Breaching #3
description
Transcript of Breaching #3
Breaching
stud
ent ma
gazin
e >>
unive
rsity
of so
uthern
>> # 3
>>
Wint
er 2014
/15
Denm
ark,
Kolding
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im·mer·sion noun \i-ˈmər-zhən, -shən\
: the act of putting someone or something completely in a liquid or the state of being completely in a liquid
: complete involvement in some activity or interest
: a method of learning a foreign language by being taught entirely in that language
: state of being deeply engaged or involved; absorption
word of the issue
3focus
editor’s corner Flow - Nudging - Fakebook - Mr and Mrs A-hole - Brainy wawes - Nebendinge!
Aren’t these just beautiful words? I find myself almost in love with those
words. Maybe it is because of the holiday season… ! No, I am more inclined to
attribute it to the open-minded and creative people, who have contributed to
bring to life yet another Breaching magazine.
Again this marvelous blend of students and researchers, contributing with their wise and beautifully woven words. No authors willing to write, no magazine! And what glues the above words together into a neatly wrapped Christmas present for you - dear readers – is that they are all key words stemming from the different articles you can immerse yourselves in in this third edition of Breaching.
And if you have not guessed it on your own yet, I am willing to unwrap the curling ribbon of this Christmas present for you and reveal that our theme this time is Immersion. Should you ponder a bit about what the exact meaning of Immersion is, you can find the answer on page 2, or read the wonderful articles, each with their individual and unique perspective on
the notion of immersion☺ If you are impatient (just
like children tiptoeing to unwrap their Christmas presents), I can give you my own preferred definition of the word Immersion right here and now:
“Complete involvement in some activity or interest”
Reading through the magazine (a prerequisite to write ‘an editor’s corner’, which makes just a little bit sense), I personally lost track of time and (almost!) forgot about the most wonderful time of the year – Christmas! And that is quite an accomplishment, as I am probably one of the most christmassy- crazy people in the world, I simply love this time of the year! In other words, I involve myself completely in this season.
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Artist: Agnese Caglio | Title ‘Imm
ersed’
! will refrain from dwelling too much (= immerse myself too much
☺) on the holiday season, and instead tell you a bit about the
actual content of the Breaching magazine. So dear reader, I invite you to go with the flow; learn how to avoid the wrong
type of nudging; or decide if you want to be a horse whisperer because nobody wants to refer to him or herself as Mr. or Mrs. A-hole! And maybe you could consider if beta or gamma-waves are your preferred types of energy flow or whether you want to spam Fakebook with your new favorite word of the month: Nebendinge! If your Christmas spirit (or absence of it) could benefit from more stimulation after this, I seriously advice you to consult the hilarious horrorscope on page 20. And if you are too immersed in fear and stress of facing the dreadful coming exam period, please re-read the horrorscope
page once more! Either it will help you get rid of exam stress for good, or it will cause you to take the
Breaching team to court for trying to “nudge” you into a certain emotional state of mind for all the wrong
reasons.
I wish you all a wonderful December, plenty of room for immersion, best wishes for the coming exams, and not least a
very happy read indeed☺
Merry Christmas
Jeanette Landgrebe
5
World War II. In an Italian prison camp a Hungarian teenager is bored shitless.
Partially in order to escape from the daily hardship and partially to get away from everyday life’s trivialities, he takes up playing chess. In chess he finds
himself “being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The
ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought
follows inevitably from the previous one. Your whole being
is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost”.
(Csikszentmihalyi: 1996)
Rainar Rye Larsen 5th semester
Information and Communication Studies
His name is Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and the state of being he discovered
while playing chess is called flow. The concept of flow was further developed
through many years of subsequent studies and psychological experiments.
Flow is now an important part of theories of learning, in game design, in
spatial design und so weiter! Oh by the way: Pronouncing his last
name might not evoke an immediate state of flow but rather
cause damage to your tongue so here’s a hint to aid you:
Chick-sent-me-high-ee.
If you find this article too abstract you might find
assistance in referring its abstractions to the already
mentioned chess game. Well, there’s actually no need
to go all abstract, as the concept of flow is something
you already know - though you might have forgotten
the sensation of being in flow. Kids’ play is the most
commonly used example of being in flow: For a
second (after reading this of course) close your eyes
and try to remember how playing in the sandbox;
with your lego; playing cowboys and indians;
pretending to be a princess or even playing your
favorite computer game, dissolved time and
the very game at hand; playing in itself
became all that existed.
Flow is thus a mental state, where you’re
fully immersed. Where your attention is
focused. Where time and space imposes no
significance. Where the ‘here and now’ of it is all
that exists. This complete immersion makes you
aroused, and in fact this very arousal seems to
constitute maximal learning. (If being aroused turns
you on - you should definitely give the old Dane
Christen Kold and his ‘Først-oplive-så-oplyse-
pædagogik’ (gloss: first-enliven-then-inform-
pedagogy) a look! Although Hans Henrik Knoop (a not
so old Dane) would be a more updated and accessible
approach
The estimated maximum span of attention (= psychic energy) is 114 bits pr.
second, adding up to 500.000 bits a day and approx. 168 billion bits in a
lifetime. Focusing fully on one specific element X equals 60 bits of psychic
energy/sec. Now focusing on more than one element e.g. persons or artifacts
such as a tablet, computer, a tv turned on in the background etc. reduces the
amount of available energy per task:
X1 = 114bit/sec per X
X1 & X2 = 57bit/sec per X
X1 & X2 & X3 = 38 bit/sec per X
X1 & X2 & X3 & X4 = 28,5 bit/sec per X
flow
6
even without success, creative persons find joy in a job well done. Learning for its own sake is rewarding“
Csikszentmihalyi
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996).Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and InventionHarperCollinsPublishers.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1997). Finding Flow. The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life. New York: Basic Books.
https://www.ted.com/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_on_flow?language=da
Knoop, H. H. (2002). Leg, læring og kreativitet – hvorfor glade børn lærer mere. København: Aschehoug.
Knoop, H.H. (2005). Om kunsten at finde flow i en verden, der ofte forhindrer det. In: Knoop, H.H. & Lyhne, J. (red.). Et nyt læringslandskab – Flow, Intelligens og det gode læringsmiljø. København: Dansk psykologisk Forlag.
Kold, C. (1877). Om Børneskolen.
Mead, G.H. (1934). Mind, Self, and Society. Chicago: Chicago University Press (Danish translation 2005)
Instead of allowing simple math or people like the psychologist G.H. Mead to
corrupt this article with the concepts of ‘play’ and ‘game’ and, very rightly,
associating it with the development of the self (learning rules by roles) and
socialization (assuming the generalized other through roles), let us for now,
in the very context of this article, direct all our 114 bits of psychic
energy per second and concentrate on the practical aspects of
getting into flow. Or even better as grown ups, who seem to
have forgotten all about flow: let us work at getting back
into flow.
Being in a state of flow equals a state of fully
focused motivation, and Csikszentmihalyi lists a
number of internal (it’s all in your head) and
external (stuff that’s outside your body) conditions
that assist in creating the optimal setting for
getting in flow:
1.Well defined goals 2. Immediate feedback
3. No interruptions 4. Balance between challenge and current skill
5. Action and conscience are merged 6. Self-awareness disappears
7. The concept of time is distorted 8. The activity at hand becomes a goal in itself
Flow is thus not a mental state reserved
exclusively for children in game and play.
Children might have easier or more intuitive
access to flow through play, but including, and
planning for the first 4 conditions when studying
or working should increase your chance of getting
in flow. However, as other articles in this issue
points out, the force of distraction is a force to be
reckoned with. Perhaps adaptabi l ity is a
characteristic trait of post- traditionel human
beings - perhaps the accompanying negative effect
is a pervading lack of concentration? Whatever the
case might be, multitasking, distraction and lack of concentration
will never bring you into flow!
Let’s get all archeological in the end: Archeologists don’t discover artefacts
or traces - they re-discover. Maybe concentration and flow are there to be re-
discovered?
7
suggested reading and
vieewing
maybe concentration and flow are there to be re-discovered“
You see them everywhere. They look perfect, they are
always smiling and act like they have all the energy in
the world. But deep down they are frustrated, stressed
out and on the edge of a deep depression. This is a (maybe
exaggerated) description of the "A+ students" who only accept
A+ grades in every course they attend. They fight with every
cell in their body to achieve this and if they fail by getting only
an A, or worse an A-, they feel as the greatest failure in history!
They pace themselves into a marathon of performance, where
nothing is ever good enough. This sad trend is spreading its
dark wings over 21 century students, and is turning them
into little grey mice (male and female) running faster
and faster in the running wheel.
They run faster to achieve unrealistic goals and
some day they trip and hurt themselves so
bad that they need help from experts to get
back up on their feet. Do not get me wrong
on this point. Ambitions and goals in life
are very important and it is good to strive
to do your best. But when you end up
defining yourself completely through your
grades and perfect performances, it can
turn into a very unhealthy stressed
lifestyle, which may burn you out.
Thomas Pape, a professional stress adviser,
psychosomatic physiotherapist and owner of the
one and only "student" stress clinic in Denmark, has
an explanation to why students often end up being
stressed out.
Pape explains that stress is not only caused by one factor but
the sum of many factors. The pressure on students has grown
and the demands to personal branding has increased. Good
grades alone are not enough because students should also
travel the world, blog, find the right student job, spend time
with friends and post the right things on Facebook in order to
give an absolutely perfect image of themselves as individuals.
8
demands and expectationsA+Say hello to Mr. and Mrs. A+
aka Mr. and Mrs. A-hole
christina priisholm Freelance
beware! the running wheel will catch you
read more at: http://spine.dk/
A quick calculation on this will easily show that all these demands
actually do not give the student much time to focus on their studies,
and this can be quite problematic. In addition to this you can add many
other demands and expectations from our modern day competitive society.
The competitive demand carries great weight on the shoulders of the
students from the very first day in primary school and onwards. Competing
with others - and ourselves - is part of our daily schedule. "Be the best in your
class and receive a golden star". Not only are we taught from day one that it
is all about achieving golden stars and good grades for our performances, we
are also taught to be "on-line" all the time. The mobile phone is always
switched on and we strive to be visible on as many social media platforms as
possible. There is no backstage where we can pull the plug and just "be"
instead of "do". Everything in our society is based on performances and how
we act instead of who we are as individuals. This trend is creating "A+
students" who are stuck in the aforementioned famous running
wheel trying to be accepted and awarded in the society of
competition.
The fitness guru and motivation coach Chris
MacDonald also gives a good angle to why students,
and people in general, tend to be stressed out and
lacking motivation. It is actually quite simple - it is
all in your head! To be more accurate it is in your
Frontal Lobe everything is being messed up.
According to Chris MacDonald we have these 3
different voices in our head (creepy right? ):
1. Mr. A-hole
2. Mr "Worry"
3. The horse whisperer
The first one is quite an A-hole and always tells you how awful
you are, and that you cannot do anything right and that you never
ever will be good enough at anything. Sadly this is the strongest of them
all and the one that controls the minds of the "A+ students". Mr. "Worry" will
stress you all the time saying things like "you have to read your syllabus at
least twice ( and backwards too) or else you will experience the 7 plagues and
not even get close to passing your exams" or " if you do not run this
afternoon you will probably die of a heart attack before you turn 30" . Mr.
"Worry" is always there to keep you alert and he can also stress you so much
that you will have a hard time finding motivation. This function and voice in
the brain was the main function to keep us alive in earlier times, where
people lived in the woods and were devoured by bears if they did not listen
to this voice. This voice is the second strongest, and that leaves us with the
horse whisperer as the weakest of them all.
The horse whisperer tells you how well you perform and
motivates you to keep up the good things in your life.
You will therefore benefit a lot by listening more to
the horse whisperer than Mr. A-hole and
Mr. "Worry". In other words it is all about
turning the automatic negative thoughts
into more positive thoughts on how
well you are doing.
That is why you must choose your relations wisely and
spend time with people who motivate and encourage you.
According to Chris MacDonald, good relations are very important
to feel motivated and to avoid stress. If you spend time with negative
people who spread negative vibrations, you will most likely be dragged down
to the same level of negativity. But if you spend time with positive and
encouraging people, they will help you to stay motivated and focused. You
therefore have to think about your relations and who you need the most in
times of exam pressure and tough study periods. It is also important that you
focus your energy on what is important to you. It is a question of priorities if
you want to succeed with your studies and exams. Maybe you have to focus
less on your student job and activities with your friends and focus more
on your studies in order to avoid being stressed out. To stay focused
on one thing at the time will create an in-depth concentration,
which will motivate you and keep you in balance. And
please do me a BIG favour and IGNORE Mr. A-hole
in whatever context he will show you his ugly
face; - that stubborn negative ass is not worth
listening to!
9
in your frontal lobe everything is being messed up
choose your relations wisly
To set this into perspective, let's look at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam,
Holland. The airport had a big problem with men’s peeing behavior, because
men often peed wide off the mark, which caused a lot of cleaning expenses.
To take care of this problem, they called in a Dutch architect, who simply
placed a drawing of a little fly in the urinals. The effect of the fly was that the
fly created unconscious attention, which caused men to aim. This little fly
reduced the amount of cleaning expenses with 80%.
Nudging, however, is not only used to change your behavior, but also to
change your decisions when buying a product. For instance, the company
Williams-Sonoma, which sells kitchenware, launched a new, bigger but
poorer breadmaker, than the one they already had on the
market. Why? The price of their most popular breadmaker
was 275 USD (1,643.3 DKK), and the new was almost
identical to the other, except that it was bigger, and the
price was 429 USD (2,563.6 DKK). The new model was
doomed from the beginning (and they knew that),
but what happened was that the sale of the most
popular one increased by 80 %, after the new one
came on the market. This shows very well why the
context is so important, when we need to make a
decision.
An ethical concern
There is a big ethical question with nudging,
because even though it is intended for changing
people’s behavior for the better, it could - in
theory- be used the opposite way. For EVIL!
Muahhahaha. No really, it could be used to change
people’s behavior for the worse. That is why you must
be really careful that the world of nudging doesn’t land in
the arms of the wrong people. What if the fly in the toilet
was placed near the edge of the urinals, and not in the center?
Then men would most likely pee much more on the floor, compared
to the times without the fly, and therefore cost Schiphol Airport even
more cleaning expenses.
And now to an example of evil nudging from the University of Southern
Denmark in Kolding. Have you ever wondered why there are no doors to the
classrooms (sorry….lecture rooms)?
What is nudging?
‘To nudge’ is a way to influence people's behavior in a wanted direction. This
is done by designing an environment, where you can control the context for a
decision. Because, if you can control the context for the decision, you can
control the decision. Nudging is not intended for being noticed, which is why
it works so well, because it doesn’t take away your options, but it encourages
you to take another (and better) choice.
10
men need to aim
Sanne P. Rasmussen 1th semester Design Culture and Economics
evil nudging on campus
nudge, nudge,
wink, wink,
The word ‘nudge’ originate from the book ‘Nudge: Improving decisions about health, wealth and happiness’
from 2008 by behavioral economist Richard Thaler and law professor Cass Sunstein.“
You can use it to get phone numbers. You read right. Interested? I thought so.
Earlier I wrote that if you can control the context for the decision, you can
control the decision. And this is exactly what you are going to do. There are
endless examples of this, so I’m just going to give you one of them. Lets say
you are a boy (no...of course...a young man), who would like to get a special
girl’s phone number. First you’ll gather a couple of friends, who are good
at behaving badly, then you get your friends to make a pass at the
girl, which they do really badly. When your girl turns down all
of your friends, you make a pass at her, the best you can.
What happens in this situation is that the girl sees a
context of 4 boys, where 3 were behaving badly and
1 nicely. So who do you think she will choose?
When controlling the situation for a
decision, you control the decision,
my dear:-0
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wipe-your-ass-nudging
nudging with benefits
Well there are, but they are made of glass. This makes them invisible, because
it’s glass, and that’s exactly the problem. Glass doors distract the students in
the classroom, and makes professors walk into the (invisible) doors. Nudging
is intended for making it easier for you to take the right decisions, and I think
we can all agree that walking into a door after which you have to go to the
hospital to get stitched up, is a very very very bad decision. And even though
the glass doors weren’t intended for nudging, all design effect our everyday
life in a positive or negative sense, and therefore all design has a bit of
inherent nudging. The conclusion is that glass doors to classroom (oh...sorry
again...lecture rooms) is an example of very bad and evil nudging.
Not all design on Campus Kolding is evil nudging, quite the
reverse actually. The elevators on Campus Kolding are slower
and smaller than most elevators, which makes it quicker to
take the stairs, and you are therefore nudged to take the
healthier choice. It’s the same healthier choice you’re
nudged to take, when you see the “big” staircase
from the ground floor to the third floor.
The staircase seems smaller because it doesn’t stop at the first
floor, and that makes it manageable to take the staircase instead of
the slow elevators. If you walk up the staircase, but you really want to
get to the next floor, you can either choose to take the elevator or another
smaller staircase. But the smaller staircase is closer to the big staircase than
the elevator, so I wonder which choice you’re going to take? Nudged again,
my friend!
Another neat example of nudging from our very own university is the toilet
paper. The toilet paper on campus is not like normal rolls, instead you get
small and thin pieces of toilet paper. When normally using rolls you justkeep rolling off the toilet paper, and often end up using way too
much compared to how much you actually need. But with the small pieces, you only take 3-4 pieces of toilet paper each time, because it seems profuse to use 6 pieces of toilet paper to wipe your ass.
12
Fakebook
or How I Learned to Stop Posting and Love the Talk
Let's guess. On a given day, how many times does an average user check her
mobile phone? Sadly, I can't hear your thoughts, so I will do some freestyle
statistics and then compare my numbers with those published by
researchers. Let's see. An average user sleeps 8 hours a day, and we take the
freedom of choosing someone that never sleep-checks her device. Let's call
her Macarena. Macarena is awake for 16 hours and for your sake, the reader,
she is a student. And a committed one. Her phone goes off when she joyfully
steps in class every morning, from nine to twelve. And she is polite too, so
when she lunches with her friends or studies in the library there is neither
vibration nor tone or dial. After uni there is handball, because she lives
in Kolding. Another phone-less hour or two. That leaves our
committed, polite, sporty Macarena with six hours of mobile
interconnectedness. I don't want to be surprised by
scientists so I will aim high and guess that she checks her
smartphone ten times every hour and I will add ten
more checks to account for loving messages from her
boyfriend and a call or two from her mum. Surely,
Macarena checks her phone around 80 times a day.
Or just keep on reading. According to a recent
study by Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers,
Macarena reaches out for her phone 150 times a
day. How naive my evaluation of the interactive
powers of this device! Definitely, Macarena views the
time on her phone. And her messages, her calls, her
emails, Whatsapp, Twitter, Instagram, Skype, Facebook
and an almost endless etc.
Having accepted my failure as a freestyle statistician I will turn to
11-year-old math. 150 times checks a day is almost a check every 4
minutes. Macarena, if you were alive, I would grab my phone and ask you, can
you concentrate and immerse yourself in any demanding task? Of course, I
would try to be considerate and indicate beforehand that by "demanding" I
just mean "anything that takes more than 15 minutes to complete.
Weapons of Mass Distraction
Fortunately, Macarena is just an imaginary representation and hence, there is no need to interrupt this immersive act of writing with a phone call. I can just refer to her as the subject of other studies or even speculate with a certain degree of accuracy with respect to her abilities to immerse in an activity. Macarena is a university student. She
has succeeded previously when exams where the norm so there is no doubt
she can concentrate to, for example, read and write properly. Her focused
attention, that which requires effort in order to perform a task successfully,
works. However, Macarena is human, and as such, exercises a second type of
attention: transient attention. This is an automatic response triggered by
sudden changes in a persons immediate environment (such a phone alert)
which draws away attention from whatever activity is being performed onto the source of the change, for this to be evaluated and acted upon (if it is a threat) or safely ignored. Macarena may not be aware, but her phone is, aside from a very efficient communication device, a weapon of mass distraction targeting the core of her sensory system.
13Enrique Encinas
3rd semester it product design
educating
Marcarena
guess
Paolo Parigi, a scientist from Standford University, decided to investigate this
issue in depth to, among many other things, provide an knowledgeable
alternative for freestyle anthropologists. Lucky me! In his paper "Social
Isolation in America" he exhaustively describes how and why "greater
Internet use was associated with decreased communication among family
members in the household, declines in the size of the respondent's social
circle, and increased feelings of loneliness and depression." which basically
turn all my common-sensical assumptions into nonsense. Among the lines of
this paper we find Sherry Turkle, who coined the term "alone together" to
argue how depth is traded with connectivity. In her own words: “Online, we
easily find company but are exhausted by the pressures of
performance. We enjoy continual connection but rarely have
each other’s full attention. We can have instant audiences
but flatten out what we say to each other...The ties we
form through the Internet are not, in the end, the ties
that bind”
Macarena is a digital native. She belongs to a generation where digital
technologies permeate every aspect of life so turning her back on them
seems, at least, inappropriate. Especially when a number of those
technologies allow her to fulfill yet another human need: to gossip. Gossip is
in her genes, because it is the human equivalent to grooming. When primates
are engaged in grooming, a strong social bond arises. The same goes for
humans when confidential information about others is shared. But is this the
case when gossip occurs online? Danah Boyd would join me in asserting that
this is not the case she plainly explains: "You don't even know that I’m
watching your life. Are you really going to be there when i need you?"
Macarena, do something!
14
Common Sense fails
Communication versus distraction. Interconnectedness versus immersion.
This conundrum encourages me to deepen into Macarena's life and know
more about the reasons behind her use of technology. Again ethnography is
not a possibility (I will leave virtual ethnographic studies for adventurous
sociologists) so why not employ some freestyle anthropology by means of
common sense? After all, there surely are studies that confirm (or rebuke) my
conclusions.
Social Immersion
search
for
reality
15The list of authors criticizing the prevalent attitude towards virtual social
interactions could fill many magazines. Nevertheless, if she was interested, I
am sure Macarena would enjoy watching Catfish or InRealLife or reading "On
Internet" from the phenomenologist Hubert L. Dreyfus. I bet she would rather
hit play than hold a book, but I won't go into freestyle guessing. Freestyling is
risky, and Macarena is just a quirk.
And then there is Cory Doctorow, the famous blogger. He criticizes Facebook (and online social bonding platforms
in general) on psychological grounds: "Facebook is a huge behaviorist casino
designed to teach you to undervalue your privacy. They can control how far
your disclosure spreads and they can predict it's responsive outcome.
Facebook gets you a lukewarm response to most of your disclosures and then
randomly hands you a jackpot of a massive response to some of your
disclosures. And that intermediate reward is the most powerful conditioning
force in the world." Aside from occasionally granting the candy of social
affection to his inhabitants, Facebook forces them to adhere to what Cory
calls the "Zuckerberg doctrine”: "every person should have exactly
one name and that name should be identical in every context". I
doubt Macarena chooses the same words to answer the
simple question "how are you?" when inquired by her
doctor, her mother or her lover, yet in Facebook, she
must do so.
To be honest, I am concerned about Macarena. If she had
an ear I could speak to, I would invite her to try a little
experiment: delete your Facebook profile. Calling is talking,
texting and emailing is reading. Yes, I know, some of your friends
are far away and that's why in this experiment, Skype is there for you
to help. Why not grooming your friends for real, interacting with your whole
body, Macarena? After all, isn't that what your song is all about?
Note - The ultra-famous 1996 song "Macarena" sings "Dale alegría a tu cuerpo
Macarena" which translated into English would be "Give happiness to your
body Macarena".
zuckerberg
doctrine
Have you ever wished to have super powers? Like to be able to
move things with your brain power? Or do you think this can only happen
in science fiction? Think twice as it is actually possible, you might even have
seen it happening, just at our very own SDU campus Kolding. No? Well, just by
the Library’s entrance you might have noticed a big white box with a
transparent tube on top that holds an earth globe? If you have seen that
earth globe floating up the tube and some people standing around, then what
you have witnessed is someone using his or her brain waves to activate the
fan sitting at the base of the box that in turn will lift the earth globe.
Magic? What are these brain waves? No one was visibly
connected to the tower, there were no buttons pressed,
were these then super powers? One could say that
in a way they could be considered so… I can
almost imagine your eye brows lifting by
skepticism now… but if you think about
it, many of the heroes’ super powers
described in science fiction books
a n d m o v i e s a r e e n h a n c e d
existing senses or physical
abilities, super vision, x-ray
vision, super hearing, super
strength, etc., One can also say
that part of human history can
be told by the creation and
advances of technology that
enhance our senses and
abilities.
Brain waves were first recorded
almost a century ago, when Hans
Berger, in 1929, discovered that brain
activity is characterized by electrical impulses
at different frequencies and those can be
recorded with the use of a conductor or electrode.
These recordings were named electro-encephalographs
(EEG) and are measured in hertz (Hz). The different ranges
of electrical frequencies have been named after Greek letters
and have been linked to actions and different stages of consciousness
(Curran, 2003), see table below:
16
moving the world with your brain power
Associate Prof. Rocio Chongtay
tune in on a frequency which fits the purpose
You might be wondering by now “what all this has to do with
super powers, or at least with brain power? ” Well, if you think
about it, depending of our state of consciousness we produce
electrical impulses at different frequencies that, as any
electrical impulses, combined with some technology can be
converted into physical action, like activating a fan at different
speeds, as the fan at the base of the tower with the earth
globe.
The particular brain power that lifts
the earth globe at SDU works as
follows: a person wearing a Brain
Computer Interface (BCI),
which is simply a headset
that has a dry forehead
sensor that can register
s o m e b r a i n w a v e s ,
i n c l u d i n g B e t a a n d
Gamma waves that give
an indication of your level
of focused concentration
a n d a t t e n t i o n . T h e
headset sends the brain
waves data wirelessly (via
B l u e t o o t h ) t o a s m a l l
computer at the base of the
tower that in turn is connected to the
fan. The software that reads the data is
configured in such a way that the more the
person concentrates (higher frequency brain
waves), the faster the fan rotates and the
higher the earth globe is lifted, see figure to the right:
17
Our very own BRAIN POWER machine at SDU, Kolding
As this issue of the Breaching magazine is about immersion,
let’s put this into this context the Brain Controlled Tower. The
people that tried the headset to lift the earth globe can tell you that
to reach a state of concentration that activated the fan was not as straight
forward as it seemed; many people tried both during the official opening of
the new SDU campus Kolding and on the Open House day. For some people it
was easier than for others, and there were also some instances where the
necessary level of concentration was simply not achievable. In the current
world of information overflow, reaching a state of focused concentration is
becoming more of a challenge! Just think about it, when was the last time you
remember feeling mentally involved in something so deeply that you
lost track of time? A time where you didn’t think of checking your
email, or text messages or fiddle with any of the many apps
on your phone?
Can you concentrate on demand? I believe that most people think they can, if
they want to, but that they choose not to, like in the classrooms at the
university, you can see many of your classmates (or yourself) attending a
lecture, the teacher is talking, showing some power point presentation, so it
feels easy and “natural” to be checking Facebook, watching the latest funny
video on Youtube or browsing for new shoes at the same time. I wonder if we
are witnessing a self-produced attention deficit disorder generation.
You might want to ask yourself is it really by choice? Can I
really concentrate on command at any time I want?
As I have mentioned before, from the people
that tried the brain computer interface
(BCI) to lift the earth globe, some could
reach a focused concentration faster
than other, but in most cases it
took more than instant command.
The good news is that it is
possible to train your brain to
reach a state of focused
concentration, for some people
p r a c t i c i n g s p e c i fi c t a s k s
facilitate this state, for example
while doing sports, or reading
something of high interest to the
person. BCI’s have also been used
as an aid to ease the reach of
focused concentration, for example
the American Olympic Team for Archery
uses BCI as part of their training. BCI’s have also
been used to help people with Attention Deficit
Hyperactivity Disorder, normally using BCI controlled
games where the success in the game depends on the
level of concentration, this technique is known as
neurofeedback which is a computer-aided training method in which
selected parameters of the person´s own brain activity, which can normally
not be perceived, are made visible. (see Duric et al 2012).
I hope by now that you find Brain Computer Interfaces interesting, imagine all
the possible applications where of transforming brain waves can be
transformed into actions., - there already exist many applications from
health care, enabling disabled people to become mobile, to recreational like
art installations or brain controlled games, (which as mentioned it can also be
useful for health applications).
18
do students suffer from a self-produced attention deficit disorder? [SPADD]“
The brain controlled tower with the earth globe at SDU
campus Kolding is part of a project called Agora
Labs [Learning Open Spaces], funded by the
SDU programme Students in Focus, these labs
are open spaces at different places in our
new building, you can recognize them by
the big Flat screens, these spaces are
meant for students to unleash their
creativity and work on projects by
using the latest technology in
what is known as multimodal
interfaces (more than one mode
to interact with systems), such
as the brain computer
interface , hand gesture
devices, full body tracking
( K i n e c t ) , e y e t r a c k i n g ,
immersive virtual reality
headset, etc.. If you are
interested in trying these
technologies send your project
d e s c r i p t i o n b y e m a i l t o
[email protected]. Maybe you create a
project that will look so good on your CV
that will help you to get a job once you get your
degree, or a project that can be the next crowd
funded success on the news.
19
References Curran, E. (2003, April). Learning to control brain activity: A review of
the production and control of EEG components for driving brain–
computer interface (BCI) systems. Brain and Cognition, 51(3), 326–336.
Duric NS, Assmus J., Gundersen D., Elgen I. Neurofeedback for the
treatment of children andadolescents with ADHD: a randomized and
controlled clinical trial using parental reports BioMed Central
Psychiatry 2012, 12:107
20 ♓
♑♐
♏♈
21F.ortune T.eller
Professor in absentia
SDU Kolding
22
from the depths, I have cried to you
Asides on and Height When as a schoolboy at the gymnasium I had to learn Latin, one of the
things which appeared most peculiar to me was that this language only had
one single word altus where my mother tongue German had two:
“hoch“ (‘high’) and “tief“ (‘deep’). Didn‘t the Romans distinguish between
depth and height? Studying linguistics, I later learned that altus just refers
to the “vertical dimension“ without distinguishing the two directions
(polarities) in it. Besides thus being occupied with the “vertical dimension”, I,
as a student, have also been concerned with Nebendinge” (i.e., ‘things beside’), i.e., with things lying on the “horizontal dimension”.
Nebendinge” is the term used by the protagonist Professor Raat
(nicknamed “Unrat”, thus ‘garbage’, by his pupils) in Heinrich Mann‘s novel
Professor Unrat for dubious activities of his pupils keeping them away from
learning. One of my „Nebendinge“ was reading Freud’s The Interpretation of
Dreams and related material such as his little note The Antithetical Meaning
of Primal Words (Vom Gegensinn der Urworte) published in 1910, ten years
after his book on dreams. In this note, Freud deals with further
examples of the same kind as the Latin altus and puts forward the
hypothesis that languages in the very early stages of their
development tend to pack contradictory meanings into the
same word. Furthermore, he relates this to his theory
about the Traumarbeit (the labor of the dream). We may
leave it undecided here whether this really is a
“deeper” explanation of the semantics of the Latin
altus than that given by modern linguistics, which
then would remain “at the surface” of the
phenomenon.
Linguistic descriptions of intellectual endeavors
abound with spatial metaphors. References to
“depth” seem to point toward the positive part of
the underlying scale of values. A good explanation,
e.g., goes “in depth”; insufficient ones, however, are
“superficial”. “Deep thoughts” are “thoroughgoing”
and are thus distinguished from “shallow” ones.
Serious students and researchers “go in depth” with
their topic. For their endeavors Danish and German even
have single verbs (at fordybe sig, sich vertiefen). But things
are not so clear as they appear to be at a first glance. As is
testified by the famous first verse of Psalm 130, depth is not always
desirable: “From the depths, I have cried out to you, O Lord”. The two
first words of the Latin version of the verse has become its standard name:
De profundis; and the psalm itself is used in the Catholic Church as the
traditional prayer for the dead. It may strike one as a shock that a profound
(< Latin profundus, both ‘deep’ and ‘high’, once again) thought may be as
deep as a tomb. It seems that there often are ambiguities - instances of a
Freudian “Gegensinn” (‘antithetical meaning’) - not only in the factual
meaning of words but also in their evaluative meaning components.
Klaus Robering Professor SDU Kolding
depth
In Danish and German, one says of a person thinking “deeply” about some
topic that s/he grubler (Danish) or grübelt (German), both verbs deriving
from the German word Grube (meaning ‘hole’). - As a “Nebending” let me
note here that, in his famous study on Leonardo da Vinci, Freud analyzes the
researcher’s “Grübelzwang” (obsession for ruminations) as something
derived from the young child’s “research interest” in sexual matters. -
Returning now to holes, remember that a hole may very well be a pitfall.
This is nicely illustrated by the famous story about the Greek
philosopher and astronomer Thales of Miletus reported by Plato.
Once Thales, deeply involved in astronomic observations and
looking up to the stars, stumbled and made a deep fall
into a water well. Observing this, a Thracian maid, both
pretty and witty, made fun of him: He is striving for
recognizing the things high up in the sky but has no
idea of the things close to his eyes and
immediately before his feet. - Height, on the other
hand, is not without problems either. As well as
ending at the bottom of a hole, the keen flight of
thoughts may very well stop on the top of the
ivory tower.
Let me finish by a more positive story about Thales - this
one reported by Aristotle. Provoked by the reproach that
philosophy is of no real use, Thales once used his knowledge of
astronomy to find out that the harvest of olives would be very rich in
the next year. Therefore he invested his small savings for renting already
the winter before all oil presses available. During the harvest then, he lend
out the presses to a high price thus demonstrating how easy it would be for
a philosopher to become rich if he only wanted, but that this in fact isn’t
something philosophers strive for.
philosophy and olives
Is there any “moral” to be drawn for students from all this? Perhaps: Go in
depth with all the issues you are concerned with and let your thoughts fly
up into the sky. But don’t forget about pitfalls and ivory towers - and go on
with your “Nebendinge”.23
editorial staff
Rainar Rye Larsen5th semester
Information and
Communication Studies
Christina Lysen Priisholm Freelance
Klaus RoberingProfessor
SDU
Sanne P. Rasmussen1th semester
Design Culture and
Economics
Jeanette LandgrebeEditor
SDU
Questions? Want to be a part of us: facebook.com/Breaching.SDU.Kolding
24Enrique Encinas
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it product design
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