belgium for a decade. I did all that I knew how to do, to make change. I redesigned. After working on a masters Multimedial Design at the Royal Academy of Belgium, I started a mystery experience business meant to re-enchant society. We re-enchanted those who could afford it, with a sense of magic, 5 nights a week for 4 years. We mostly became the most five star rated escape room in the world, according to TripAdvisor. We turned more income over that nearly every other business of it's kind.

It wasn't deep or important enough, so I got listless and redesigned. I worked on projects, and concepts, with Google, Disney, and made a mobile experience that studied the metabolic responses of diabetic patients, and then recreated those responses through interaction design. I observed thousands of groups engaging in small group behavior. I sang internationally and worked on design, made art exhibitions with humans as artworks, while doing business in the culture and language of German, French, Italian, Dutch, and Flemish.

We can go deeper.

I saw where the United States was lacking. I redesigned to make what felt like the most accessible way to disseminate collaboration science, art, and an inclusive and global public. This is The Future, brought to you by Playground of Empathy.