Recalibrating our bodies and brains for the new Earth

Author: Alexis Madrigal
Posted: July 18th, 2008 @ 2:33pm
Info: bio / all posts
Tags: climate, games, wearable

Corset Earlier this year, James Hansen submitted a global warming call to arms to the journal Science which Bill McKibben popularized in an LA Times editorial. Hansen wrote that "if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, " the nations of the world would have to band together to make drastic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

Well, after another ineffectual G8 meeting and fresh stall-tactics from the current US administration, it’s clear that we better start teaching our bodies and minds about the new Earth, even as we fight to maintain the world’s climate and biodiversity.

That’s the idea behind Kristin O’Friel’s C02RSET. Designed in NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, the corset uses embedded carbon dioxide sensors and small motors to tighten as the molecule concentration in the air around the wearer rises. "I’m really interested in calibrating the body," O’Friel told me when I interviewed her. And what she’s calibrating the body to, with this initial prototype, is both a throwback atmosphere experienced on earth millions of years ago — as well as a futuristic air scenario we could encounter within decades.

Of course, environmental degradation isn’t solely linked to greenhouse gas concentrations. O’Friel envisions her corset being outfitted with other environmental sensors that would cause your lungs to compress in polluted settings. By reminding you to breathe less in bad air, it would, at least conceptually, train your body for a more polluted, Wall-Esque world. As she put it on her blog, "I am interested in making wearables that enable you to feel information your senses are not acutely aware of."

The New York Times‘ Andy Revkin has written that the challenge of fighting climate change goes as deep as our history as Homo sapiens. "Can a species that evolved as an opportunist (grab those berries, gorge on that fallen antelope) and responder (fight or flee) meaningfully integrate evidence of long-term risks provided by science (on climate) or economics (on Social Security) and act for the sake of the future?" he asked on his Dot Earth blog.

The brilliance of C02RSET is that it links the idea of climate change (as difficult a problem as people have faced, and one so abstract and diffuse that its relevant metric is the parts per million of a single molecule in the air accumulated over hundreds of years — including half a century into the future) with the body’s first condition for life: breathing. The old in-then-out.

Another calibrating project uses the pet-human emotional connection to game the brain into thinking about the environment. Sparky, the art-robot, is a "physical pet that reflects the quality of the lifestyle and environment that the ‘owner’ is living in." Pollution, booze, cigarette smoke, and yelling make Sparky collapse in simulated sadness. Walks, fresh air, and sweet-nothings make Sparky babble happiness. Like a mixed reality version of The Sims, it uses the tried-and-true nurturing game mechanic to generate environmental awareness.

"People we have tested on aim to have a ‘happy’ dog, and one that is collapsed and whining almost seems embarrassing," we read on the Sparky site .

In other words, the technology uses the neural feedback loops that presumably evolved to keep parents caring for their offspring, to change humans’ interactions with their environs. It’s an emotional sleight of hand, and a good one, that allows people to engage with their environment at a different level than the text of an IPCC report or An Inconvenient Truth, two sources that certainly changed minds, but perhaps not behaviors.

These two projects highlight how technology growing outside its traditional beige boxes could help humans retrain their bodies and minds for our collective future. They’re art at the bleeding edge of the drive to incarnate, understand, and respond to environmental change. Back at the practical end of the spectrum, you can find the Prius MPG visualization, or Tendril’s smart meters displaying the cost per hour of powering your home.

Perhaps it’s no accident these projects use the tropes and mechanisms of the gaming world. If the New Great Game is about the future of energy, these technologies are about giving everyone a chance to play.