The Science of Thrill

At the recent This Happened Conference, Brendan Walker presented an interesting application of scientific research into the field of emotion. Walker runs a design practice group called Aerial. According to their website they are “a design practice specialising in the creation of tailored emotional experience. Blending strategies from the arts, design, engineering and psychology, Aerial offers strategic consultancy; the design and production of intriguing interactive electromechanical installations, sculptures and rides; and the curating and staging of engaging events.”

We Make Money Not Art writes:

To get a grip on the world of thrills, Walker teamed up with a criminologist from UCLA in Los Angeles to create the Taxonomy of Thrill and Thrilling Designs, two publications which try to formalize the aspects of the experience of being thrilled. And because this is proper research, they even created thrill-equations which include variables like euphoric value, valence polarity or the strong emotion coefficient.

Having that somewhat formalized, Thrill Labs and a gentleman named James Conran teamed up and applied for one of the British Wellcome Trust’s grants to create a harness which can be stripped to people on rides and would capture their emotions. “The technology for recording extreme emotions is there, it’s just a question of bolting together the right parts”. So they did and successfully created a setup which allows to record audio, video and different vital signs like the heart rate of someone on a ride, as well as their current acceleration.

[Via We Make Money Not Art]